Some of you might live in a neighborhood with a Homeowners Association. Some of you may not. We do. We had one in our neighborhood in Columbia, and we have one in our neighborhood here in Phoenix. I have always had mixed feelings about HOA's. On one hand, they take care of the common areas, they ensure that all of the houses are kept up, and they make sure no one does anything crazy that can bring down everyone else's property values. You know, things like painting their house bright purple, or leaving broken down cars on cinder blocks in the front yard. On the other hand, the fees can be seemingly too high for the services they provide, and they can be up in your business for little things that don't really matter. However, the bottom line is that no one has any right to complain about having an HOA. If you have one, then that means you signed the documents agreeing to the rules when you bought your house. If you don't want an HOA, then you could have found a house without one.
Now I will share a rather amusing situation with you where we followed all of the rules and still ended up with the HOA all up in our business. We decided that it was time to give the exterior of our house a new coat of paint. It had been looking like it needed it ever since we moved in, so we decided that we would do it this fall. Of course this is something that has to be approved by the HOA. So we got the proper forms and got an estimate from the painter guy. We submitted the forms along with an explanation of the work and color sample cards. Great. Now we wait. One week. Two weeks. Three weeks. I call them. They say that there is a meeting on November 20, so it will probably be decided then. Ok, fine. We can wait. Then, yesterday, we get an envelope from the HOA. Great, this is probably our approval letter. Nope. Not even close. It was a Non-Compliance Notice. The notice said that they did a visual inspection of our house, and it was determined that the exterior needs to be repainted. We have 10 days to fix the problem, and we must respond to the notice by certified mail. Are you fucking kidding me?
I know that they do random walk throughs of the neighborhood and take note of any houses that are out of compliance. So I assume that the person that inspected our house and issued the Non-Compliance Notice had no idea that we had already submitted for approval to paint the house. But you would think that they might check that before issueing the notice. But beyond that, how the hell do they expect someone to repaint the house within 10 days of the notice? It takes time to get an estimate and pick the colors. And then it apparantly takes them a month to give approval to do the painting.
So now they expect me to pay money to respond to their stupid notice by certified mail when I asked permission to paint the house weeks before they decided that it needed to be painted. It's ridiculous.
-Brian
4 comments:
Those Jacks-asses!!!!
I would show up at the HOA offices in a really really pissed off mood with all your documentation and demand to be seen by whomever they think is the most important person in their office (which everyone knows is such a bullshit job). Then, proceed to be gentle, yet somewhat passive aggressive, ass to this person, emphasizing how law-abiding you are, and how their rules adhere to the lowest common denominator.
Totally worth taking a day off work, to escape their stupid fine.
I bet they all voted for McCain.
It just says 'some exterior elements need repainting'. So take a picture of you painting 'some exterior element' (I'd suggest a spot right next to the new back door), and submit to them, asking if this is one of the elements in question.
I'm not sure they could have been more vague.
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