Does anyone have tips or links to information with regards to fighting back against homeowners' associations?

I feel that my association is incredibly petty and abusing their authority. Yeah, I pretty much know how hopeless it is for an individual property owner to win in these battles. However their must be ways that I can fight back.

Any advice or anecdotal stories are greatly apreciated.

 

Whats the problem? I sit on our neighborhood board with some tight rules.

 

I sit on the board at my community and we are having to constantly refer to the rules since some people on the board want to expand our role with issues that are not covered in the rules.

Make sure you know the rules that are in place when you joined the community. If they have changed since you signed the agreement when you bought your place make sure that the new rules were approved correctly. Some boards cut corners to get rules in place so you can try to get stuff thrown out if the rules were not put in place properly.

Read the rules that they are using are they interpreting them correctly?

If this is serious you may want to get a real estate lawyer involved. Oh c..p listen to me, I must live in California the litigation capital.


Good Luck!

 

I never got that. It's your property, how can they make you do stuff?

 

Not all subdivisions have rules and regs. Most people have to live within the city, county and state rules and regs...er laws. Our subdivision was set up in the 1940's we still have some items on the books that can't be changed.
How can we make people do stuff... depends, Why do we want people to follow our rules... to make our neighborhood better... One rule we have is you can have horses but no hogs. County and state laws allow that, would you like to have a hog farmer next to you? .
Other rules cover things like building restrictions, ie, size of home you can build. We have a minimum of 1500 sq ft footprint. again local laws say you can build any size home as long as it meets code. I don't want a 600 sq ft pill box built next to me, it will bring down my property value...Get the point now.
Some subdivisions have even gone as far as to say how long your grass can be and how long you can leave your trash cans at the street. I think that is going a bit far.

Neil if you can give a specific problem we can help.

 

we voted ours out a few years ago. It was mainly in place to take care of the detention areas but included outher things as well. It came down to no body wanted to pay the fees. lol

 

My story is not very interesting. I was going to spare you the details. I was hoping someone had a story where they were in worse shape than I am in.

Alot of people in our neighborhood either don't pay or are slow in paying their HOA dues. Two homes were put in foreclosure in the past year because the owners just left one day and never returned. One actually left a new jetski in the garage and never returned. There are some very obvious violations in my neighborhood. But I don't complain about them because i'm not that way. Plus I have better things to do. I pay all my dues on time and keep my lawn cut and edged every week without fail. But I get hassled because I have two type of grass in my yard (centipede and fescue). The yard is well manicured, just two type of grass. I received a letter saying its my final letter and I am being turned over to their attorney. I have 10 days to fix the problem or face a $10 per day fine. I have never received any previous letters regarding this, and out of the blue this letter acting like a pitbul arrives. The inspection process is blatantly inconsistent. One street over are people who almost never cut their grass. Across the street from me is man who runs a limo service and keeps two limos parked in his drive blocking the sidewalk and a third limo parked on the street at night. In a couple of homes we have more than one family residing. More than a few homes have basketball goals and garbage cans in the front. There is a house with an elcamino in the drive up on blocks without wheels. Down the street from that is home with a monte carlo in the driveway with logs of firewood used to chock the wheels. All of this nonsense can be overlooked because I happen to have two type of grass in my yard! Petty!

Sorry, just had to vent.


I have to share this link. "10 Things a Homeowners Association Won't Tell You." http://loan.yahoo.com/m/primer13.html

 

Sorry to hear about your troubles.

I just moved from Kennesaw to Marietta and one reason was due to our homowners association and the state in which our subdivision had gone to in the past few years. It wasn't as bad as your situation but it was getting there.

Good Luck!

 

fugg home owners associations, my GF just got into one because she didn't have a choice (having a home built) and they have rules like, no open hoods for longer then 20 minutes for routine check ups, no loud tools (air tools) only one kind of grass is allowed in the neighborhood, once a week, only certain trees, no buildings like sheds allowed. things like that. and it bothers me. if I just paid 180,000 dollars for a fuggin house, leave me the hell alone, I'm not gonna pay dues to someone or do things the way they want. I told her they can slap me with anything they want cause 'I' Myself, did not sign a **** thing.