Anyone with Road Maintenance/HOA power tripping neighbors?

[VABen]

We tried to find property not in an HOA, but our county has "low" taxes since most of the roads are privately maintaned. Needless to say I will never make that mistake again if/when we move.

My wife used to be a red head (faded to blonde now) but still has a firey temper so face time with the offending party will more than likely result in jail time. My wife is small but tough.

This individual is a real s-stirrer and is forming a coalition of neighbors against us for no reason. She has purposely withheld information from us to make us out to look like idiots, even though we are one of the few houses that is actually willing to do something. A lot of the neighbors are upset about how things were run prior to us moving in, and this lady is a major reason for problems. She once mentioned to move out of the neighborhood--now I think this is the best possible out come. The only upside now is that she is running out of crazies to talk to and the more sensable people that live out hear are starting to see the real problem.

 

[s219]

I have seen a lot of politics in the HOAs we've been involved in. It's just the nature of some people when they are not being held in check by a supervisor or bound by a paycheck. The same sort of behavior wouldn't be tolerated in most workplaces.

The thing I have noticed in our HOA is that there are some neighbors who are nice to your face, and then complain and plot against you behind your back. I had one guy complain about my barn, my firewood stacks, and my trailer. The HOA leaders thankfully must have thought it was unimportant, because they never relayed the info to me. I heard about it months later from someone else. My thought was that it would have been a whole lot simpler if the neighbor had talked to me, in which case I could have showed him the approval for my barn from the county, told him how my firewood stacks were temporary, and that the trailer was only up by the road because it was in use up by the road.

What I have found is that cool heads prevail, mainly, as a reminder for me to stay cool and try not to care. I have much more important things in life, which puts the HOA shenanigans in perspective. In fact just the other night I skipped a HOA meeting because I would rather be home to kiss my baby girl good night. I see some other neighbors get worked up about stuff, but it really doesn't get more than an initial reaction from me. I am generally in agreement with about 80% of the neighbors in our HOA, but just don't get worked up about stuff like some of the folks do. As long as there are like-minded people willing to play the politics, I plan to watch from the back seat.

 

[Country Geek]

There are different types of HOAs out there and it depends on what kind you have. "in-town" HOAs are usually the power tripping, political ones that want to regulate house color, architectural style, etc. Country HOAs are usually just for private road maintenance and those neighborhood covenants have very minimal standards (like, no mobile homes). The trouble starts when people from in town move to country subdivisions and want it to be like it was in town.

If you are having a problem with a country subdivision, you might want to dig up the actual recorded covenants and subdivision documents from the register of deeds office. Lots of these subdivisions specify a road maintenance agreement and an association for that, but don't authorize the association to do anything else, like enforce covenants or set rules. However since no one actually reads the recorded documents they assume since they are running the HOA they have the power of covenant enforcement, architectural approval, etc. when they actually don't. You might even find they are doing things on a majority vote that the recorded documents say requires a supermajority or even unanimous vote.

 

[Gem99ultra]

Does anyone else have to deal with an HOA for their common roads?
My wife got conned into being on the board and unfortunately got picked to be president. A former member of the board is now terrorizing our lives because she can't let go of "the power".
Anyone have tips to deal with this "lovely individual"?

I've also been stuck with being 'chosen' to serve in the past. Only way to get out of that thankless position is to simply quit going to meetings, answering complaints, etc. Nobody else was willing to take on the misguided responsibility, so why should you or your wife?

I totally hate HOAs. That's a good part of why I moved out of the city. They are there for some self-serving person or lawyer and never benefit the paying members.

The last time I encountered them ended up in un-based threats of legal action from them only to discover that they neither had a full copy of the deed restrictions, nor were even certified by the state. As a favor to the rest of the persecuted members, I refused to furnish them with my copy of the charter and deed restrictions. Let them feign for themselves if all they want to do is to harass law abiding members. And - HOAs never are constructive - they do nothing for the neighborhood.

Count on me to fight against HOAs should they ever attempt to take control of my abode!

 

[tractchores]

We have a HOA, but it's just a maintenance agreement for the road. There's only one person (currently me) who makes sure the road is passable and bills the others in a set formula. Super simple and no issues. If someone doesn't pay there's a provision to put a lien on their house. There are no restrictive covenants and we maybe meet once per 5-10 years if that. The head of it is volunteer and it's not a real coveted job, I've done it for 5 years so far... But prefer it that way since I pay the most.

In this case I would just be slow getting back, document any issues if they are legit and if not just note them but take no action. Unfortunately it's like bad neighbors there is no getting away. I like the idea of bringing up 'how to contact' ad a subject at a meeting.

 

[Gary Fowler]

I lived in a HOA sub-division and I never would again. They hired an enforcement company to patrol the streets looking for violations. I got a notice once that I couldn't park my boat in the driveway- I was cleaning it up after a fishing trip. It was stored in a storage facility. Got notices to WEED my flower bed- it had nothing but blooming marigolds and roses in it. Hurricane blew down my wood fence, I asked the HOA for fence guidelines for replacement, only got message that it was on line. I looked it up, constructed my replacement fence in accordance and a few weeks later, I got a notice that I had to remove it since I didn't ask the HOA for approval to build. I just mailed back a notice to take me to court, I wasn't removing anything and that it was constructed in accordance with the deed restrictions. Never heard back again. I think the enforcement company just sent notices on anything and everything to show they were doing their job and justify their existence which we didn't need at all. The houses were all well maintained for the most part. The money spent on enforcing by-laws could have been better spent on better lighting in the streets.
They also sent you a notice to mow your lawn if it was more than 3-4" high. By laws stated vacant lots were to be kept mown however vacant lots owned by the sub-division developer never got mowed. I kept the vacant lots on each side of me cleared and mowed just to keep the snake hazard down. I guess I should have sent them a bill for it for the 15 years I did it.

Never, never, never again.

 

[davesl708]

As the President of our HOA and have 3.4 miles of private asphalt roads and a 15 acre lake to maintain we have some old guard that feel they are the "key" members and what they want trumps any other residents.

My solution is to do what needs to be done and apologize later. Their phone calls and emails go unanswered. The problem is they then try to stack the board and get others to pay for their projects. Some of the things they did to control the population ended up in the lake. Problem trees suddenly fell over or died.

 

[Country Geek]

The funniest HOA story was when I lived in the nearby yuppie town, the HOA had a rule that you could only put your yard waste out at the curb the night before the town public works scheduled pickup, which was on Tuesdays. One day the town was a day late with yard waste pickup, I think it was because there were storms that caused a higher than normal volume of downed limbs, etc. Anyway, the following Wednesday morning the management company cruised the subdivision and sent out about 1000 violation letters for people putting their yard waste out a whole week ahead of time. The town public works dept apparently came along right after them and picked up the waste (a day late), because two days later they sent out another 1000 letters thanking everyone for clearing up their violation! What a waste of time, money and effort.

 

[davesl708]

The funniest HOA story was when I lived in the nearby yuppie town, the HOA had a rule that you could only put your yard waste out at the curb the night before the town public works scheduled pickup, which was on Tuesdays. One day the town was a day late with yard waste pickup, I think it was because there were storms that caused a higher than normal volume of downed limbs, etc. Anyway, the following Wednesday morning the management company cruised the subdivision and sent out about 1000 violation letters for people putting their yard waste out a whole week ahead of time. The town public works dept apparently came along right after them and picked up the waste (a day late), because two days later they sent out another 1000 letters thanking everyone for clearing up their violation! What a waste of time, money and effort.

I would never live in a HOA that I did not have the direct ability to manage the HOA. Letting a company control the HOA is a massive waist of money and you no longer have any say in what they do until you can get everyone to vote the company out. If they get a long term contract you are screwed.

 

[MoKelly]

HOA's are like anything in life when you have to deal with other people.

Be honest. Talk to them face-to-face. Be firm. Do what you say.

All will be fine.

MoKelly