When living on a lake, it is often unclear exactly what parts of the water you have rights to, and this gets even more complicated when there is an HOA involved.

What would you do if you put buoys into the water to ensure safe operation of your sea plane, but then the HOA (that you don’t belong to) got upset about it?

That is the situation the pilot in this story is in. Let’s see how it works out.

AITA for ignoring my neighbors and their HOA group?

I live in a cottage that I inherited after my grandfather passed away three years ago.

The cottage is one of the oldest homes in the area and unlike my neighbors I am not a member of the HOA.

The cottage itself is a waterfront one in which I have a small grass yard that turns into a beach on the lake.

I never had a problem until recently over a seaplane and buoys. Due to having a private pilot’s license and being really fortunate, I own a Piper Super Cub on floats. When I am not flying the plane is either tied to my dock or is pulled up onto the beach and strapped down when the weather is bad.

He decided to make some changed.

A month ago I decided to make some new additions to my property, these additions were two lines of buoys at the edge of my property with signs on each.

The buoys extend 15 feet past my dock and are still technically on my property. The signs themselves are ones that I got custom-made warning about prop wash.

I decided to add the buoys and signs because whenever I take my seaplane out there are sometimes boaters/ kayakers who will stop to watch me leave.

Normally this is not an issue if they keep their distance however recently they have been getting too close for comfort.

This seems important for safety.

With the addition of the buoys, I can keep a 100 X 300 ft safety rectangle. This makes it so that at the bare minimum I will always have around 100ft off of each wing of safe space.

Additionally, it prevents people from cutting me off when I come to dock or park on the beach.

About a week and a half ago I got a letter from the HOA. The HOA is demanding I move my plane to a local seaplane base as well as remove my buoys and signs.

In response, I wrote them a letter explaining the reasons behind having the buoys and told them I have no intention of changing anything.

HOA’s hate being put in their place.

About two days later I got an angry visitor who was an HOA member.

I told her that if she or the HOA comes onto my property again they will get arrested for trespassing.

Before leaving she used some very colorful words and called me a jerk.

As long as he is following all laws and aviation regulations, he is well within his rights to ignore the HOA since he isn’t even a member.

Read on to see what the people in the comments on Reddit think about this situation.

I can certainly understand why the neighbors don’t like this.

HOA board members are often on power trips.

 

This person says HOAs are almost always wrong.

This person wonders if what he is doing is legal.

Apparently what he is doing is completely legal.

The HOA needs to go away.

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.