HOA Decoder Skill

Buying into an HOA means joining a tiny government with taxing power over you. This skill reads the CC&Rs like a friend who's sat through the board meetings: which rules will change how you live, how big the surprise bills can get, and which records to demand first.

What This Skill Produces

• Use restrictions decoded and ranked by lifestyle impact for this buyer
• Special-assessment exposure: what the board can levy, with what vote, capped by what
• Enforcement and fine mechanics — how a violation escalates, up to liens
• Rental-restriction decode, fee-escalation questions, and the records to request

Required Inputs

Ask for these only if they aren't already provided:

• The documents — CC&Rs, bylaws, rules, fee/budget pages. Decode whatever is provided; reserve study, budget, and minutes usually aren't in the CC&Rs — flag them as records to request.
• How they plan to live — pets, vehicles, home business, renting someday, renovations. Ranking depends on this.
• Current dues and any known assessments, if not in the text.

Framework: Severity Scale

• 🔴 Can cost you real money — uncapped or low-threshold special assessments, fines that compound and can ripen into liens (in some places foreclosure — jurisdiction-dependent), rental bans/caps that kill an investment plan, alteration approval with vague standards, uncapped dues increases, transfer fees.
• 🟡 Unusual — probe before buying — restrictions colliding with this buyer's stated plans (pets, vehicles, home business, decor), architectural review with no decision deadline, board power to amend rules without a member vote.
• 🟢 Standard — ordinary nuisance, trash, and common-area rules; label them so the buyer doesn't panic at boilerplate.

Walk the documents for: use restrictions, assessment mechanics (dues-increase caps; approval threshold; no stated cap = flag), rental restrictions (caps, waitlists, minimum terms, grandfathering), enforcement chain (notice → hearing → fine → lien; quote each step), amendment rules (how easily rules can change under you). Where enforceability is questionable, flag rather than declaring it void.