God Bless Texas

I heard a story recently about a renter who hired a man to hang Christmas lights on his house for the festive holiday season. How fun! The man, who could not levitate, nor command the lights to attach themselves through either sorcery, nor telekinesis, required a ladder! Now I know you're thinking, "Of course he did," and "How silly of ehowton to suggest otherwise!" That same day the renter received a nasty letter from his HOA reminding him, "NO LADDERS!!!" Amused, the renter called the HOA and explained that the man he'd hired required the ladder to attach the lights. Gaining the HOA's approval, the hired man continued to hang Christmas lights :)

Up the ladder, "hammer hammer" down the ladder, "nail nail." All day long the hired man transformed a dowdy regular house into a veritable Mecca of Santa-joy in a most unusual metaphor of mixed Abrahamic religions. So the HOA sent the nasty letter to the homeowner this time! Curious, the homeowner contacted the renter. Curiouser, the renter then contacted the HOA again! Silly HOA!

Fast forward to the sell of my own home. I laughed out loud when the title company told me they needed a "resale certificate" issued from my HOA to certify the sale of my home to the new owner. While that sounded dumb and completely unnecessary, I assured them I've done this several times before and didn't *actually* require one, but thanked them for the laugh. They explained that a "resale certificate" was a document which verified there were no dues outstanding prior to the sale of the home. I laughed again, this time a bit confusedly, because I actually did have an outstanding balance as I paid my dues annually, not through an escrow, and would pay this year's at closing because of the timing of the sale. Funny how the title company wasn't aware of how that worked? Anyway, like I said, I got a giggle out of it.

And while I would never suggest Home Owners Associations of being worthless, self-serving entities motivated by nothing more than power and money - we've all heard the horror stories about how stupid, worthless, and self-important they are - I WAS TOLD A NEW LAW IN TEXAS REQUIRES THIS EXORBITANT FEE BE PAID DIRECTLY TO THE HOA PRIOR TO CLOSING, IN ADDITION TO THE ASSOCIATION FEE, ELSE BY LAW THE TITLE CANNOT BE PROCESSED!

I felt like I'd been kicked in the stomach.

Logically, we've seen it already in banking and home loans; this level of greed eventually comes back to pay the piper. Emotionally, I'm going to line up to kick them in the fucking teeth once they implode and succumb to their own gluttony.