Quote of the Day

August 29, 2015
Without suing, owner is locked in a losing battle with HOA board

My home has become a paper jungle of file cabinets, faxes, copy machines and chalkboards. All my savings have been spent fighting this association, and I lost my job because of it. I want to sue the board but can't afford it. How did I get in this mess and what can I do about it?

I remember attending a homeowner association meeting a few years ago, near the peak of the housing bubble. Homeowners had become especially fixated on property values, as you might expect. I sat next to one of my neighbors. In front of him was a large thick binder filled with pictures of things his neighbors did that annoyed him.

He wished to share his pictures with me, and I was more than a bit curious. My neighbors had rarely done things to annoy me. One by one, he flipped the pages. Each picture became a puzzle for me to solve. I recall a picture of garbage can. Turns out that this particular neighbor left the can out too long. Oh, the humanity. There were many more pictures of similar things that he found equally horrific.

At some point, he flipped to a page showing a metal sign in a person's yard that showed a dog with an arched back and poop on the ground below it. The sign also had a red circle with a line through it. Finally! I understood exactly what he was talking about! That sign did seem a bit over the top and more than a bit tacky. I was just about to agree with him when he told me something that really surprised me. It was his sign. He apparently felt the need to put it in his yard to discourage the neighbors from letting their pets use the bathroom on his property. Hahaha! I therefore opted to keep my mouth shut.

Was he a bit crazy? Yeah, maybe. I will say this for him though. To the best of my knowledge, he did not turn his home into a paper jungle of file cabinets, faxes, copy machines and chalkboards. He did not spend his life savings on his obsession, nor did he lose his job over it.

Moral of the story? Do yourself a favor. Don't let homeowner association politics consume your life. Otherwise, you might someday find yourself asking the following question too.

How did I get in this mess and what can I do about it?