CC&Rs: The Non-legitimate Social Contract

The formation of private HOA governments raises the same concerns of 250 years regarding the legitimacy of the social contract between the members and the community, the bona fide existence of mutual consent, and the protection of individual rights within the community.

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In spite of the above, supporters and proponents of HOA governance repeatedly use the simplistic argument: If you don’t like it or can’t accept the HOA, move out. That’s equivalent to saying, “If you don’t like the President, then move out of the country”. This argument by the proponents was addressed quite intelligently and with sound reasoning, more than 250 years ago in The Social Contract, where Rousseau states, “After the state is instituted, residence implies consent: to inhabit the territory is to submit to the sovereign”, but cautions in his footnote that,

This should always be understood as . . . [not referring to conditions affecting] family, property, lack of [housing], necessity or violence [that] may keep an inhabitant in the country unwillingly, and then his mere residence no longer implies consent either to the contract or to the violation of the contract.

The complete commentary can be read at Contract.