Community Forums

Theberrys · 10-04-2009, 11:21 AM

Our CC&Rs are so full of holes that any rule can be challenged at the Home Owners meeting. Things like number of dogs and we even have a rule that no dishes are allowed. A federal law states that people cannot be restricted to sattellite services. At least in our hood a meeting needs to be held and a violation action must be approved by a majority of the members. This cost money to each and every one living in the hood. Common sence pervails when they have to pull out there wallets. Read your CC&Rs carefully and list all infractions not just the parking. Then at a meeting insist they inforce all rules or take you to court. The folks here suddenly got logical.
Remenber your HOA is run by ameteurs that just enjoy having a little power. There more afraid of failure than you. After all you have already faild. I doubt they take you to court and if they do inconsistant inforcing constitutes prejudice.

Dick

BTW This is not legal advice just an opinion.

Jim Stewart · 10-04-2009, 12:10 PM

My problem if I have one, is selective enforcement by Boards or Archs within HOAs. I would have no problem if the intent was to enforce all the covenants and regulations consistently, but it seems many times they try to enforce what they personally do not like selectively and not all of the regulations.

Many large HOAs are very professionally run and enforce all of the regulations and that makes sense. They represent all of the people, not just a few. The small ones quite often are a different story.

Many people think you need an attorney to represent you and are afraid of the costs. Any relatively intelligent person can represent themselves in these situations and make the Junior Attorneys look like chimps. Attorneys try to intimidate, as many friends say, that dog don't hunt with me!

An example, they did not like nor would they approve my color choices, purely a personal decision, my colors met the criteria. They tried to use their "final decision clause", I used the "can not unreasonably withhold approval" clause. I pointed out that they allowed white as a color, white is not by definition a color, it is the absence of color. Legally, I was correct, so if they enforced the regulation with me, they had to have everyone else paint the white on their homes. They quickly learned and their attorney advised that most HOA Documents are not sufficiently written to cover color choices and if they intended to enforce in the future, they need to adopt color panels that were acceptable. The problem is they need all to agree on the palette and approve the changes to the Documents, not likely to happen.

melvonnar · 10-04-2009, 12:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theberrys

Our CC&Rs are so full of holes that any rule can be challenged at the Home Owners meeting. Things like number of dogs and we even have a rule that no dishes are allowed. A federal law states that people cannot be restricted to sattellite services. At least in our hood a meeting needs to be held and a violation action must be approved by a majority of the members. This cost money to each and every one living in the hood. Common sence pervails when they have to pull out there wallets. Read your CC&Rs carefully and list all infractions not just the parking. Then at a meeting insist they inforce all rules or take you to court. The folks here suddenly got logical.
Remenber your HOA is run by ameteurs that just enjoy having a little power. There more afraid of failure than you. After all you have already faild. I doubt they take you to court and if they do inconsistant inforcing constitutes prejudice.

Dick

BTW This is not legal advice just an opinion.

Dick; thats why the retards where I live hired the management firm; he has an attorney that makes his liveing takeing people to court thAt break the rules. his name is Tankel; he even has a website.

Robert L. Tankel, P.A. - a Dunedin, Florida (FL) Community Association ...

Robert L. Tankel, P.A., a Dunedin, Florida (FL) Law Firm - Community Association Law, Collection of Unpaid Assessments Orders, Covenant Enforcement

pview.findlaw.com/view/4053855_1
· Cached page

JUST FOR THE RECORD
this induvidual has had his licence temperatorly suspended twice for unethecial practices by the state bar Association.,

melvonnar · 10-04-2009, 12:40 PM

As to pigs and chickens-----would you all believe that you can keep pigs and chickens here as long as you call them pets; anything that they can call a pets; or snakes; one could even raise rats I suppose as long as you called them pets.
But no RV
The reason I still have my RV is that I was the first homeowner here and I had an RV years before the HOA tried to get me to get rid of it. they took me to court but the judge through out the case because the HOA didn;t act on it soon enough.
I've had many different motorhomes over the years but these folks can't tell the difference between one and another' they are just moble homes to them.

melvonnar · 10-04-2009, 12:50 PM

My advice stands-----sell and move out; save your sanity.

Flagelpater · 10-04-2009, 02:49 PM

If your MH has plates on it defining it as a "Motor Home" is it necessarily defined as a RV? If you drive it a some minimum interval is it the same as your car, transportation? Do they define "RV?" I got around my HOA because I was not storing it, I was driving it, it was registered just like their automobiles. It also was not a commercial vehicle so the parking paragraph did not include my MH either. I did not have language that prevented me from having a vehicle parked outside of the garage, that would have sunk me! Now I live in a new home, with a HOA, but RVs are allowed.

Theberrys · 10-04-2009, 03:48 PM

Robert

Yea all HOA are not the same. But it's my experiance that when you submit a request for exception it just goes before the board and the board is three of four people with a Napolean complex. By going to a homeowners meeting you can at least try for a vote of the people they represent. Not very many boards really represent the folks living in the community. They mostly just flex what little power they have to make themselves feel better.

Dick

mythplaced · 10-04-2009, 08:57 PM

Oh, Lord O' Mercy, don't get me started on this one...

Let's just say that I too have "run afoul" of my HOA on occasion.

To the OP...Yes, if you have the "huevos" and the "patience" you can fight..

Let's also say I lost a couple battles but "won the war"...

chasfm11 · 10-04-2009, 09:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Theberrys

Robert

Yea all HOA are not the same. But it's my experiance that when you submit a request for exception it just goes before the board and the board is three of four people with a Napolean complex. By going to a homeowners meeting you can at least try for a vote of the people they represent. Not very many boards really represent the folks living in the community. They mostly just flex what little power they have to make themselves feel better.

Dick

That was exactly our experience with our HOA, too, Dick. We received a violation notice for something that wasn't even covered by the CC&Rs and our registered letter in return, requesting a CC&R reference point for the violation when unanswered. To me, it is all about the power that many of the BODs can take. Like many others, the language in our CC&Rs was so clumsy and vague that it was open to just about any interpretation that someone wanted to apply to a covered situation.

We moved before we bought the RV. There was no way that I wanted to continue to deal with the HOA over that issue. Life is much better and we've saved a ton of money not having to deal with legal issues stirred up by the HOA board trying to control everyone else's life.

69RoadRunner · 10-04-2009, 09:10 PM

Here in VA, I was told that an HOA must hire an attorney if you take them to court. How much money does your HOA have? Can they afford an attorney?

melvonnar · 10-05-2009, 07:25 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 69RoadRunner

Here in VA, I was told that an HOA must hire an attorney if you take them to court. How much money does your HOA have? Can they afford an attorney?

The HOA has a bottomles pit of money

What the HOA does for money is simply have an assesment on the homeowners. (if you don't pay they(HOA) simply put a lien on your home, then sell it) This means that if you take the HOA to court you hire an attorney which you pay; The HOA hires an attorney which you pay with an assesment; so your really sueing yourself and paying both attorneys.

melvonnar · 10-05-2009, 07:27 AM

This is getting off track-----but my original advice stands---------SELL -----------

melvonnar · 10-05-2009, 07:38 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by mythplaced

Oh, Lord O' Mercy, don't get me started on this one...

Let's just say that I too have "run afoul" of my HOA on occasion.

To the OP...Yes, if you have the "huevos" and the "patience" you can fight..

Let's also say I lost a couple battles but "won the war"...

But a what price? you can;t put a price on peace and contentment.
In a HOA you will have neither; you will always be waiting for the next letter of some violation. trust me I know, just about time you think things are getting better, you will get another of those dreaded letters, and it will start all over again.

TXiceman · 10-05-2009, 07:49 AM

The problem is an HOA can be a useful thing in keeping an area looking good and keeping property values from dropping. But they need to be controlled and run by people that are sane. The "Yard Nazi" mentality is not good for most folks and they resent this attitude.

We had one fellow that had bought 3 acres (deep lot and heavily wooded.) and wanted to put up an RV barn toward the back of the property. He was planning to build a 3500 sq ft house and and the RV barn to store his $500,000 motorhome in while he was at home.

The Architectural Control Committee decided that the RV barn had to be built from brick (and match the house) and completely enclosed. The CC&R stated that the RV (boat or whatever) had to be out of view from the street and that was all.

His motorhome cost more than any of the homes in the subdivision. He put the lot up for sale and bought some uncontrolled land a bit farther our and built a nice place.

I could never live in another Yard Nazi neighborhood again.

Ken