Imagine inheriting a house that is part of an HOA. If the HOA insisted that you had to sign some paperwork and become a member, would you do it, or would you refuse?

In this story, one man is in this situation, and he refuses to sign anything. The HOA is furious, but their actions make the homeowner even more furious! Keep reading to see what happens when they wind up in court.

How to get rid of an home owners association (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.

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 byweekly, and denying me access is a an offense that will cost a fine.”

This HOA seriously sounds awful!

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 where gone, he took a look at the papers. They where freaking ridiculous, and gave the HOA rights that where simply unreal.

They had for example a right to visit your home byweekly, 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 nonsense.

The HOA was pretty mad at him!

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 led 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$ (several of which 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.

The HOA is out of control!

Then came the day where the 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 grand parents, when they where newly weds and moved into the house.

The HOA WAS IN THE PROCESS OF TAKING THEM DOWN.

I can only imagine how upset this homeowner must have been. He has every right to be furious.

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 freaking lost it.

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

The HOA had lied to the tree guys.

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.

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 then one 40 liter sack of leaves within 2 weeks, the garden owner needs to take down the offending trees within 2 weeks).

Time for the cops to handle this.

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 tresspassing, breaking and entering (they actually had used a bold cutter to get into the garage. He had it always closed with a big freaking bike lock after they had tried to get in it twice before).

The process must have been glorious.

The law was on his side!

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 over 1k).

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.

But it wasn’t over!

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

He told them how much these trees meant to him, since his great grand parents 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.

This really is glorious!

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 .

It really does get even better!

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)

It’s really too bad about the trees, but it worked out spectacularly! He’s the hero of the neighborhood!

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

Here’s some sympathy for the tree.

This is a good question.

Someone from the UK has questions.

Someone from the Netherlands weighs in.

I love a good story about taking down the HOA!

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.