Posted on 04/21/2023 5:01:17 PM PDT by daniel1212
Michelle Clark Miller Executive Administrative Assistant (2000–present)
When my sister bought her house, she was the third person to buy in the new neighborhood. They signed the papers and started making payments BEFORE the HOA was established, so the HOA was not mentioned in the paperwork.
Over the next few years, my sister and her then husband erected a basketball goal, added a covered patio, inground pool, and a large storage/workshop. They’d bought one of the two lots on the very tail end of the cul-de-sac, so their lot was HUGE.
They still had way more backyard than most people. They took very good care of their home, yard, etc…the shop was painted to match the house, the basketball goal was kept in tip top shape.
Enter the new HOA. My sister declined to join it. They decided to ignore her letter of refusal, and started sending her violation letters for the shop, the basketball goal, the patio, the paint scheme, right down to the dogs they had. (Three is permitted by the city, and we have no breed restrictions.)
My sister returned all letters with a copy of the refusal to join letter, along with a copy of the registered mail receipt showing they received it. They started fining her. She kept doing what she was doing, and pulled in an attorney friend who was more than happy to take over.
The HOA finally took her to court. Her lawyer countersued, presented all the paperwork to the judge, and the judge not only found in my sister’s favor, but the HOA had to pay ALL of HER attorney fees and had to reimburse her for all the postage fees she paid responding to their letters.
She always sent them registered mail.
The judge was incensed by the matter, especially when he saw her original letter declining their request that she join the HOA.
Do you know that they kept trying to fine her? She sent them copies of the original ruling, and they again ended up in front of a judge. That judge ruled the same as the first one.
The third time, the judge yelled at the president of the HOA, the attorneys, and told them if they didn’t leave my sister alone, he’d cite them for harassment. My sister’s attorney said if they continued, she could sue the HOA president, all of the officers, along with the attorneys both professionally and personally for harassment.
The HOA left her alone after that. She HAS had to run off some of the HOA snoops she’s caught peeking over her privacy fence trying to see what’s in the backyard, and ended up slapping a restraining order on them. (The HOA had to reimburse her for THAT, too.)
I for the life of me don’t understand why people would spend their hard earned money for a home and lot they don’t have control over. No way would I ever live in an HOA controlled community.
What could be better than homeowners banding together to keep the neighborhood clean, property values high and each and every homeowner having an equal say in any and all matters.
In practice however, HOAs invariably devolve into despotism, enacting petty, self-serving rules that enrich those in power at the expense of the rest - just like communism.
Those homeowners that dare defy the tyranny, are sent to the gulag -fined into oblivion. Just like communism
Too many Karens and Kevin’s put in name only positions of power who are wannabe petty dictators.
They won’t take “no” for an answer because,bin their 3xperience, most of their victims are sheep.
I would never buy an house in an HOA for this very reason. I keep my property in good repair and yard mowed religiously even though I live in the middle of the farm with the closest neighbors are 300 yards away and are relatives.
But I retain the right leave junker cars in my front yard, have a oversized Confederate flag with the brightest lights shining on it and leave my faded Christmas decorations (with mini LED lite, wired reindeer humping each other in full view of passing school buses all year long.
Because I pay the taxes on this property and no pencil necked geek on a quasi government committee going to try and bully me into conformative submission.
I might be tempted into shooting any one of them if they pull into my long driveway (sarcastic... But just barely)
I’ve done my penance. Never again.
Evidentally.. this does NOT include those DIM BULBS who LOVE being a "sheep" and rush to join the flock.
Good for the judges!!!!!!!!!!!! And your sister for standing her ground!!!!
HOA’s are evil and run by busybody control freaks, IOW, democrats who are big fishes in small ponds. They are a dictator wannabes.
IMO, anything already on the property when the HOA was established is exempt from any HOA rules , even is she did choose to join. You cannot make it retroactive as nobody can reasonably expect to live their live s as if an HOA is in their future. They cannot be responsible to follow rules that were not in effect when they took their actions of putting stuff in and should not be required to remove ANYTHING.
When we were house shopping, we had some requirements for what it must have and some for what it must not have. A HOA was on the immediate disqualification list.
I like to garden and grow my own veggies and nobody is going to tell me I can't grow my own food. I also like to hang my laundry out to dry and nobody is going to stop me from doing that either.
My aunt & uncle built a home on 2.5 acres in 1959 in Rancho Palos Verdes near Los Angeles. It did not have a HOA at the time. My uncle told me back around 2000 that a lady came on the property and looked around then knocked on their door and told them they had to clean up the yard.... she left and they never saw her again. The property is on a hill and cannot be see from the road below. The two neighbors you can barely see any portion of their home at all and vice versa due to the trees and brush and hill.
My relatives ignored the lady.
The HOA held up the addition my relatives had done. It was a concrete pad that was their porch out back that they want to enclose with 2 walls, windows and sliding doors. Someone decided they did not like the windows even though they could not see them and held up the process. To put up the 2 walls and and such is a quick job but the HOA made it more expensive and 6 months longer.
#17 I do not know how their anti-HOA coup turned out.
They probably were sent to a re-education camp.
Maybe executed...
Yes, DUH! Always target at least ONE individual of any organization in any lawsuit or nothing will change.
I for the life of me don’t understand why people would spend their hard earned money for a home and lot they don’t have control over. No way would I ever live in an HOA controlled community.
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I have never considered any property controlled by an HOA, and never will. Yet there are people, and many of them, who think such control over them and their property is just wonderful. Boggles my mind there are so many such people, because it is just such subservient thinking that turns people into docile, subservient powerless little peasants.
The kind of sad, insecure folks who have a psychological need to relinquish control of their lives to others. Pitiful!
Yes, HOA’s are corporations. They are non-stock, non-profit corporations controlled by the members, who are the homeowners. Many HOA’s hire management companies to do the day-to-day management of the HOA. They get paid a management fee and serve at the will of the board of the HOA, which is elected by the homeowners. Perhaps professional management companies hired by the HOA’s are what you’re thinking of. An HOA cannot be purchased by a corporation.
You mean for the sister of the author.
But some in government seek to be as extreme HOA admins.
I did see that later about whose sister it was.
Seems like most in government are of that bent.
I don’t have that kind of luck.
I live in a working class community with lots of transients.
If I have come to one conclusion, it is that most people are pigs. They don’t care if they litter your street, tip over your garbage cans (as happened last night), loud music, yelling and carrying on, really foul mouths (and I am no prude).
If I could move, I would.
What’s wrong with weird?
If my neighbor uses his old toilet for a planter in his front yard, it’s no skin off my nose.
BTW there are FCC and AR Agriculture laws that protect trained weather spotters and beekeepers (and their equipment's) so the attorney says.
I’ve never been tempted to live in an HOA.
And after what I saw going on during the lockdown, neighbors and fellow citizens ratting out one another...
Nope, never living in an HOA.
The entire HOA leadership, minus any who voted against this harassment, needs to be dragged out into the street and beaten to within an inch of their lives.
Who singed the HOA letter?
Their house should be burned to the ground in a 2:00 am fire
I like the way you think.
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