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Taxed Twice: The Government Trap Behind Your HOA Good Morning World!!! So yesterday I did a deep dive on HOAs. I have never lived in one. I have always been strongly opposed to the idea. But I thought I should educate myself instead of reflexively rejecting any future home because it is in an HOA. I did not want to throw the baby out with the bathwater over a few horrific stories that had made me closed-minded. After careful consideration, I have changed my position on HOAs. I went from "I am never living someplace where I cannot paint my house whatever color I want" to "HOAs should be illegal." Condos excepted. Those have an actual shared roof somebody needs to maintain. But they are condos, not houses, so the Homeowners Association needs a new name. Call it a Condo Association and let the rest of us breathe. Why have I taken this radical stance on something older than I am that covers roughly half of all new homes built? Because it is a government trap. Stay with me. Here is the revelation. Local governments promote the HOA model so homeowners end up maintaining community infrastructure themselves, while the government keeps collecting the same property taxes and spends that money on other things. You pay property taxes to your local government. In exchange, those taxes are supposed to cover the infrastructure we all share. The schools. The parks. The jails. The potholes. The sidewalks. The utilities that get power and water in and waste out. Etc. HOAs privatize everything between the jail and the etc. That is where your HOA fees go. Not just the clubhouse. Filling potholes. Fixing the sewer main. Keeping the drainage system working. And the local government still charges the same property tax and gets to spend more of it on... the etc. The etc keeps getting bigger every year. So you are being taxed twice. Once by the government, and once by your neighbors. Which brings me to the second problem. The neighbors. Somebody with no qualifications is going to sit in judgment of your fence height and your mailbox color. The person who wants to run for the HOA board is, almost without exception, the person who should not be allowed within a hundred yards of it. Even if you have a good board now, your board will eventually change. The reasonable people will move away. The grievance people will move in. And then one morning you will get a letter about what type of candy you can give out for Halloween. You should not have to read your mail with a lawyer. You pay a mortgage. You pay property taxes. You pay the HOA fee. You pay the special assessment. Then the board decides the trees need trimming and sends you a bill. And if you do not pay it, they can take your house. A board elected by a tenth of your neighbors that practically no one can fire can take your house. We need to talk about this. Not just as a local nuisance. As a national policy. Housing is already expensive. Wages are flat. Insurance is up. And in the middle of all of that, half the new homes being built come with a second government attached. So no. I am not going to throw the baby out with the bathwater. I am going to drain the bathwater and see who is holding the plug. Also, it is Thursday. Join us for our weekly Creators of X support group meeting at 12 PM here on X Spaces. Today's topic is the etc. The etc is always the best part. Have a great day, everybody. And may the truth always be in your favor.