In France it's usually limited to a single building or a few building built at the same time, and usually called a "copropriété". People can have their vote if they own their appartment. They decide things like "don't hang dry your clothes on the balcony", "don't change the way window blinds look", "here are the trees that we're going to plant in the park", "this is how garbage is handled", "should we have an employee taking care of cleaning and garbage, or should we use an exterior service?". They usually work mostly fine.
Edit: a sibling comment mentionned something about a village where you can't freely change the color of your blinds. We also have that, usually on the municipal level, to preserve heritage/the way a place look. For example, some communes from the "Pays des Pierres Dorées" have strict rules about this https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierres_dor%C3%A9es
I lived in a village in the UK where windows and doors had to be painted a certain way, you couldn't have visible satellite dishes, you couldn't change the structure, and there were other rules about random things like no tents on front lawns (for some reason? nobody does anyway though.) I think it's pretty uncommon here.
I liked it - mostly sensible rules designed to preserve heritage for everyone.
Yes, in the UK, most blocks and estates where they’re dominated by leaseholds (as opposed to freeholds) have a property management company that will outsource that to an agent.
Conceptually, that sounds similar to these HOAs in the US, so I don’t get why the difference in attitude towards them.
In cities of India, condo building are called society, & the HOA equivalent is also called Society. Old or near to retire or retired uncles serve on those Society boards. they make rules like not allowing any occupant renter or homeowner from different religion or with different food preference or singles or Bachelors or different sexual preferences.
It’s pretty common in Scandinavia I don’t know about other European countries. But there are many advantages and disadvantages to HOA. They can negotiate collective deals on internet and tv etc but a lot of mandatory expenses are pushed on you.
