Homeowner’s associations are notorious for enforcing their strict rules, even when people living in the neighborhood don’t like it.

What happens when the rule they are trying to enforce contradicts state law?

That’s what the people in this story are facing, read on to see how it goes.

My parents’ HOA tried to use a 40-year-old rule to stop them from repairing hurricane damage and got the shaft for their trouble.

A few months back, as you all may remember, Florida got pretty beaten up by a couple of hurricanes.

My folks live down there, and while none of the damage that they sustained was life-alteringly horrible or home destroying, home owners insurance kicked in and they had some water damage through the roof.

They also needed a new roof because of all of the shingles that had come off/debris that had punctured it.

Good choice!

My folks looked through roofing options and determined that a metal roof would be a great option to reduce damage/maintenance on their home.

Plus, it would serve as a more energy-efficient option with passive solar collection and fewer thermal losses in the summer/winter.

Its more expensive, but my dad was basically a personal finance expert while I was growing up.

He’s in his 60’s and has finally concluded that he has F-You Money so long as that community is concerned, so the roof was a good investment.

It looked like a win-win-win with that roof.

Then they reviewed the HOA and saw that, as of 1989, metal roofs are prohibited in the neighborhood, subject to fines and mandatory removal.

Reviewing the bylaw further showed that it was clearly referring to older, crappier tin roofs, not a proper metal one like today’s market provides, which looks great and has all of those other benefits.

It is nice they called to get permission.

My folks wanted to play by the rules, though, and called up the HOA to explain the situation.

HOA was friendly and said that they would be looking into that bilaw, and that my folks weren’t the only ones who requested that they be allowed to have a metal roof.

My parents couldn’t get a roofing contractor in for a few months anyway (too much demand since everyone else’s roof got wrecked), so they waited a few weeks and got nothing new out of the HOA.

Tried again a few weeks later. Nothing.

Why were they being ignored?

After two months of this, they said screw it and started construction on the metal roof.

Popular opinion in the neighborhood was on their side, and the roof was covered with a tarp that wouldn’t last forever.

The new roof got installed over the course of a few days— and then we found out the HOA’s intentions.

The neighborhood has a nice brick sign out front that says “WELCOME TO (Neighborhood name).”

It’s very classy, very nice— and was very damaged in a hurricane.

The HOA was strapped for money due to other repairs/dues, and some jerk had the bright idea to impose as many fines as they could on the neighborhood to pay for these repairs— starting with my folks.

That is an insane fine!

They served my folks with a letter claiming that they were in violation of the HOA, and demanded a $25,000 fine and that they remove it.

Which is, of course, absurd.

My poor mother is very much a play-by-the-rules sort, and she was worried sick.

Dad’s ex navy and a contract negotiator.

He essentially checked his 60-year-old knuckles and said, “oh, you little jerks wanna play, do ya?”

So, they set about researching and making some calls.

Poor mom kept waking up at 1 am unable to sleep, and I felt terrible for her as she went through this.

But then, they had a breakthrough.

A few weeks after being served (I’m fuzzy on the timeline since I don’t live in Florida, it may have been less) there was essentially a “burn them at the stake” meeting of the HOA where my parents could defend themselves for an absurdly short amount of time and the HOA could rip into them for daring to defy their wrath.

So my mom (because she’s more social/has a better temper than dad) comes up to speak, and let’s the HOA know that they can’t do this.

HOA smirks and says that they sure can, they have a 40-year-old statute saying that they can.

Mom is bringing the heat!

Mom says, “you do. But I have State Law on my side, which supersedes your statute.”

Turns out, there’s a law in Florida stating that an HOA (or really, any regulation) cannot be used to prevent an eco-friendly improvement from taking place on anyone’s private property.

And wouldn’t you know it— the passive solar of the metal roof counts as an eco-friendly improvement.

Turns out, the roofing contractors have dealt with similar stuff before.

When dad mentioned what was going on to them, the contracting officer pulled out a few letters of accreditation and a few past cases where the court had determined that their product was eco-friendly and forced the HOA to pay all legal fees.

My mom produced all of this for the HOA, who had to admit that this was in fact iron-clad. Strapped for money as they were, they couldn’t afford to pay a lawyer.

HOA head growls, “is that all?”

Mom turns up the sweetness to 11. “No. I see in the bilaws that we can vote to impeach board members at any HOA meeting and to elect their replacements. I move to impeach all of you. I nominate my husband, and…” she rattles off a list of names.

HOA is stunned.

While dad looked into the legal, mom looked into the new neighborhood.

Popular opinion was on their side, and the hearing was public for the neighborhood.

Mom convinced a majority of the home owners to attend and remove the board for their crappy policy.

With that, my parents are now on the all new board, and dad is putting his contract negotiation skills/own craftsmanship skills to work repairing the front entrance.

And metal roofs are now allowed by the all new HOA.

Well played! It is great when people can put an HOA in its place.

Let’s read some comments to see what they have to say.

Mom is taking over.

That would be great.

They will beat you with experience.

I’m sure mom is doing great.

Yup, this HOA seems shady.

Way to put an end to a corrupt HOA!

If you liked that post, check out this post about a woman who tracked down a contractor who tried to vanish without a trace.