From a practical point of view, probably not. I am guessing there is some kind of a homeowners association for the community and that there is an appropriate set of rules filed in the public record that restrict the ownership rights of you as a land owner.

The decision makers on such a board are usually limited to people who have absolutely nothing else to do other than mind other people's business and who are intoxicated by the first whiff of authority they have ever had in their entire lives.

Your alternatives are probably pretty limited:

Run for the board to get your way.

Sue/threaten to sue, but realize the deck is stacked against you and, if you lose, you will probably be on the hook for the their legal fees which will become a lien on your property.

Sweet talk your way through your problem, and find a way to get along.

I recommend the last alternative.

I am not a lawyer, I have just paid many times more than any member of the bar for my legal education.

"I am not a lawyer, I have just paid many times more than any member of the bar for my legal education."

I'll bet you haven't... ;)

Art is probably right in this respect. If there is a homeowner's association to which all community members must belong, then it probably has bylaws and governance rules that permit the board to implement prescisely the rules you're complaining about.

If you don't like it, then you need to convince the other members that the rules are too restrictive and/or get more sympathetic people on the board.

It's possible that the board is overstepping its authority, but I would need to see the bylaws to know what their powers may be. If you have any lawyer friends, maybe they can review the bylaws... You should be able to get a copy, as they are a matter of public record.

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Steve Perkins

I only wish what you said were true.

He should probably check the HOA documents which are on file in the county public records. Most counties have them online at this point, so he probably never has to leave his office.

There is no substitute for reading the documents. Yes, they are long and tedious, but it really is English and it is understandable with a little patience.

The key document you need to look for is called "Covenants, Conditions and Restrictions" otherwise known as CC&R's. This is the document that gives an HOA its power. You will have received a copy when you bought the property. If not, check the with the county recorder's office (the place where you would find your deed.) If there is no such document, the HOA is a voluntary association and you can opt out.

If your property is bound to an HOA, then get the most recent copy of the bylaws. Pick them apart (and the CC&R's) to see if the ARB is jumping through all of the hoops required of it. If not, scream foul. You can also argue policy.

That is how this attorney type does it. It can be tedious in the extreme. I have messed with a few HOA's and it is my considered opinion that a crazier bunch of petty dictators would be hard to find.

Good luck.

thank you all for taking the time to repsond.

In deference to AJ and as the presiding El Presidente' of my HOA, You said they are making the rules tougher and tougher. The beauty of that is everybody has to live by the same rules (i.e. they can't build a deck and then put in a rule that says no more decks but the old ones are ok). The downside is if they don't want decks, nobody has one, but you want one in the future.

Check your CC&R's and make sure that they have followed all of the rules, I will bet dollars to donuts that they haven't followed all of the rules and thats when it gets fun. See, none of the rules are written in any larger font than any of the others. So if they are breaking some of the rules then none of the rules apply. In our HOA it has turned to anarchy.

For our HOA, nobody read the rules about the architecture review board (ARB) so the HOA board acted like it for two years, thing is, they didn't have any authority as the ARB was supposed to be voted seperately. Funny thing was while the no-authorized ARB was making decisions on fences and sheds nobody minded that 50% of the nieghborhood was breaking the leaving the tarsh can outside their garage rule, which I've since pointed out was the same font as the no shed rule, now nobody is raising a fuss about sheds becuase nobody wants to bring their garbage cans in.

Not only did the old board break the rules themselves (making themselves the ARB and allowing some rules to be broken while acting on others) they never followed the meeting rules which required written notice before any board meeting and they never followed the quorum rules either.

When you bought the property a copy of the CC&Rs were supposed to be given to you. If they weren't, its likely that you aren't even covered by them. If you did receive a copy, read them carefully, If you don't find a fistfull of broken rules and loopholes I owe you a donut.



Like I said, I'm president and I wouldn't wish the job on my worst neighbor.

I am sure what bvfrompc says is 100% accurate. The problem is trying to enforce the fact that they have abdicated their authority when they don't happen to agree. Lawsuit city. Very risky, and you will probably lose, regardless of the merits. If you lose, you will lose big.

Find a way to get along.

Caveat, I'm not a lawyer but I have watched a lot of them on TV

Your saying if I do something like put a shed in my yard and the ARB decides to fine me leading to a lien that I can't go to arbitration or small claims court and point out:

#1 In my case, the rules are being followed haphazardly and give examples of how others are breaking rules and nothing happens (i.e. garbage cans).

#2 In my case, that the ARB and the board have not followed their own rules in terms of meeting notices and such (no written notice of meetings or quorums required at the meetings)

#3 In my case that the ARB was never created properly (never voted on by the members)

#4 In my case that the Design Guidlines operated under aren't even for our neighborhood (the builder switched in mid build of the development and what was supposed to be multi family housing on a radically different configured street turned out to be single family on different layout, but no-one read the design guidlines close enough to realize we don't even live in the community

#5 In my case, our CC&R's require all backyard designs be reviewed and approved before starting on the work even though 90% of the residents had moved in and landscaped before our HOA had its first meeting and two and half years and waiting for the real ARB to be voted on.

With that case, I'll take my chances in any court.

So, two years after moving in I get elected to be our president, I wasn't even going to show up at the meeting because I think its all a farce. Momma gets sick the day before and asks me to go and find out whats going on, next thing I know I get three nominations and a strong vote of confidence from the neighbors because as far as i can tell, we are one of 4 houses (out of 26) in the nieghborhood that has:

No Fences

No Dogs

No garbage in our yard

No grudges between the neighbors

Landscaped quietly and completely

Can read and understand contracts

Frankly given the f up in how our HOA has been run I have no idea how to get everybody on board, BUT I have a plan, its call meetings according to our rules, have members vote according to our rules, and let them govern themselves. When you read our rules carefully its up to the owners to show up and decide how they want their HOA to run, only member apathy allows the board run the show.

At my first presiding meeting, that was noticed 30 days in advance by mail as required, nobody showed up (that would not be a quorum), I called a continuation of the meeting and rescheduled for a month later as required by our rules, and sent out a new notice of the continuation, now next month who ever shows up is the quorum per our rules and they will get to vote on lots of fun stuff, fines, an actual ARB, what the nieghborhood wants done with garbage, sheds, and fences. If they only knew how much say they had it would boggle them.

The problem is it probably doesn't go to arbitration. It probably goes to court. HOA gets lawyer involved. Lawyer runs up a bill, much of which is devoted to telling HOA how to cure all of the defects. They cure. Case drags on.

Two years and $10K later in legal bills for you, $35K in legal bills for HOA case is heard by incompetent country court judge (is there any other kind?) who just transferred over from family court. He knows nothing about Real Estate law since he forgot everything he knew about the law after he finally passed the Bar Exam on his fourth try. Instead he decides to do what he thinks is "right."

As a good Solomen, he splits the baby. Your fence and porch have to go, but the fines for the garbage cans and wandering dog are dismissed. You get to pay your lawyer and only half of the other lawyer's fee. The lawyer writes off the other half of the fee as a courtesy to the HOA in order to get their next case.

Sure, you can appeal. The transcript will cost $4,000 and the lawyer needs a $2,500 fee. The appeal is dismissed after six months by a panel of three judges who never take oral argument, probably never even read the papers and write a one liner saying appeal is denied. Oh, you owe the HOA another $4,500 for their lawyer, and your credit rating is problematic.

Welcome to justice in America.

Maybe you should just try to get along afterall, or, as I also suggested, run for the Board.

Holy Shnieky Niles, see above, sell your land and get into a non HOA neighborhood. Thats what momma and I have decided after two years of living in one, it may or not happen four or five years down the road but if we move it will be one of the things we look for.

Go to the meetings if you can, get elected if you can and want to deal with all of this.

You never did say what it was that was bugging you about the rules.

If you live in an area with a lot of retirees, who have lots of money and time on their hands, a HOA can make your life miserable. Most places, you can do what you want because the HOA is either (a) defunct or semi-defunct, or (b) broke, and therefore has no money to sue you with. Restrictive covenants are not enforced by the police, so the HOA has to take you to civil court.

How about that one down in South Florida who sued some ex-Marine for putting up an American flag? I think the HOA lost.

My advice--do what you want, within reason. I'm not talking opening an auto repair shop in your backyard, but something "tasteful" that doesn't exactly meet the rules probably won't get you sued. You don't want to sh*t in your own nest anyway (at least if you are a reasonable person) so you want to protect your own property values as much as, if not more than, they do.

I was president of a HOA for three years straight, then came back for an additional year later. Why would I take on such an utterly thankless job? Because I needed to some kind of influence over the insanity that was prevailing on the HOA board. It worked, and I was able to restore common sense to the board - although it took many months - and I was also able to get my problems with the HOA resolved in my favor. I was also able to lead the board in a successful lawsuit against the builder (pretty common story in San Diego). After three years, I called it quits, feeling I had given my pound of sweat and more. A few years after I resigned, the board called me and begged me to run for president again, so I did another one year stint before selling that property. So I strongly encourage you to run for a board position. You'll probably find that most of the members are running unopposed, because no one really wants to take on the kind of grief that the board gets. For every complaint you might have about the board, they probably hear ten idiotic complaints that are really just childish whining - at least that was my experience. Once you're on the board, you have good leverage for getting your requests approved.

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Live long and surf!

Illinois has a set of laws the regulates what a HOA can and can't do. I've never looked it up but I have a few neighbors that wave it around at our annual meetings at the board and make empty legal threats against them. One thing I'm sure of is that our board members haven't looked at the document and are betting most owners haven't either. So they're more then likely going on the principal of do what we want then ask for forgiveness later. Look to see if the State in question has the same type of law, and the decide if its worth it you to press the laws if they exist or move on to less hostile surroundings.

1) They have to approve my floor plans

2)They want to approve all building materials from paint to shingles to walls.

3) They want to choose every tree I trim cut and weed out.

4) They want me to pay 50.00 for the right to have them review these things.

5) They said there are more rules to folow when they start getting real picky.

Wis I could help you,

Come to our HOA, we have never charged the review fee, but all of the houses were built under the same general plan and from the same builder so the floorplans and such were already decided.

I am guessing if they are that serious that you are living under a CC&R which you received when you purchased the land?

Where is this mountain property? Wherever, sell it and come to Park City, you will be able to buy twice as much land, views etc, than you can get in most mountain towns.

This really isn't so bad. You should be able to work through all of htis to everyone's satisfaction. As far as I can tell, at this point you have no substantive disagreements.

I would be surprised if you couldn't find a way to get along. My current construction project was heavily upgraded by town authorities before I got involved. I wouldn't have bought it without doing those improvements. The original partner was extremely pissed about being forced to do those things.

Those changes were among the best things ever done for the property at the end of the day.

My point is that the HOA might be doing you a favor.