New California law restricts HOA fines to $100 per violation

https://calmatters.org/politics/2025/10/california-hoas-fines-capped/

43•JumpCrisscross•1h ago

Comments

leakycap•1h ago

The quotes from the pro-HOA side in this article make me think even $100 is too much power to give these people.

kstrauser•1h ago

No kidding!

> “You don’t have the leverage anymore to get people to change bad behavior,” Zepponi said. A neighbor who leaves their RV parked on the driveway in violation of association rules might just eat the $100 rather than pay for RV storage that is more expensive, he said.

Yes, god forbid someone have the legal right to park their vehicle at their own house. I'd prefer my neighbors not do that, but I'd also like to have that right for myself if I ever needed to.

And a friend had a ration of hassle when he replaced the back door on his house with one that wasn't an approved design. I'm certain he'd have been delighted to say "whatever, Karen, here's your $100 and STFU."

ToucanLoucan•1h ago

I've lived next to two different households who leave campers in their driveways all summer, between uses. I have never given a shit nor can I comprehend the mind of someone who does.

I'm convinced HOAs are a product of privileged brains so used to things going their way that they have to make some shit up to act annoyed about.

ip26•56m ago

Have you ever lived in a townhome or condo? I feel the need to note that those HOA are responsible for the maintenance, repair, and upkeep of everything outside the drywall. Owner overfills dumpster? HOA is fined by sanitation. Owner dumps water on sidewalk, water freezes, neighbor slips and falls? HOA may be liable. You might celebrate, because “down with the HOA!” but when the roof needs to be replaced, it’s paid for by the HOA bank account. If that’s empty, either the roof is left to leak or you are paying a special assessment.

I’m a bit biased, I’ll admit, as I once served on such an HOA that was near the brink of insolvency and wrestling with owners who would dodge their share of funding basic maintenance for years at a time.

Most of the ire, perhaps, is really directed at single-family HOAs, however.

KumaBear•48m ago

Sounds like a poorly managed HOA fund. If they can’t make repairs without fees

ip26•40m ago

Correct. Owners protested any time raising dues was proposed, and so the old board did not raise dues by any meaningful amount for a few decades while costs rose and the exteriors aged. Unfortunately, while this was clearly a mistake in retrospect, the milk was already spilt.

dilyevsky•1m ago

In California the board can raise fees 20% a year without requiring a vote.

kstrauser•43m ago

A community fund to pay for basic shared necessities is one thing. I know people who chip in to support a shared local swimming pool. I think that sort of thing for HOAs is beautiful. It's basically a hyper-local government where you're voting to pay extra taxes to have nice quality of life things.

And then their are HOAs who have strong opinions about which species of grass your lawn can have. That's that craziest, power-trippingest thing I can imagine. I'm glad the state is telling them to get out of the law enforcement business.

smelendez•54m ago

Yeah, I think letting HOAs regulate too much is actually bad public policy because it encourages petty conflict that does more harm than any good that could from houses having RVs in their driveways or whatever.

bluedino•44m ago

We have a neighbor with two campers, and a boat. They move them around every 10 days so they don't get a ticket.

They also have 7-8 vehicles, and to top it off the person who lives there is a mechanic that works out of his home garage so there's always all kinds of random cars parked there as well.

kstrauser•34m ago

That may be a zoning issue if they're illegally operating a business in a residential neighborhood. Forget the HOA. The local city government is probably the right jurisdiction to address that.

technion•57m ago

I do not at all understand how these things exist. I read that the argument is it drives up property values. But how many people just avoid buying under such ridiculous rules? Doesn't that just lower value?

tiahura•52m ago

It looks trashy. Just like Christmas lights left up after the holidays and pink flamingos in the yard.

Communities should be empowered to self-regulate.

anticorporate•49m ago

One man's trash...

dilyevsky•48m ago

That but also it's a fire hazard and it causes spillover of parking into the streets.

kstrauser•47m ago

That's all a matter of opinion. Some people like lawn flamingos. I don't, but why should I have the power to tell my neighbor they can't put a flamingo in the yard they own? At the moment, I have a sign supporting a sports team my wife and I like. My neighbor can have a lawn flamingo I don't like, and I can have a team sign they don't like.

Any other way seems like absolute madness to me.

tiahura•39m ago

Because part of the agreement to buy the house includes agreeing to the HOA. Your neighbors have a reasonable expectation that their neighbors will abide by the community rules. If one wants to do their own thing, they should live somewhere that doesn’t come with built-in rules.

kstrauser•36m ago

That's one of those things that sounds good on paper, as through it were plausibly true. It's not, of course, because HOAs have infected so much of new housing that they're nearly impossible to avoid unless you want to live out in the middle of nowhere.

dev1ycan•43m ago

Yet in other parts of the world you don't have this problem... maybe you need to teach people etiquette and "style" rather than use HOAs to try to correct people by force

pixelatedindex•34m ago

You say regulate, I say discriminate. The few people who are in HOA boards have power to decide what the rules should be, and if they don’t like it then sucks to be you. That’s not regulation, that’s discrimination.

Yizahi•28m ago

I have Christmas lights year round for a decade now, in a city but outside. I find them pretty. What's so offensive about them in a private house? And what's next? Restricting the amount of lights in the house? Their color temp?

kstrauser•16m ago

You do you. I think they're pretty, too. If they weren't common labeled as seasonal lights, they'd just be nice-looking decoration. I have little glow lights alongside our sidewalk. There's no objective reason why mine are tasteful and elegant but yours are tacky or trashy. They're both just decorative lights.

alistairSH•41m ago

Just about any neighborhood built since the 1970s in the USA has an HOA so they’re really hard to avoid unless you live in either very old inner suburbs, downtown, or in a rural area. The majority of the middle suburbs have HOA’s.

potato3732842•30m ago

>Just about any neighborhood built since the 1970s in the USA has an HOA

This is a knock on effect of the wetlands protection act (or maybe it's the clean water act, I forget which). Someone developing >1ac of houses (or duplexes or apartments or whatever) has to do stormwater management permitting BS. This probably means they leave one lot at the end and do like a stormwater catch pond in it or something (there's technical terms for this stuff I'm not using. The owner(s) is obligated per federal law to maintain whatever this solution is in perpetuity. This likely means some sort of HOA to handle that. And if you're gonna do that then why not have the HOA do more.

xhkkffbf•39m ago

The market is speaking. If the prices for 2br in an HOA is higher than in a non-HOA, well, it means more people prefer the HOA.

And I think the evidence is generally that the prices are higher in well run HOAs.

tyre•31m ago

Are those in the same or equivalent neighborhoods?

crystal_revenge•2m ago

> I do not at all understand how these things exist.

It might help a bit to understand that their origins where to exclude blacks, asians and jews from owning homes in a neighborhood [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homeowner_association#History

dilyevsky•50m ago

I'm on the board of smallish HOA (townhouses and condos), a few points:

1. 90% of enforcement is a result of someone's complaint. HOAs can be sued by belligerent owners for not enforcing rules and it will cost everyone in the association a shitload of money.

2. Of those complaints probably at least 80% are totally legitimate grievances because the owner is doing something that's negatively affecting all of their neighbors like say park their RVs in the driveway and then 5 more cars in the shared parking spaces around the neighborhood so nobody else can park when having guests.

3. Every time we decided not to fine someone to force compliance we ended up regretting it - that just resulted in more complaints, sometimes escalations and serious damages, threats of lawsuits, and in the end we had to fine anyway.

4. These days when someone complains i just tell them there's nothing we can do because we really can't and just bug their state legislators, who seems to be living on a different fucking planet.

tl;dr - most people complaining about HOAs just have no fucking clue what they are talking about and they never served on the board. Well guess that also applies to every other issue discussed on the internet.

esseph•45m ago

Yep, once again why I will never, ever, EVER, live some place with an HOA.

dilyevsky•37m ago

You don't have much of a choice if you want to buy a condo. Also have fun dealing with your neighbors craziness on your own, i'm sure most folks here are well equipped for that judging by comments...

firesteelrain•42m ago

I am on a HOA Board and our fines are so low that it would take a long time before we can foreclose on the property. Most correct the issue but then re offend. The way the rules are written we can’t make it more stringent like some homeowners would like unless there is a majority vote. We can’t even get people to attend monthly meetings or utilize the website.

dilyevsky•39m ago

You can't foreclose on hoa fines in my state (CA). You can't even charge late fees as I was explained by our council. It’s totally toothless already even without the $100 cap

kstrauser•38m ago

Sounds like this is going to be great for you for #1. Now you can get belligerant owners off your back: "look, the state says we can't do anything more to enforce these stupid rules, so take it up with the government."

For #2, you can still fine them $100 per incident, which I'd imagine would include every new time a homeowner takes up all the parking, or dares to store their property on their property.

For #3, see #1. Now you're off the hook because the state said this is nonsense and you can't be responsibile for meeting their power-tripping demands anymore.

For #4, see? Perfect! You can tell them to get bent, because elected representatives said those complainers should mind their own freaking business on how people enjoy their own homes.

dilyevsky•27m ago

It can work for a time but just makes everyone pissed at you and in the end if you get sued everyone loses. Those are not powertripping demands those are official rules which required majority vote. Ime folks like you love to say this shit until you’re the one on the receiving end of it

kstrauser•7m ago

A lot of those are absolutely, positively powertripping demands, even if a bunch of people showed up on voting night and decided to enact them. My friend installed a door that had a round arch over it instead of a square arch, and the HOA lost their mind because it wasn't on their list of approved designs. No one was harmed by his choice of doors. It didn't "lower property value". It wasn't a health or safety issue. It didn't prevent his neighbors from enjoying their own properties. It was a victimless crime, and yet still turned into a total fiasco with an insane HOA board who wanted to levy daily fines until he ripped it out and replaced it.

It is literally impossible to convince me that such things benefit anyone except the bored sociopaths who charged themselves with enforcement.

If an HOA wants to maintain the sidewalks, build a pool, and pick up trash, right on. If that's what the neighbors want, then go for it. But when they want to dictate the harmless ways people can live, I lose all interest.

And yes, I lived next door to a guy who liked to park his fishing boat next to his driveway. I wasn't thrilled about it, but that was his right. He bought and paid for a house with a driveway, and if he wants to use part of the pavement he owns to park his own personal boat, darned if I can imagine any right by which I can say he shouldn't be allowed to do so.

pixelatedindex•25m ago

I just think HOAs tend to favor the vocal minority. If you’re really active and just be very nosy, you can have more influence. I would be livid if someone told me (outside of city/state regulation) what I can do and can’t do after I make a purchase worth hundreds if thousands of dollars.

I know many who lived in HOAs - one of them got fined for having plants by their condo door, another for putting something on their patio, etc. Who makes up these dumb rules?

And it costs $500/mo easy. This is why most people hate HOAs.

firesteelrain•44m ago

There is leverage. I am not sure why HOAs in California are not using the foreclosure option for failing to pay fines. It’s not a fast process.

mc32•1h ago

Yes and no. HOAs can be a PITA and petty and I err on the side of less governance but some people are recalcitrant, stubborn and just set in their ways. It's a damned if you do and damned if you don't.

HOAs are usually clear in their rules, so if you want to live in a predictable neighborhood you can choose to live in one. IF you want more laisses faire neighborhoods you can pick one that does not have an HOA.

mcny•52m ago

Except when most of the city lives in an HOA, it is very difficult to convince the city to spend money in public works.

Less public spending => lower taxes => less money for public spending

firesteelrain•40m ago

Logic doesn’t make sense - it’s less for cities or counties to worry about because code enforcement and upkeep is outsourced to a certain extent

hn_throwaway_99•53m ago

I previously lived in a condo building. I was unfortunately unlucky to have a really shitty neighbor (and I liked and got along well with everyone else on my floor). This neighbor, who was in her 40s, was apparently a trust-funder that came from a wealthy family and she didn't work, and thus would have parties at 4 AM on Monday morning (among others). She ruined my quality of life.

Originally the condo association gave her some minimal fines, but she was wealthy enough that it was just part of the cost of the party - I'm sure she had bottles of booze that cost more that $100 at her parties. It was only when the condo association changed the rules to implement an escalation series (i.e first violation was $X, second was $2X, third was $4X, etc.) that her behavior started to change.

I get that a lot of people hate HOAs and I understand the reasons, but $100 is essentially nothing to a lot of people in California, which means HOAs will essentially have no enforcement mechanisms. This is especially a problem in multifamily buildings like condos where people are literally living on top of one another.

IMO seems like just another well-intended CA regulation that will cause a lot of negative, poorly thought-out consequences. At the very least I think it would make a lot more sense to have the fine limit be based on the value of the house or something similar, and not a single rate for all of CA.

behringer•49m ago

I'd say too bad. You should ask your local politician for a noise ordinance and then call the police and have them apply the law.

HOAs should be illegal. There should only be one government body, if there has to be one at all.

hn_throwaway_99•39m ago

We did have a noise ordinance, and I did call the police on them. I can only wish that you get a neighbor like I had one day.

kstrauser•24m ago

"Hi, police! My neighbor's having a raging party that's winding down, and a bunch of drunk people are about to hit the streets. Want to arrest a bunch of drunk drivers tonight?"

No one wants to party where the cops routinely show up. Honestly, some of these things are so easy nip in the bud.

pengaru•2m ago

> No one wants to party where the cops routinely show up. Honestly, some of these things are so easy nip in the bud.

Owning a property known to a bunch of miscreants as the home likely responsible for all those expensive DUIs isn't exactly a desirable risk-free position to be in.

gullywhumper•29m ago

Sure, but which government body - city, county, state, federal?

I don’t particularly like my HOA, but I could live elsewhere and at least feel like I have more say in my HOA than any of those other bodies.

Yizahi•21m ago

City of course. Over here, across the pond, cities make local noise regulation and have a local city municipal police (not state police) which is responsible for a minor complaints and general oversight. Of course the only reason why it works is that it's a city, so fewer officers can cover a lot more people-per-area than in the widespread suburbs. Same story like with mass transit, neither is economical in the suburbs, they are too expensive compared to cities.

gullywhumper•7m ago

But why obviously? Is city really the best level? Seems to me much easier for people to move between neighborhoods than between cities. When I was younger, I had no problem with loud neighbors in a louder neighborhood - older now with kids and very happy to pay for quiet despite other trade offs.

adolph•15m ago

> HOAs should be illegal. There should only be one government body, if there has to be one at all.

Good luck with outlawing people's ability to freely associate by entering into contracts.

rdoherty•45m ago

I'm a HOA president and while HOAs can be very extreme, the flip side is if homeowners are breaking rules designed to protect property or common areas (pool, lawns, playground, etc) a $100 is not enough to stop people. Thankfully our HOA focuses on our common areas and is responsible for all exteriors and lawns (it's all townhomes), so the lines are a bit clearer.

We've had all sorts of wild issues such as building scaffolding on top of balconies (not attached), ripping up common area plants, parking issues (we all have garages, street parking is guest only), drying food on the pool deck (really), dumping garbage bags outside in the common area and more. If we can only levy a $100 fine there's little incentive for some people to stop doing things that impact the community.

I do cringe when I hear about these crazy HOAs of what are usually a collection of single family homes. I think a better approach would be some kind of limitations of the what HOAs can have rules about vs the penalties. Interiors of homes should be generally off limits (aside from townhomes that are all technically 1 building, so you should not be doing anything structural without approval). For single family homes with private property surrounding them I'd rather there be limits that are purely for safety, legal reasons or impacting common areas.

tdb7893•40m ago

It wouldn't surprise me if it's still a net positive, even with the downsides. Also the article says there are carveouts for health and safety, I wonder if excessive noise at night counts as a health issue (there's more than enough research on how important sleep is where it wouldn't be absurd to have it as part of the health carveout).

JumpCrisscross•39m ago

> homeowners are breaking rules designed to protect property or common areas

Fines are administrative. If someone is causing property damage, that’s liability—indemnification (where the homeowner pays the HOA’s legal fees) should be sufficient.

wildrice•35m ago

You make some fair points, but it’s also worth some self-reflection as an HOA president to understand why so many people resent these institutions. I’ve given two HOAs an honest try, and both ended up reinforcing the same patterns of pettiness and overreach that give them their reputation. The structure itself seems to attract a small group exerting outsized control over others’ property. Hopefully, over time, communities can move toward simpler, more democratic systems that preserve shared spaces without breeding unnecessary conflict.

themafia•35m ago

> building scaffolding on top of balconies

As a permanent structure or for temporary renovations?

> ripping up common area plants

Just for fun? Were they drunk? Or is the border between the "common area" and "their property" somewhat hazy? Are you not able to simply forward the invoice for repairs to the resident? That's not a fine and doesn't seem like it would be covered?

> parking issues (we all have garages, street parking is guest only)

This impacts property values? What about tow to impound?

> drying food on the pool deck (really)

> dumping garbage bags outside in the common area

A $100 fine is not adequate for these relatively petty issues?

It might just be me. I don't have kids and I don't spend a lot of time around home. I don't understand HOAs at all.

elaus•23m ago

Yes, as a non-American, HOAs seem so strange to me. It seems like most of those issues could be resolved by the existing legal system (destroying other people's property, dumping stuff in public areas, etc.) or by the city's regulations and codes.

foundry27•32m ago

I get it, really I do. But do the HOAs really need financial enforcement mechanisms intended to seriously harm people, and to punish them as judge, jury and executioner? A HOA’s legal job is to maintain the common-interest property and enforce the CC&Rs. It is not a HOA’s job to extract enormous sums of money out of its members, even annoying ones. The right lever to pull to get some rich person partying at 4am and trashing the place (for example) to stop is for the HOA to file for a court injunction after repeated violations; once a judge orders “no loud music 10 pm - 7 am”, the next 4 am party will become contempt of court, which is a problem for the cops, not the HOA. Hell, 4 a.m. noise is a municipal nuisance and probably a crime; people should be calling the cops every time it happens. Individual members could even sue the owner in small-claims court for private nuisance, where judges can issue even more injunctions or award damages. All this to say, you don’t need to take people’s money to get them to stop doing bad stuff. But you do need to take people’s money to get rich, and to hurt people. This new legislation should be deeply concerning to people interested in the latter, and IMO shouldn’t really be a concern to people interested in the former.

potato3732842•25m ago

>But do the HOAs really need financial enforcement mechanisms intended to seriously harm people, and to punish them as judge, jury and executioner?

No, they don't. But to be fair, your local enforcement agencies have the same power to unilaterally fine people insane amounts of money. So in a technical sense it makes sense that HOAs would have the same unilateral power to screw people.

kstrauser•20m ago

Yeah, but:

1) Governments are often much easier to sway. You can get a newspaper or TV station involved. You can show up to open meetings. You can campaign against the incumbents. While you can porbably technically do some of that against rogue HOA boards, it's going to be a lot harder.

2) Governments are usually large enough not to make things a personal vendetta. That's clearly not always true; I'm only talking about trends. Meanwhile, the HOA members are your neighbors, by definition. Get on the wrong side of them and they can easily get involved in everything you do.

potato3732842•16m ago

What I was getting at was the government shouldn't have that kind of power either even if they're marginally less likely to be dicks with it.

kstrauser•6m ago

Ah, got it. You were saying neither part should do that. I interepreted that as HOAs should also be allowed to do that. I see what you're saying now, though.

adolph•19m ago

> once a judge orders “no loud music 10 pm - 7 am”, the next 4 am party will become contempt of court, which is a problem for the cops, not the HOA

Even if you could get a judge to levy an order like that, are municipal police really likely to enforce such an order?

kstrauser•2m ago

You have to phrase it properly. One time when a neighbor had a school-/work-night party that lasted until after midnight, I went over and asked them to wrap it up. When they didn't, I called the police non-emergency line and asked them to go break it up. When we were still awake from noise an hour later, I called the police again, and told them that in 15 minutes I was going back over there myself. They asked me to please not do that, and took care of it within the next 10 minutes.

They were ambivalent about dealing with noise, but were happy to stave off a riot.

cr125rider•31m ago

People review HOA docs by law, with fines detailed in them before purchasing a property. This is California trying to save stupid people from themselves, yet again. Remember when they basically allowed crime?

sytse•30m ago

So California just capped HOA fines at $100 per violation, banned late fees/interest, with a carve-out for health & safety rules (in effect July 1)—tucked into budget trailer AB 130 using language from SB 681. Supporters say it reins in abusive, cascading penalties that have led to liens/foreclosures; HOA boards argue the flat cap weakens deterrence and could push more disputes into court. With ~tens of thousands of HOAs affected and median dues around $278, fines aren’t a big revenue line, but enforcement dynamics could shift.

What’s interesting about this is that it’s a real-world probe of behavioral governance—predictability and due process vs. big-stick deterrence. The “health & safety” carve-out becomes the pressure valve (watch for rule-creep). Expect substitution effects: fewer monetary penalties, more non-monetary remedies or litigation, possibly raising total conflict costs. It’s also a civics lesson in how policy gets made (budget bill jiu-jitsu) and a statewide natural experiment on small, high-frequency penalties. If you design communities (HOAs, forums, OSS), the takeaway is clear, bounded penalties + strong process, with high-stakes carve-outs only.

dfajgljsldkjag•15m ago

Thanks chatgpt

sytse•5m ago

Thanks for the comment. This was part of my 2 comment experiment to see if ChatGPT summaries would be appreciated. The only other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45477313 got a downvote. So they are not appreciated and I won't post any more.

SilverElfin•19m ago

I think the issue isn’t that HOA fines are a problem. It’s more that some of them have corrupt governance with little transparency and limited ways to break up a group of people that all vote and act in alignment to each other rather than the interests of the community. Another problem is that in some areas, virtually all construction comes with HOAs so there isn’t an element of choice for buyers to opt out. That’s maybe a problem with competition, especially where big builders buy up large tracts of land and build hundreds of homes, all subject to the HOA.

If people have choice and reasonable guarantees of good governance, then I don’t have an issue with HOAs. In practice, it’s a mixed bag. But we should remember that even though we hear outrageous HOA stories, by and large, most of them function without such frustrations. So restricting all HOAs in response to those few stories, feels like it will backfire.

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