HOA Kept Making Demands And Finally Took Things Too Far By Cutting Down A Homeowner’s Prized Oak Trees, So He Sued Them For Emotional Damage And It Cost Them $750k

Matthew Gilligan

3 months ago

Source: Reddit

This is how it’s done, folks…

Hitting an HOA right where it hurts and making those folks PAY.

That’s what this person did and they shared the story on Reddit.

Check out what happened!

How to get rid of an HOA.

“A good friend of mine has about 4 years ago inherited the house of his grandparents.

He decided to live there for the time being till he has decided what to do with the house. He grew up in it, so he did not really want to sell it.

Here they come!

Not even a week after he moved in, he got a visit from a neighborhood committee. They said they are the 3 board members of the HOA , and are here so he can sign his membership papers.

They where extremely nosy and rude, for example one tried to get into the garage without so much as asking.

When he stopped him and asked him where he wanted to go, he had the audacity to say:”I need to check your garage, if everything there is in order. I have a right to do this bi-weekly, and denying me access is a an offense that will cost a fine.”

Get outta here!

He then had enough of their audacity and kicked them out of the house. Whole doing so, one of the board members shoved some papers into his face and told him he needed to sign this right now.

He would live there a week already, and this papers had to be signed BEFORE moving in. Once they were gone, he took a look at the papers. They were ridiculous, and gave the HOA rights that were simply unreal.

Lots and lots of rules…

They had for example a right to visit your home bi-weekly, and check things like that you do not use the garage for storage, don’t have gasoline on containers in your garage, same goes for gas.

You had to mow your lawn every week, snow had to be shoveled every 2 hours when it snowed (starting at 5 o’clock in the morning). You could not park more then one car on your grounds (except inside the garage), and a ton of other bull ****.

Not gonna happen!

A few days later they came back, and asked him why he did not sign the papers yet. They also wanted to check the garage again. This time he would not even let them in, and told them he would never become a member of their stupid club.

To them that meant war. Within a week they had send him fines north of $1000 (some of them where for denying them access to his home, each worth $250). My friend simply did not take them serious, and used their stupid letters to help fire his grill.

Whoa…

Then came the day where they went EXTREMELY TOO FAR. He came back, and one of the board members had broken into his garage, stood in it and was writing things down on his notepad.

But that was not even the worst part.

He had two wonderful oak trees in the front of the house. They had been planted by his great grandparents, when they where newly weds and moved into the house.

The HOA WAS IN THE PROCESS OF TAKING THEM DOWN.

They had called a professional crew for this. One was already so damaged (basically all twigs where already down, it was just a stump that was left). The other one they had just started with.

He lost it. He told the tree crew to stop right now, and explained to them that he was the owner, and what they did was highly illegal.

They had no idea, since the board member claimed these trees where in violation of the rules, since supposedly too many leaves went to the neighbors garden.

This was crazy!

He had told them that was no legal reason to put them down, but the board member claimed I had given my OK, because the trees where in violation of rules of the HOA.

He looked it up later. They actually had a bylaw, that if a garden produces more than one 40 liter sack of leaves within 2 weeks, the garden owner needs to take down the offending trees within 2 weeks.

He told them he would overlook them trespassing, if they would be witnesses in court for him. Then he called the cops on the board members for trespassing, breaking and entering (they actually had used a bolt cutter to get into the garage. He had it always closed with a big bike lock after they had tried to get in it twice before).

They were in trouble.

The trial must have been glorious. Not only did they have to repay him for the lock and the tree (which was worth a ton of money, north of 50k if I remember right), plus damages for the second tree (he had a professional tree person look after it so all the damage healed properly, which alone cost nearly $1,000).

But these idiots actually thought the trial would have been unfair, and tried to fight it, which probably cost them an additional 10-15k in lawyers and court costs. All in all this trial must have cost them over 120k.

He wasn’t done.

Then he went to civil court and sued them for emotional damage.

He told them how much these trees meant to him, since his great grandparents had planted them, with seeds from the home country (he really laid it on as thick as he could).

Plus he felt threatened by the HOA, and can hardly sleep, because he always fears they try to get into his house. The court actually bought it, and gave him 500k plus the costs for a state of the art alarm system, so he can feel safe again in his own home.

So put all together he cost the HOA nearly 750k.

They had to file for bankruptcy, and get a person to check the books so my friend would get his money.

The best is for last.

There was EVEN more.

The mediator found out that these 3 jerks had been defrauding the HOA for well over 10 years, and where giving out as many fines as they possibly could so they could use it to bolster their income.

All three had to sell their houses, so they could pay out my friend.

Now he is for most people one of the favorite people living there, and he constantly gets invited over for grilling and whatnot.

You see, most people never wanted the HOA in the first place, but the board member practically forced them to sign the contract, claiming it would not be optional, and if they did not sign before moving it it would be a $500 fine.

Only 6 of the over 50 members actually wanted this HOA (and people think they did get part of the action, as reward for spying out their neighbors to find violations).”

Here’s how Reddit users reacted.

This person shared their thoughts.