Neighbor Complains To The HOA President, But Moves Away Instead Of Running For The Board Herself
by Jayne Elliott
A lot of HOAs have a lot of annoying rules.
The HOA in today’s story is different.
The HOA board does not want annoying rules, but one neighbor doesn’t seem to be happy about the lack of rules.
Let’s see how the HOA board president puts this neighbor in her place.
HOA board campaign to do nothing
I lived in a small, 18-house, neighborhood that had a deed-restricted HOA.
We had a minimal common area along the main entry street that needed maintenance and some drainage infrastructure that needed to be maintained.
Not much work had to be done at all.
This is a good slogan.
No one wanted to be on the board so I ran for the board with the slogan, “I will do nothing more than is legally required to fulfill the legal requirements of the HOA.”
This slogan was enough to get four more neighbors to run with the same slogan.
We had the typical “committees,” all with the same members and with the same idea – leave everyone alone, fulfill our legal obligations and move on.
Don’t complain about the job if you don’t want to do it yourself.
I was walking down the street one day and was accosted by a neighbor who said, “You don’t deserve to be president.”
I replied, “You’re right, I don’t deserve it.”
This really set her off so she started yelling at me about all the things I should be doing – planting a specific kind of flower, forcing her neighbors to do things unregulated by the HOA, etc.
So, I invited her to run for president.
I told her that she could submit a petition calling for a special election and I could guarantee that everyone on the board would sign it and probably vote for her to take on the job.
She wrote a lot of angry letters.
This, of course, just infuriated her.
So she started writing letters to the board complaining about everything.
We ignored the letters, which, technically was a mistake.
Our HOA documents required all letters to receive a response.
I love this response.
She continued to send letters that had nothing to do with the HOA so we crafted a malicious compliance response that read,
“Thank you for your letter to the HOA board. After careful consideration we have decided to ignore it.”
We then included instructions on how to call for a special election to have us kicked off the board and promised her the support of all board members if she chose to circulate the required petition.
She sold her house and moved.
This HOA board sounds like a dream!
Our board continued with the same philosophy for the 12 years I lived there – nothing more than legally required and leave everyone the hell alone.
We would hold a homeowner’s meeting once a year which was nothing more than a pot-luck dinner.
We had to invite someone from the compliance company who worked for us to make sure we covered everything required for our annual meeting and reporting and we would always have an agenda item under new business: Does everyone promise to be a reasonable adult?
I’ve moved to a new, 14-house, neighborhood with an HOA.
I haven’t yet decided if I’ll run for the board.
If only all HOAs could be as hands-off as this one! I’m kind of surprised the angry neighbor didn’t want to be president.
Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.
This is very true.
This really is a great example of a good HOA board.
To answer this person’s question, it’s Home Owners Association.
It sounds like it’s a good thing this reader’s wife is on the HOA board.
This is a good threat!
If you don’t want to be part of the solution, don’t point out problems.
Seems simple enough.
If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.
Categories: STORIES
Tags: · hoa, hoa board, HOA president, malicious compliance, neighbor, neighborhood, picture, reddit, top

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