If you buy a property in a neighborhood with a gate, a lake, a pool, a golf course, or other amenity you are probably buying a property that is in an owners’ association and the law expects you to know it. If you buy a condo, you are expected to know there is a condo owner’s association.
If the property you buy is in an association, it does not matter if you were told it was in an association. If your seller didn't pay the association dues there is probably a lien on the property. Last year a $330k house in north Shelby County sold at foreclosure auction for $14k of unpaid dues. The Association got their dues.
The largest lien I have seen was $29,000, and there is a condo in Homewood Alabama that just sold for $24k of back dues. The buyer buys the property for the back dues, and they own it. They can then eject the former owner.
Covenants run with the land
Regardless of who you bought from, what your deed says, association dues can be enforced, and they are often enforced by liens on the property that can be foreclosed on.
"I bought it out of foreclosure!" You still have to pay the dues. Inherited, bought, gifted, tax deed, sheriff's sale, doesn't matter how you got it, if there is a recorded agreement from the developer and the association registered with the state, then it's likely the covenant of conforming to the recorded agreement runs with the land.
"I didn't realize there was an association," (even though there was a pool, or a lake, or a golf course.) Intentional (or otherwise) ignorance is no defense. "The realtor, seller, neighbors, etc. didn't tell me there was an association!" Doesn't matter, that pesky covenant not to build a gas station runs with the land if the land was set up that way.
Owner Associations are not Bad
Across the country property with an owner's association is more valuable than property without an association. Owners' associations provide benefits seen and unseen and because they provide this benefit the law against "unjust enrichment" (among others) makes dues enforceable on every piece of property in a designated association. Alabama law makes everyone pay their fair share when an association levies dues or a special assessment.
Condo owners contribute a small amount each month for insurance on the building. Property owners pay for the benefit of living behind a gate, or being in a lake community, or living near a golf course. Townhouse owners pay for the benefit of shared insurance and shared roofs. Unless an association is run unprofessionally or negligently, overall associations are a net benefit to the owners.
Bad Associations
I have seen some bad associations, and these bad associations all have one thing in common: Poor Rule enforcement. They either don't make and enforce rules that protect the value of the community, which makes owners following the rules resent the board, or they make rules so restrictive that even the rule followers resent the board.
Twenty years ago, we bought two lots next door to my folks in an association near the Alabama coast. My wife and I planned to move and settle there. But the association was constant drama and strife about what type of grass the neighbors had, and we sold. My folks sold and moved to Foley.
What can you do?
There are hundreds of articles online about how to manage an association with examples of good rules, best practices, professional guidelines for meetings, and how to limit the association's liability, and these are free. But I still see amateur associations trying to go it alone with no guidance, trying to run the association business on volunteers and donations. Peaceful prosperous communities run their associations like a business: The non-profit business that they legally are, fulfilling their legal responsibility of maintaining the safety and value of the community.

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