So we are looking at purchasing a new townhome in Nashville. There are 5 units, and there is not an eatablished HOA as of yet. They just came on the market about a week ago, and thus far none have sold. The plan is for our daughter to live there with a couple of roommates while she gets her PhD, so looking at a 4-6 year window that she will be there.

We broached the question of the HOA establishment with the listing agent, and she has talked to the developer/builder about that. I feel like they will get something in place soon, but the bigger problem I have is with the landscaping...and who will keep it alive. Currently they have hoses running out in front of each unit with sprinklers attached, but once the units sell, it will be up to the individual homeowners to continue with that. Quite frankly, I don't see that happening, and so with a stretch of hot summer days, we could potentially be looking at a really nice row of townhomes with dead grass, shrubs, and trees out front.

Long story short, how hard should we push for the builder to do what he should have done in the first place, and that's install an irrigation system on a separate meter so that the HOA collectively can keep the outside looking decent? Or am I just worried too much about something that isn't that big of a deal?

There are already several trees out front that are dead, which the listing agent says will be replaced, but I am not optimistic they will last long without regular watering. Especially with July and August looming.

It's really the only thing that's holding me back from going ahead with an offer, and I just don't know how to proceed from here. We finally find a place that has a two-car garage and additional parking for three roommates and has a nice combination of finishes, layout, and location, but I'm worried about the outside.

Any recommendations from someone with similar experience would be appreciated. Haven't met the builder and know nothing about him, so I don't know how hard we can push. Plus I'm also more than a little afraid someone else will buy the one unit we want, and then we are back to square one in our search. Ugh.

It's not uncommon for smaller communities of townhomes to not have an active HOA.

Is there a gate? Typically you would have an HOA in that case, but not always.

I've seen communities where the guy in the front has the gate wired to his meter so they get the honor of paying for the electricity for the whole community.

There is no gated access, it's a 5-unit building on a corner lot. There is access to two-car garages behind the building, and small strips of landscaping on the street side and in front of the building. Sidewalks run beside and in front of the building.

I definitely know we won't move on it if there is no HOA in place soon. As of yesterday the builder had a request for proposal out to three firms to come up with an HOA legal entity. In our current neighborhood in Alabama our builder and the developer tried to pawn off the HOA when we weren't even half built out in the 'hood, and we said heck no...there was already a pool and clubhouse in full operation, and they were wanting to abdicate the care and expense of that before we had enough homeowners to properly cover it. When I first asked about the HOA via email before even viewing the property, the listing agent said "the new owners would handle establishment of the HOA," but when we visited the property, we let her know that was not a good answer, and she actually agreed and started pressing the builder to act on it.

I have full confidence they will do the HOA as they say they are "working on it." Just wondering about whether to draw a line in the sand about the landscaping as well...can foresee that not everyone will want to run their sprinklers enough to keep everything alive, and the grass and trees on side of the building will probably be sacrificed, so it could potentially look terrible very quickly. We will just be one-fifth of the voting block and will have the smallest responsibility regarding the landscape, since our unit would be the middle unit.

Ask your realtor how long the builder has been in business? Obviously could be first one and you could end up with tons of issues.

From talking to the listing agent I think he does mainly single family homes, and has not done many multi unit developments. Perhaps he is trying to see what he can get away with, or he's just not thought things through. I have been amazed at some of the things I've seen in new builds! Saw a house yesterday that has the toilet immediately to the left as you walk in the master bathroom. As in the door won't even clear the knees of somebody sitting on the throne, should someone else decide to walk in. Dumb, and designed by the builder and his wife, supposedly.

HOA's with small townhome communities are only as good as the owners allow them to be.

What ends up happening (a lot of the time) is the builder forms an HOA entity, contracts a 3rd party management company, and roughly half the monthly dues go to overhead. The owners realize that they could do a lot better by self-managing, and pretty much ditch the HOA. This doesn't work if you have absentee owners (or ********s) of course.

I have a client who is dealing with an issue where the builder won't let go of the HOA because he has some dream of building a phase 2 at some point. The owners all pay $50/month and the builder contracts some guy to mow the strip of grass outside their (individual) gates.

Long story short, there's no perfect solution for these small developments.