In the beginning, that’s 1964, the FHA went along with real estate interests and funded The Homes Association Handbook, which, as I have written in Part I of The Foundations of Homeowners Associations and the New America, was the bible for the mass merchandising for “the emergence and acceptance of a quiet innovation in housing” (taken from a historical recounting, Community Associations, the printing of which was funded by both CAI and ULI).
The Handbook had something for everyone who would be involved in making this incarnation work as a widely accepted mode of housing: the builder, the local municipality, the mortgage companies, and even the consumer/homebuyer, to whom it promoted “carefree living,” “affordable housing,” and “maintaining property values,” among other benefits. No negatives were given.and no mention, in this 433-page Handbook, of creating a governing body in accordance with public government statutes (see your state’s municipality laws on incorporated towns or even on home rule). No mention either, of the requirement to be a public entity and therefore to be subject to the Constitution, nor that the Fourteenth Amendment applied to the HOA. The only hint at providing for a democratic form of government came from the promoter’s concern for the legal justification for the HOA to have authority over the private property interests of the homeowners and to impose compulsory assessments: allowing the owners to vote.
Read more on BlogCritics: HOAs: Unrecognized De Facto Local Political Governments
HOA Constitutional Government 