Location: Washington state
We bought a house eight years ago. Real estate listing said we were in an HOA. Agent reiterated it. Day we moved in, an HOA person showed up to tell us where to mail our dues. Which we paid. A few months later, the board president asks my wife to join the board. That's when a resident at odds with this president sends an email blast to all, informing my wife that we are NOT members of the HOA so she can't serve. This was news to us.
Turns out we live NEXT TO the HOA and not within it.
We then learned that when the previous owner planned to build this house, the HOA invited him to "become a member" ... and to do so, he needed to pay $30,000 in dues going back to the start of the HOA. He said no thanks. So they hired a lawyer and threatened to tie up his construction in red tape. He finally agreed to pay $10K and sign a licensing agreement saying that while he's not a member, he would pay monthly member dues, follow the CCRs, be subject to liens, etc.
And the agreement claims to apply in perpetuity. And it was recorded against our title.
When we learned of this, we said, hey, if we're not members, we're not members. We want no part of this. Who pays membership dues to something they're not a member of? So we quit. HOA insisted we must pay them. That was eight years ago. They've made noises once in a while since, but they have never acted. Yet.
Turns out, in our state (Washington), the law says an HOA cannot expand beyond its original boundaries. Even the HOA's bylaws define members as those in the original footprint. We are one of a few neighbors who border the HOA but aren't in it, but we're the only property they've singled out for pseudo-fake-membership.
The licensing agreement purports to grant us driveway access to their road, and storm sewer access. But this property (and the one next door) was granted an easement going back to the origins of the HOA, and there are several other houses uphill that flow into their drainage. The agreement basically is trying to charge us for something we already owned. And for gravity. Again, no one but us (and the old owner) has ever paid them a red cent.
After years of standoff, I finally told the HOA board we were willing to pay $40/month to chip in on road and storm drain maintenance just to be neighborly, rather than $120/month in fake member dues, if they would write up and record a document that says the old agreement is null and void. They voted to do so. But it has been 10 months now, and they have done nothing. My hunch is they have reconsidered.
I don't want them mucking up a sale someday over this, or fooling the next owners into believing they're in an HOA when they're not.
Do they have a leg to stand on, on any of this? For one thing, they strong-armed my predecessor into signing this agreement, and I thought a contract was unenforceable if signed under duress. Also, it's trying to masquerade as an easement, and I thought licensing agreements by definition could not be perpetual. Can this thing actually run with the land?