I've recently moved into a new built house and have been here with my family for about 2 years. Recently HOA has warned me about parking a car on the street. We have 5 cars so we had one parked on the street. So they warned us and eventually gave us a fine for 140$ even though everyone else in our neighborhood and cul-de-sac have been parking on the street and they have no more then 3 cars each house. So okay, so now they have been getting on us because we took out a tree and on the front lawn out and replaced it with another tree. They sent us letters to replace that tree. We still had that tree planted in the back yard and placed it back in the original spot. Then we got another letter saying they want the tree to be at least 8 foot in height. So we went and got the tallest tree that we could find and it was about 6 foot. So they sent us another warning that we will be fined $200 a day if we don't meet requirements. But the funny thing is that when the house was originally built, we have pictures of the tree that it was about 4 feet. How are they going to make requirements whenever the builders placed the tree that is below requirements? Is there anything I can do to get these assholes off of me?
never had any problems when i owned a house there, but reading up on a few stories now and it seems like they have turned into hitler arseholes. dunno why the change.
Have you presented your case in these instances to them? Surely they have to come to some reasoning and understanding.
They have their own lawyers, the HOA usually sends us warning letters and then after the 3rd warning or so they send it to their own lawyers and give a final warning and also states we’ll be paying for their lawyer fees.
Generally you can file for variances before moving forward with any work. You can also bring up these violations at the next HOA meeting. Is there a management company that handles all the daily processes for your HOA? If you have a management company, find out who manages your HOA and reach out to him/her with your requests. HOAs are pains in the ass, and can be militant assholes, but if you're going to live in a subdivision, it comes with the territory. Don't just do things without their permission.....that will get you nowhere.
Get a copy of the bylaws to make the rules are being properly enforced and that there are no exceptions. There should be procedures for appeals if none. All else fails, request a meeting and see if y’all can talk it out.
I emailed the lady at the HOA at first about the car parking situation. She said it was fine that we could park on the street since we had a lot of cars then she changed her tune. Then about the tree, she said I had to email the attorneys because that case was already on the last warning(we never got a warning for it before just parking). So I emailed the lawyers and all do they is send me the part of the hoa requirements of the tree being at least 8 feet tall. And when I ask about the tree to the hoa lady she just responds with to ask questions to the attorney. Not only that, when we got fined for parking they said it was because of an parking incident, so I asked for pictures and they sent me pictures of us parking on the street August 1 and September 4 but the final warning we got from the attorneys on the letter was on September 6 so she responded with this, “Unfortunately, the fees assessed by the attorney cannot be waived. Moving forward, once you receive the 3rd warning letter for parking in the street, if not cured after that, the file is referred to the attorney for further handling.” Feels like we’re getting scammed or singled out by our hoa.
Will do, didn’t want to waste my time having to go to a hoa meeting but guess this is the last step, or to find a stupid 8 foot live oak tree.
Welcome to the criminal enterprise that is HOA/POA's. Wait til you find out that a board member is embezzling over a hundred grand and the rest of the board plays stupid about it. "Oh we never thought to look a the bank statements. You mean some pay with cash? I knew the treasurer used two set of books but I thought that was how it was done." Then at a meeting when they pass out a financial report and everything is vaguely broken down into nice round numbers, so you question it and they reply well that is just an estimate. They just made the numbers up. Sheriff gets involved, person is arrested, in and out of jail in a hour because the criminal is old. We were told that by the department "Do you all really want to send that old person to jail?".........WTF Time then goes by (very little by the way) a couple of the same board members are there along with a friend as the new treasurer and BAMMM, lots of money is missing again. This time the board member is arrested for interfering with the investigation and we are told it can't go any further without an audit to determine the amount that is really missing. The board discusses among themselves that we don't need an audit. "Just let bygones be bygones" and (I sh#t you not) "do we really want to ruin someones life by sending them to prison, the person has kids.".......I mean really, WTFnH.....This **** is really being said.... and that is just the beginning.. The elderly here are being extorted. Can't get any help here for these people... everybody knows everybody. Rant over Hope your HOA is better than the one I'm dealing with.
It seems like you're being singled out. Maybe you have irritated a neighbor or two and they are frequently reporting you. Perhaps you should start attending the HOA meetings. I think people tend to forget they live in a community. The couple i've attended tend to b**** about mundane things however there is always those neighbors everyone fusses about. Make sure you're not one of them. HOA management are frequently terrible. Sometimes it seems like their only purpose is to find additional ways to generate income.
The reason she changed her tune is someone is complaining. You must be annoying one of your neighbors with the extra cars always in the street. If they are putting the heat on you it means one of two things: 1. You pissed off a board member somehow. 2. You know that annoying neighbor that everybody complains about? No? Then its you.
I have lived in communities with HOAs for years and years. What I have come to find out is that the HOA aren’t the ones policing the neighborhood; no one is driving around looking for violations. What you have is a neighbor making complaints about you.
Perhaps they don't like something about you personally and are trying to force you out. Do you have a mullet? If not, getting one should help smooth over your relationships with the neighbors and HOA.
I don’t think the neighbor is complaining. I live in a cul-de-sac on the corner with about 5 houses. We don’t even park our car in the street anymore but everyone else still does. Our next door neighbor are people living in a house that is being rented out and some new tenants just moved in, and the tenants that lived before there were on good terms with us. Some of our neighbors in cul-de-sac that we talk to said they have received warning letters too but haven’t gotten fined yet.
You might be right, and I hope your neighbors aren’t those kind of people. I will say this though - you might want to ask the HOA directly if they’ve gotten complaints from any of the neighbors about your cars/trees, etc. They might just tell you (without naming names, of course). This is how I found out that neighbors made complaints about me, for fencing and pet issues. At my last HOA community, I had been friendly and on good terms with my neighbors as well - although I still don’t know which neighbor specifically made the complaints as they were all friendly as per usual. Anyway, good luck. Hope your issues get settled. HOA’s are the worst. I’m glad I finally live in a place without a HOA.
There's a fine line between too much governing and not enough when it comes to HOAs. Our HOA dues are dirt cheap and it shows - there are a handful of houses in my neighborhood that are completely trashed (totally barren yard, abandoned house with two cars in the driveway with multiple flat tires, etc). And nobody cuts their ****ing tree limbs near the sidewalks so trying to take the kid for a walk is like a game of limbo. This is the kind of stuff that HOAs should enforce. I think our dues must just go toward paying the lifeguards for the pool and not much else.
