Another wild HOA story, folks…

It never ends!

And this one is a doozy!

Check out what happened in this story someone shared on Reddit.

Start now!

Taking on the Homeowners Association President.

“This happened when my wife and I got first got married; my grandfather had passed just a couple months before and left me a very sizeable inheritance with a note to make sure I use it smartly to start a good life for my wife and I.

My father in law owns a real estate company that buys foreclosed houses and rehabs them and he knew of a great starter home for my wife and I and agreed to pay to have it rehabbed with the understanding that we would pay him back when we were better established or after two years when we sold the house.

So we bought the house and it took about 90 days to rehab it before we moved in (this is an important fact later on.)

Welcome to the neighborhood…

So we finally move into our house, and had been there about 2 weeks when someone came and knocked on our door stating that they were the Homeowners Association (HOA) President and asked for my landlord’s contact information. I explained that we didn’t rent the home and that we were the owners, and then they followed that up by asking to speak with my parents.

I reiterated again, that I was the home owner and asked them what they wanted. They explained that there was a HOA for the neighborhood and that I needed to sign the HOA Rules and that I owed $90 pro-rated for my dues but that they would give me 30 days to pay as a courteousy, however, they needed me to sign the rules right then.

I told them I wanted to read and review them first before I agreed to sign anything and they were extremely pushy about signing them right then.

I refused and they told me that I had 7 days to sign them and explained that they have legal power to fine me if I do not turn in a signed copy in that time.

Time to make a call…

I called my in laws because I didn’t know anything about HOAs and asked them for their advice, my father in law got mad saying that it should have been disclosed prior to the sale but sometimes with HUD houses that gets missed, we agreed that the $30/month fee wasn’t horrible especially because they did provide a really nice playground for the neighborhood.

So I agreed and signed the rules, there were a couple that seemed a little over the top to me but I agreed anyway because from my understanding at the time, I really didn’t have any choice.

It seemed fine enough until about a month passed and we had a small house warming party with a couple friends; literally, there were less than 8 people there including my wife and I.

Oh, boy…

The house was small but it had a nice deck so we were out back having a small fire using a fire pit one of our friends had just given us, when I heard someone knocking at the door. No, pounding, like a freaking cop. I just went around the house and there was the HOA President, with his car in front of my house, with a yellow police light on top.

Yes, I’m serious. I asked him how I could help him, and he very sternly told me that I was in violation of the HOA rules by throwing a party outside of approved hours (10 pm curfew) and that I needed to send my friends home or quietly take it inside, I checked my watch and it was 10:05pm.

I was amazed, but we took it inside regardless. The next day, THE VERY NEXT DAY, I had a letter from the HOA stating that it was my official warning for violation of the HOA rules by throwing a, and I quote, “Wild bonfire” that was a safety hazard while drinking (I literally hadn’t drank at all). Whatever, I brush it off and figured it was no big deal.

Flash Forward 6-9 months; we were hosting a Teen Group devotional for our church one afternoon and we were playing a game of football in the street. We lived on a connecting street that got virtually no traffic, and only had two houses on it, ours and the family across from us, who’s kids were also playing in the game.

This guy is insane.

All the sudden I hear a police siren, and see the yellow light flashing; HOA President gets out and tells us that we have to break it up immediately as it’s a safety hazard because one of the kids could run over.

I was fed up with him and told him that they were fine and that we’ve been watching for cars and that he was literally the first car we’ve seen and we had been playing for over an hour at that point.

He insists and asks what would happen if an ambulance or police officer needed to come down that street to save someone’s life (this was stupid because literally both streets we were connected to have entrances from the main road); I gave in and we went inside.

Next day, I get a letter explaining that I was being fined $60 (the maximum fine allowed for a 1st offence) and that if I wanted to protest it, I could attend the next HOA meeting. I decide that I want to protest the fine but noticed that the fine was due in 30 days and the next HOA meeting wasn’t for 35 days.

I opted not to pay until after the hearing and wrote a letter back to the HOA President stating as such; I go to the meeting and it’s literally myself, the HOA President, the HOA Secretary (President’s wife), Vice President (President’s neighbor), and Treasurer (Vice President’s wife).

My protest was immediately overruled, and I was also charged a $30 late fee for not paying on time, despite notifying him.

I was fed up, I couldn’t take it any longer, but realized I really didn’t have any recourse. About 4-5 months later, we gave birth to our first child and about a month after that I was driving home one night (I was working a second job in retail at the time) and my buddy in the military called me.

You know what’s coming next…

He had been deployed when my daughter was born and was calling to congratulate me; when I got home, I didn’t want to risk waking up my sleeping newborn daughter so I just sat in my car with the engine running as it was a little chilly outside. I sat there for about half an hour when I heard the police siren, and saw the yellow lights.

Now keep in mind, police sirens aren’t quiet and this was right in front of my house; his stupid yellow light was flashing everywhere including into my daughter’s bedroom. I got out of the car, and rather rudely told him to turn off the light as to not wake my daughter.

He explained that I “looked suspicious” sitting in my car with it running outside of my house, I explained the situation and he told me I had to go inside and that my “history of being a trouble maker” wouldn’t grant me any leniency.

I basically told him where I thought he could go and proceeded to sit on the hood of my car.

He sat there for another 15 minutes telling me I needed to go in and at one point touched my shoulder, I explained to him that if he touched me again I would take it as a sign of aggression and defend myself, which he responded by getting in his car and leaving.

He circled the block about 4 times the next thirty minutes which was when I got too cold to stay out and finally went inside.

Next day, I get a hand delivered letter from him and the Vice President, and he also asks me to step outside to “Talk about last night’s incident”.

He explains that he was “being nice” by not calling the police on me after I “threatened” him, at which point I cut him off and told him that he needed to get off my property before I called the police on him for trespassing.

This is ridiculous…

I read the letter and saw that he was giving me 2 different fines for $180 each which were the maximum amounts. One for violating curfew, and one for “disobeying the night watchman”. I was done, I had reached my breaking point.

This is where the revenge comes in; I start looking into HOA laws and regulations regarding fines and how to protest them because I felt like this was clearly abuse.

I find that the law states that you must be notified of an HOA 10 days prior to closing on a house and must be served with the HOA rules within 45 days of PURCHASE or you are not subject to being forced to participate in the HOA.

I remember that we weren’t served until after we moved in which was close to 90 days after we closed.

So I called my real estate agent who is a very close family friend (my in laws have bought literally thousands of houses from her over the past 35 years) and asked if she had the paperwork still and she said she can get me a copy.

A ha!

I looked and it was over 90 days after purchase that we were notified AND there was no disclosure statement at closing. Relator says she must have misplaced it because it’s required by law to be provided prior to the sale and basically that she wouldn’t miss something like that because it comes to her when they do a title inspect on the house whether or not there is a registered HOA.

She does a little digging and calls me back two days later and says that my neighborhood doesn’t have an HOA registered with the city or county which is required.

I end up calling the county office in charge of registering and give them the neighborhood name and she says that our neighborhood is registered in the other city and not in our city, and that if we wanted to start an HOA we would have to follow these certain steps, and that without those, the HOA wouldn’t be allowed to collect any money or have any authority.

Apparently what had happened was our neighborhood was originally all in one city, but when the city lines changes the neighborhood was split in half.

The other neighborhood kept the HOA that was registered and our “HOA President” was supposed to register with the state, but didn’t feel like jumping through all of the hoops that it required.

I was ready to walk down to the President’s house and rip into him, but decided to be smart for a minute. I talked to my neighbor across the street, who also couldn’t stand the HOA, and told him what I found out.

He was furious about it as well, we talked to a few more and get a group of about 10 of us together that agree we need to show up at the next HOA meeting, word had apparently spread because there ended up being more people than the library meeting room could host.

Time for some payback.

I had specifically asked to be the speaker for the group, which they were nice enough to let me do, the President tried to prevent me from speaking due to being overdue on my fines (At this point, I’m about 3 weeks late on my last set of fines with a $30/week penalty on each fine, so my current bill is set to about $540) , but I spoke anyway.

I explained to them that I had contacted my in laws attorney (also a family friend) who had drafted together a lawsuit regarding the fact they were impersonating a registered HOA in order to collect money from us which was fraud.

The President dismissed me and said I had no idea what I was talking about and that he had “had enough of my antics”; the staff members all left immediately while the rest of us stayed and talked.

A month later we served them formally, myself and 20 other home owners, suing them for all fines and HOA dues we had paid, to the tune of approximately $50k as some of these families had been there over 10 years.

Doh!

The President and Vice President got their own attorney who attempted to legitimatize the HOA but it required the signature of like 90% of the home owners. They got 3 signatures, including the two of themselves (some other old bitter hag signed).

After that failed they tried to settle by agreeing to abolish the HOA and showed that they hadn’t financially gained from it and that all funds had been used for the park upkeep, snow removal, and other neighborhood events.

We took a vote and this was turned down in overwhelming fashion (I was surprised, I actually voted to accept this), then about a week later one of the other families calls and mentions something about the park maintenance and snow removal.

Apparently he had given a quote to do the landscaping for the park (cutting the grass, mulching, etc.) and his quote had been a couple hundred bucks cheaper than what they were paying and that it had always bothered him because the person that did those jobs was the Vice President’s son, and that what they were paying him was pretty outrageous in terms of what’s standard.

Eventually it went to court, where the judge looked at everything and mandated that they pay $21,000 ($1000 per home owner), plus attorney and court fees which were like another $2,000 for a total of $23,000 in damages.

Additionally, they were fined by the city’s governing body after it was reported; I don’t know how much that fine was though.

We ended up selling the house that following summer, but I talked to a couple friends that still lived there about a year after it and they said that the President and Vice President both sold their houses and moved away because they were pretty much despised by everyone in the neighborhood and that they had an informal HOA that people donated to for upkeep of the park.”

Now let’s see what people had to say on Reddit.

This person shared their thoughts.

Another individual spoke up.

This Reddit user chimed in.

Another person asked a good question…

This person had a lot to say.

Mind your business and you’ll be just fine!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.