Communities with an HOA

[Starport Seven-Five]

One thing to keep in mind with HOAs is that they're only as powerful as their funding. A HOA with 15k in annual revenue isn't going to have the funds to hire a lawyer and actually force compliance while one with 250k+ might. No idea which situation the OP is in but my current HOA is laughable as they frankly don't have the muscle to enforce their rules.

HOAs are generally a lot of smoke and mirrors that only work because people comply. When things really go south and a homeowner ignores notices/fines you see how powerless they really are.

 

[Searc]

Yup, because I have never seen garbage trucks out getting in the way when everyone else is trying to get to work and moving about their business during the day. Around here, garbage routes run over night. If I forgot the garbage and I happen to wake up half an hour early at 4:30, I'd be running out trying to get the garbage out as the truck went by. Dead end road, so I had time for when he returned through.

My mother's garbage comes around 3 am.

I've never seen one collecting residential in waking hours.

Thank god our garbage and recycling is picked up only during the day. You can hear those trucks coming from three blocks away and I would not be happy if they woke me up every time they picked up garbage.

 

[LongLiveRafiki]

All of the things listed here have alternate solutions that would allow him to abide by the HOA bylaws. If he chose to move to the HOA with these rules in place, that's on him. If he chose to take this job and procure this truck after living in the HOA with the rules in place, that's also on him. We have a boat and are not allowed to park it in our driveway or on our property according to our HOA bylaws. So, we pay for a slip in the summer and pay for storage in the winter. We knew this was a rule when buying the boat and factored that into the cost of everything.

All of my what ifs were in regards to IF either the HOA rules changed after he moved in OR the job or truck was a new development after he moved in. I agree that you should not move into a place knowing that you are going to be breaking the rules. I also understand that if you're living somewhere and know certain rules are in place, you shouldn't do something you know is prohibited. I was just arguing the side of sometimes circumstances change and despite your best efforts, you get stuck with a less than ideal situation. If he had this truck when he moved in and THEN the bylaws were written initially or were changed, I can see him feeling he should have been grandfathered in (or maybe he was told he was and there's a new HOA head now or they are trying to go back on it and OP doesn't know the details). Or if he lost his job and this is all he can get right now and there is no where else he can park his truck, which again is no one else's problem, but makes it a bit more understandable. Or like I said, a disagreement in the terms of the bylaws. Overall, I was just trying to state that there are so many factors that could be coming into play with this issue and no guarantee that the OP knows all of the details. OP acknowledged that they recently moved there and that HOA was established prior to them moving in. Any number of things concerning this issue could have transpired before OP moved in. Not saying this is happening in this situation, but the HOA could be telling OP one thing and the tow truck owner another, or just not telling OP everything.

This is true - rules do change. But if this is the case in OP's neighbor's scenario, then he would have had ample opportunity to voice his opposition to the rule. It wouldn't necessarily stop the community from passing the change, but everyone would have been on notice how this is now causing great inconvenience to him. If this occurred, I guess its possible the HOA could have "grandfathered" him in or given special permission with certain restrictions (we've done this in our community), and the OP may just not be privy to that.

Exactly. I just have a hard time completely condemning the truck driver when we may not have all of the info.

 

[mrodgers]

Thank god our garbage and recycling is picked up only during the day. You can hear those trucks coming from three blocks away and I would not be happy if they woke me up every time they picked up garbage.

I would not be happy sitting in a line of cars waiting behind the garbage trucks sitting on the crest of the hill nor would I be happy some idiot who always passes the cars waiting and the garbage truck at the crest of a hill if I was coming in the opposite direction.

My commute was 20 miles and 20 minutes and at 5 am I encountered the garbage trucks, but it was only me and him and I could wait patiently for them to unload the cans and move over that crest of hill before I went around and on my way. Much better than sitting in a line of 20 cars during the day.

 

[Searc]

I would not be happy sitting in a line of cars waiting behind the garbage trucks sitting on the crest of the hill nor would I be happy some idiot who always passes the cars waiting and the garbage truck at the crest of a hill if I was coming in the opposite direction.

My commute was 20 miles and 20 minutes and at 5 am I encountered the garbage trucks, but it was only me and him and I could wait patiently for them to unload the cans and move over that crest of hill before I went around and on my way. Much better than sitting in a line of 20 cars during the day.

LOL There is no line of cars here. They are either in a neighborhood with zero traffic or a state highway on the shoulder.

 

[mrodgers]

One thing to keep in mind with HOAs is that they're only as powerful as their funding. A HOA with 15k in annual revenue isn't going to have the funds to hire a lawyer and actually force compliance while one with 250k+ might. No idea which situation the OP is in but my current HOA is laughable as they frankly don't have the muscle to enforce their rules.

HOAs are generally a lot of smoke and mirrors that only work because people comply. When things really go south and a homeowner ignores notices/fines you see how powerless they really are.

Powerless until you want to sell the house and can't because there are liens on the house.

 

[Boopuff]

I love the HOA saga. We have the dreaded "purple van" that does drive-by compliance checks. Our community facebook page lights up with notices that "she's driving around!!" Sure enough within a few days people start posting that she gave them a "notice"! Our HOA sends a lovely photo of the non-compliant issue. love it

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I would not be happy sitting in a line of cars waiting behind the garbage trucks sitting on the crest of the hill nor would I be happy some idiot who always passes the cars waiting and the garbage truck at the crest of a hill if I was coming in the opposite direction.

My commute was 20 miles and 20 minutes and at 5 am I encountered the garbage trucks, but it was only me and him and I could wait patiently for them to unload the cans and move over that crest of hill before I went around and on my way. Much better than sitting in a line of 20 cars during the day.

Any traffic in the neighborhoods around here is caused by people dropping off, picking up their kids or driving to work not the garbage trucks.

Outside of the neighborhoods you're far more likely to encounter trains that stop you. I live on the west side of my city and 88 trains per day go through just the west side with only 1 crossing being elevated. The east side about 15yrs ago got attention on elevating tracks. Thankfully they are getting serious about ways to help that but BNSF owns the rails and they are very hard to work with and it's incredibly expensive too.

The highways are just normal rush hour issues.

 

[Starport Seven-Five]

Powerless until you want to sell the house and can't because there are liens on the house.

Putting a lien on a house is relatively costly as well. Very few HOAs go down that route despite it being popular lore.

A good property attorney will ask for receipts from the HOA showing no balance owed before closing on a property but that is different than a lien as it doesn't block the transaction.

 

[nkereina]

We are in a new development. All of the houses are less than two years old. The HOA rules haven't changed in two years, and if they had we'd know about it. The HOA board always responds promptly to every email we've sent, and according to them, they are doing everything they can to get the truck owner to comply with the rules. Nothing has worked yet.

I'm not sure what the eye roll emojis are for. I don't believe it had been confirmed to this point that the rules never changed. Now we know that's a non-factor.

All of my what ifs were in regards to IF either the HOA rules changed after he moved in OR the job or truck was a new development after he moved in. I agree that you should not move into a place knowing that you are going to be breaking the rules. I also understand that if you're living somewhere and know certain rules are in place, you shouldn't do something you know is prohibited. I was just arguing the side of sometimes circumstances change and despite your best efforts, you get stuck with a less than ideal situation. If he had this truck when he moved in and THEN the bylaws were written initially or were changed, I can see him feeling he should have been grandfathered in (or maybe he was told he was and there's a new HOA head now or they are trying to go back on it and OP doesn't know the details). Or if he lost his job and this is all he can get right now and there is no where else he can park his truck, which again is no one else's problem, but makes it a bit more understandable. Or like I said, a disagreement in the terms of the bylaws. Overall, I was just trying to state that there are so many factors that could be coming into play with this issue and no guarantee that the OP knows all of the details. OP acknowledged that they recently moved there and that HOA was established prior to them moving in. Any number of things concerning this issue could have transpired before OP moved in. Not saying this is happening in this situation, but the HOA could be telling OP one thing and the tow truck owner another, or just not telling OP everything.

Since the OP confirmed rule changes never occurred, that's a moot point now. But if the neighbor's circumstances changed after moving into the HOA, he needs to make alternate arrangements for his truck. I can understand the HOA giving him a grace period while he does that, but he can't expect them to put up with it indefinitely just because he got a new job.

 

[jsmith]

Putting a lien on a house is relatively costly as well. Very few HOAs go down that route despite it being popular lore.

The people who live in the house across the street from me harbored the idea that they could simply not particpate-they did not pay the HOA fee at all-for 10 years-they have been evicted from their home and the house is currently up for auction to satisfy the liens-so it can and does happen.

 

[NYCgrrl]

Putting a lien on a house is relatively costly as well. Very few HOAs go down that route despite it being popular lore.

A good property attorney will ask for receipts from the HOA showing no balance owed before closing on a property but that is different than a lien as it doesn't block the transaction.

The people who live in the house across the street from me harbored the idea that they could simply not particpate-they did not pay the HOA fee at all-for 10 years-they have been evicted from their home and the house is currently up for auction to satisfy the liens-so it can and does happen.

I suppose it depends on the area and how the governing documents were written up. Here it's easy peasy to get the funds back via lien or foreclosure by bank as the papers make the corporation first in line for payback. Parts of Michigan had a free for all in the recent past when industries moved or closed down thus many foreclosures, destabilization of neighborhoods and devaluation of property.