How to find HOA regulations?

[Jenny in Florida]

We are in the inspection period of purchasing a house, and I would love to get a look at the HOA rules and regulations. It's mostly out of curiosity, because I can't imagine there would be anything in them that would convince us not to buy the house. But as I fantasize about updating and painting and such, I would love to know what restrictions we'll have to work with.

I know the name of the HOA and the subdivision, which has sometimes been enough to help me find this kind of info for other houses we considered, but this time I'm drawing a blank. I found their resident portal, but I can't get in without being an official resident of the community.

I'm normally pretty good with my Googling fingers, but I'm not having any luck with this one.

Suggestions?

[Annie G]

When we bought 2 years ago our agent got them for us.

[teachermom2834]

We also asked our agent to get HOA regulations for us.

[Jann in TX]

Just went through this-- we asked agent to get them and had them the next day.

 

[Jenny in Florida]

46 minutes ago, Dreamergal said:

Your agent should get the HOA regulations.

The most generic ones are they are very strict about fencing and how it is maintained. You need to look at things like flag poles, decoration on side of house because that is what people run into most of the time. They are strict about trash bins on trash day (put away after a certain time and put out only at a certain time, not before). 

Basketball hoops attached to the building are something many people run into (personal experience).

You need to know what their definition of permanent and non-permanent structures are. If you want to put up a play structure, shed, gazebo they will have rules about that (height, how much of it is seen from the street). 

We got told off for running our sprinklers when there was a drought ban. We did not know that. 

Mostly we have a love/hate relationship. But ours comes down like thunder on Airbnbs (30 day minimum rental). After the horror stories of parties in residential neighborhoods with non-HOA, I am a tad more on the side of HOAs. 

The rental we live in now also has an HOA, so we're familiar with living under those kinds of rules. (And, fortunately or not, basketball hoops and play structures are in our past at this point.) 

As I said, I don't think anything in an HOA's rules would be a deal-breaker for us. I mostly just want to think about things like landscaping and potentially painting/replacing the front door and such. I don't want to get my heart set on something only to find out it's not allowed. So I just want to know the parameters before I start visualizing.

[Katy]

I would ask the realtor to get you the “most current” regulations and remember that may not be everything. I’ve read ours, DH is an officer, and we still get annoying reminders twice a year to clear off our patio for winter, which we ignore. It’s not in the regulations but one of our neighbors is very annoyed about it. Apparently anything they vote about at the meetings but don’t ever update the document still counts as policy. Luckily mine is way too cheap to update the document, let alone sue. 

[Annie G]

So happy to hear you’ve found a house!