Back when I lived in a townhome the unit attached to mine had a very nice single mother and her son living there. Sadly, they moved out and some house flippers moved in, shortly afterward the housing market imploded. They started letting their friends crash at the house and wreck it, eventually it go so bad one of the windows fell out (dormer window mounted in a wooden frame left open to the elements). Right into the front yard.

Anyway I tried going to the HOA about it, and they explained that a lien would be a waste of time. Even in an egregious case like this nobody wants to take responsibility for a property like that. It's a lot of work to get the lien, foreclosure from a HOA basically never happens, and even then all they inherit is a huge problem that nobody wants to deal with. So instead I get to sell my house attached to one that literally has siding falling off, missing shingles, and a goddamn window in the front yard.

This is the same HOA that wrote me up for refilling the windshield washing fluid in my car parked in front of my house and hassled my neighbour because he replaced the shitty wooden windows with vinyl that you couldn't even tell the difference without tapping on them.

Basically, they only have power over people who are already trying to be good neighbours.

As an epilogue, the bank eventually foreclosed on the property and presumably sold it as distressed. A coworker of mine toured it, but apparently the basement was black mold city. A lien on the property wouldn't have helped the situation.