[redwitch]

I've lived with good HOAs and with bad. No question, if it is bad, it is awful. The one thing that saved us from the bad was that the Bylaws stated that no one could be president for no more than two consecutive terms. This pretty much made it that when we had a truly Board, we could (and did) get rid of the prez and her cronies -- fortunately, the next group got rid of a lot of the junk rules that were created. It took a couple of years to recover from the backlash but we ended up with a great crew and a great HOA.

There are ways to curb all of the self-interest issues. A lot depends on how the Bylaws are written. When the votes are public, it does create a lot of bad feelings. Our meetings were such that if you wanted to have something added to the agenda, it had to be written and approved by the Board. Open forums were only conducted twice yearly. This really did save on animosity between neighbors.