If you lived in an HOA and you found out that your next door neighbor was doing something they shouldn’t be doing in their yard, would you talk to the neighbor or go directly to the HOA?

In today’s story, one homeowner tries to talk to the neighbor, but when the neighbor is never home when he stops by, he goes to the HOA instead. Now, he’s wondering if that was the wrong thing to do.

Let’s read the whole story.

AITA for contacting the HOA about neighbor building a fence over the property line?

Background, moved into a new development subdivision 2 years ago, built home next to builder display.

In Dec last year, builder sells the display home to new owners. I haven’t really met them formally, just a couple friendly waves and hellos as we are coming and going

In June, out of the blue, a dump truck has dumped a load of gravel in my front yard.

Builder says it wasn’t their truck, so I post in the neighborhood FB group and call HOA and city to figure it out. Either city or HOA, but one tells me that the new neighbor is getting a pool.

He tried to talk to the neighbors about it.

I knock on neighbors door and only son was home. I ask him to have one of parents stop by and could they please arrange for the rock to be removed from my yard

Neighbor never came by to introduce themselves or apologized but after a day or two the contractor gets most of the gravel removed.

Fast forward 4 months and the pool project still going on, and I have had to keep an eye on the contractor constantly to not tear up my yard.

Now, there’s another problem.

3 weeks ago they put up a fence around yard.

I think to myself, that is pretty close to the property line and they weren’t using a professional installer but 3 guys in a truck.

I get a survey done and sure enough 2/3 of the fence is 1 to 3 inches over the property line.

I reached out to city to see if permit is still open and drop a line to the HOA just to keep them in loop.

He finally got ahold of the neighbor.

City says will not close permit without a remedy and HOA says will reach out to homeowner to ask them to contact me – maybe important or not, neighbor has never given me a phone number or email to reach them.

On Wednesday, the next day after I got the formal survey, I try to knock on neighbor’s door again to let them know of fence issue and no answer.

Finally on Saturday, I am able to catch neighbor at home.

I was a little taken aback when neighbor was ticked that I called the HOA, as they had received the email.

The neighbors thought OP should’ve handled it differently.

They said I was being unfriendly to do that and I should have contacted them directly first.

I explained that I had indeed reached out but never was able to catch them at home. I proceeded to offer my phone number and a copy of the survey.

They did not reciprocate with a phone number – oh well.

I guess they are living rent-free in my head a bit, but also have to live next them for the next how many years.

All this is a long way of asking AITA for not waiting to contact the HOA and city before reaching the neighbor, given they have literally never made the effort to contact me during the whole pool building process?

He did try to reach out to the neighbors first. The neighbors messed up by not getting a survey done before building the fence.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story.

This person thinks he has been very courteous to this neighbor.

Another person explains why the neighbor doesn’t want the HOA involved.

The neighbor was hoping the property line issue would go unnoticed.

This person thinks contacting the HOA isn’t enough.

Time to call a lawyer.

Talk about a bad way to meet your new neighbor!

If you liked that post, check out this one about an employee that got revenge on HR when they refused to reimburse his travel.