Neighborhood politics can turn friendly fences into battle lines overnight.

When a once-pleasant neighbor became an overzealous HOA president, one homeowner discovered that sometimes the best defense is knowing the rules better than the person enforcing them.

You’ll want to read on for this one!

Entitled Crazy HOA President

Just before leaving active-duty military after almost 10 years, my wife and I bought a large house in my hometown on the coast in a nice neighborhood with an HOA.

I had never lived in an HOA before and never knew how bad, cliquey, or political it could be.

But it didn’t take long for this homeowner to find out.

Not long after we moved in, the letters started about having a boat in our driveway. Mind you, we lived not 100 yards from the water—really?

So we complied and placed it in a local marina.

Despite these initial hardships, they started to feel at home in the neighborhood.

After living there about two years, the neighbors we had, who were really great, moved, and a new, older couple moved in.

They were really nice at first, letting my children swim in their pool, sharing an adult beverage in the evening, talking on the fence, etc.

But then, one day, everything changed.

Then it happened. The wife ran for and became the HOA president.

She started walking around the neighborhood and taking notes.

She began taking things way too far.

She would walk into people’s yards and make corrections, and even go so far as to trespass into people’s backyards, gated or not, and take pictures of “violations” and send out letters.

I came home one evening to find her on my back porch looking at things and taking pictures.

The homeowner tries to set her straight, but he couldn’t reason with her misplaced sense of authority.

I was a police officer at the time and, while trying to be nice, informed her she could get into a lot of trouble for what she was doing.

She tried to tell me that as the HOA president she was entitled to go into people’s private property and even their houses to inspect them if need be.

I informed her of the state and federal laws against this, and it started a war.

She refused to back down from her petty (and illegal) behavior.

I immediately started receiving $100 fines for very minor issues with my home.

I fixed the issues immediately and never had to pay the fines with the HOA property management company, but did file complaints.

The HOA property management company never did do anything about the complaints.

The final straw eventually came.

And then it happened. I also owned a small business for which I had a truck and trailer I would use during the business day.

I had this parked in front of the house one day, and she took a picture of it.

According to the HOA rules, it was not allowed to be there overnight—and it never was.

I received a letter and a fine for $100 stating that the vehicle had been parked there overnight.

This homeowner wasn’t going to stand for this any longer.

This time I asked for a review with the HOA board of directors, the property management company, the attorney, and my attorney.

This was going to cost the HOA, the property management company, and all involved much more than $100 in time and money.

It was time to start putting some pressure on the HOA.

At this meeting, I asked the HOA president to present evidence—other than one picture—that the vehicle was there more than 24 hours, with time and date stamps. She could not.

I then asked for the $100 fine to be dropped. The HOA board and property management company refused.

They weren’t going down without a fight.

I was publicly berated by the HOA president in front of the board and my attorney, saying I should be a “good soldier” and do as I was told by the HOA board and obey the rules.

At this point, my attorney and I had enough evidence of harassment due to recording the conversation.

We then informed everyone in the room that we had been recording.

The HOA makes some more empty threats.

This inflamed them more, and they threatened to call the police for violating the law. In our state, it was more than legal and well within our rights.

We then informed them we would be filing a lawsuit which was sure to win and would bankrupt the HOA.

But this homeowner seemed to understand the law better than they did.

According to state law and the HOA bylaws, in the event the HOA ceased to exist or became bankrupt, each and every one of the 35 houses in the HOA would have their mortgages immediately due and payable.

Most people don’t know this exists in a lot of HOA covenants.

We just got up and walked out of the meeting and said we thought this settled the matter and hoped there would be no further fines, threats, harassment, etc.

I had very good friends in the neighborhood and did not want to see their families affected.

So the homeowner decided he needed to get involved more directly.

About a month later, the HOA had elections for a new HOA board. I informed several people in the neighborhood I would be running for HOA board president.

We got together, and on the night of the board meeting and election we attended, there were only about ten people there to vote.

The voting continued.

There were six people along with myself who voted for me, but miraculously the incumbent HOA president had a unanimous vote when the property management company chair counted the votes.

Right there in the meeting, I asked all six people who voted for me to raise their hands.

With me, that was seven, and the property management chair had no answer since it had already been entered into the corporate minutes.

That’s when things really started to change.

I said it would be fine, let it stand, and then informed everyone in the room about the previous meeting, mortgages, suing the HOA, and now calling the State Attorney General’s Office.

Within a short time, the property management company was changed out, the HOA president was replaced with a nice, level-headed gentleman, and I never, ever so much as heard a peep from the HOA again.

Eventually, the homeowner moved on to bigger and better things.

I played by the rules more or less, but eventually sold the house and moved on.

Never mess with a Paratrooper.

What a harrowing story.

Redditors chime in with their thoughts.

A bad HOA can ruin even the most perfect neighborhood.

HOAs often like to assert their power where they have no real authority.

Reading the fine print is quite underrated in this day and age.

This HOA is even worse than this commenter initially thought.

Turns out, power trips don’t hold up well when someone actually reads the law.

Authority doesn’t come with a free pass to trespass.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.