During my Jan. 5, 2009 meeting with the Arizona Department of Fire, Building and Life Safety, the agency charged with processing HOA complaints for the Office of Administrative Hearings (OAH) adjudication, the Director indicated that HOAs provide a benefit to the community. I replied, “Yes, but these goals can be accomplished without private contractual agreements that function outside the Constitution and its protections of individual rights.” (See A proposal for the “Muni-zation” of HOAs; Stop developers from granting private government charters). Namely, special tax districts and home rule statutes.
HOAs allow such a contradiction to the Constitution, supposedly the supreme law of the land, with respect to ex post facto CC&R amendments (that sacrosanct “contract” is meaningless when it can be changed without owner consent), the absence of due process protections by a just and independent tribunal (such as OAH), the unequal justice under the law, and the surrender of rights and freedoms without explicit consent, to name a few.
What would Alexis de Tocqueville (Democracy in America) say, if he toured America today as he did in 1832, about the American Experiment and homeowner associations?
Additional reading on the New America of HOA principalities and the evolution of American society and governance, a growing failure of the American Experiment in democratic self-government established by the Founding Fathers, can be found:
HOA Constitutional Government 