His HOA Want To Keep A Man-Made Pond On This Homeowner’s Property, But It’s A Pain To Maintain And Random People Use It And Can Get Hurt. Now They’re Calling Him Selfish For Wanting To Fill It In.

Matthew Gilligan

3 months ago

Source: Reddit/AITA

This story is yet another shining example of why people who have any doubts or questions about their property should get proper surveys so they can be positive about what belongs to them…

And then they can do something like this guy did!

Take a look at this story from Reddit’s “Am I the *******?” page: we think you’ll be impressed!

WIBTA for filling in a man-made “pond” against some neighbors’ wishes?

“For the past several years, I’ve owned a property in a semi-rural area.

It is part of an HOA with only 12 houses over 1000 acres, so we don’t get much in each others’ way.

There is a “common area” that abuts my property and on it there is a “pond” that is fed via an irrigation headgate on a creek on my property and a cut that runs from it through my property.

I’ve come to discover this pond is a real pain.

One neighbor used to maintain it (without making a fuss) but he passed away.

It’s on them now.

So dealing with it fell to me, as the neighbor most affected by it. And it’s a pain.

People trespass to go fishing or having their dogs swim in it. People from outside have come to ice-skate on it (totally not safe!).

It has silting problems.

The headgate needs to be dug out every spring, sometimes multiple times. The cut clogs up and has to be cleared.

Then a beaver took up residence and kept blocking the outflow culvert, causing a flood on neighboring farmer’s land (he was rightly mad and I got the brunt of it).

I was clearing out beaver blockages several days a week.

It’s all mine!

Nobody else in the HOA would help.

I did some research and discovered that the water right for the headgate belonged to *me alone* and not the association (whoops!), there was no easement for the irrigation cut and, cherry on the sundae, the pond is actually on my property and not common area.

Had a survey done just to be sure.

I also discovered it wasn’t really a “pond” — it was a hole dug up to provide fill for our road and the original developer just routed irrigation into the hole and called it a “pond”, but this explains why it is such a mess.

A landowner a mile away is now digging out a proper pond and he has to pay a ton to dispose of the fill (even though it is clean).

I asked if it would help if he could put some of the fill in our “pond” and he offered to pay for the privilege.

Sorry, not sorry!

I have closed the headgate and started draining the pond.

Some members of the HOA have been yelling at me that they like the pond (just to look at as they drive out to the main road).

So I said, ok, if you like it, pay up $10K a year for someone to deal with the nonsense.

They refused, I said that in that case the pond is getting filled in and planted with native grass, using the money from taking the fill.

They call me a selfish *******.

Am I?”

Check out what people had to say on Reddit.

This person said he’s NTA.