Imagine wanting to repaint your house. You’d probably pick a color and go for it.

Now, imagine waiting to repaint your house but you live in an HOA. What do you do? Can you pick any color you want? Probably not. Can you pick any color in the approved list of colors in the HOA handbook? Possibly, but maybe not.

You might need to get the HOA to approve your paint color request before you start painting. That’s what the couple in this story found out the hard way.

What’s even more annoying is that one of the HOA board members knew they were going to paint their house and knew they didn’t get approval first, but he intentionally didn’t tell them they needed to get approval until after their house was painted.

Instead of repainting their house, they decided to have some fun messing with the HOA board. It’s pretty hilarious.

Let’s read all about it.

Annoying the Head of the HOA

A friend of mine not too long ago painted his house. He lives in a development that has an HOA.

He admits that he and his wife made the first mistake by not reading the HOA handbook close enough so they didn’t realize they had to get the color approved by the HOA.

On the first day of painting, the head of the HOA stopped by and talked to them, made small talk, talked about ways to make painting the house easier etc.

At this time the HOA head knew they hadn’t gotten the color approved because he sits on the three-person panel that approves the colors, however, he opted not to say anything to them. Instead, he waited until they had the entire house painted then told them the color was not approved because there too many other houses with a similar color (it was a lighter shade of green).

Here’s how they got revenge.

So, faced with having to spend the time and money to repaint the entire house, he and his wife decided to get a little revenge.

They submitted the form and color swatch for the new color and were approved.

Knowing the panel had to take time out of their lives to meet every time they submit a color, they decided to submit another color swatch and form saying that they had changed their minds. This color was one they knew would never be approved.

As assumed, it was denied.

The HOA wanted them to stop!

They had to submit again and again they submitted a color they knew would never be approved.

Again, they were denied.

They repeated this 4 or 5 times before the HOA head contacted them and told them the first swatch they submitted was still approved and not to submit another swatch for approval, they were tired of playing games.

He replied telling him that it turns out that color is no longer available and they needed to submit one last swatch, which, of course, was a color that they knew would not be approved.

They submitted more colors.

This time the HOA told them if they submitted another un-approvable swatch they would be fined and billed for the panel’s time.

He submitted another swatch that was a color he knew would never be approved and with it a photocopy of the page from the handbook covering the process of getting a color approved. He pointed out that there was nothing in there that mentioned any limit to a number of swatches a person could submit.

This entire process took a few months.

After 8 or 9 swatches that were denied, the head of the HOA was fuming mad and showed up at their door telling them he wasn’t leaving until they had decided on a color for the house.

I can see where this is going!

My friend pointed out that the handbook says the only way for a color to be approved was with a vote from the full panel.

The HOA head called the other two people, they came over, and once they were all sat down he and his wife shuffled through about 10 different swatches of crazy colors before finally showing them one that was a light green color.

Frustrated, they approved it and left.

The HOA didn’t understand what they had done.

A few weeks later, the head of the HOA contacted him to see when they were going to paint.

And he told them they already had. The swatch that they had approved was the color the house was already painted.

A week later he got an angry letter from the HOA and a bill for their time.

He refused to pay and will fight it.

It could’ve all been avoided.

A couple weeks after that everyone got a revised handbook in the mail with very detailed rules on how to get a color approved.

My friend then called the head of the HOA and told him all of this could have been avoided if he had just said something that day when he came over and talked to them as they started painting, but he decided to be a jerk, so they decided to be jerks back to him.

That was really cruel to let the homeowners paint knowing they were violating HOA rules.

If you enjoyed this story, check out this post about neighbors who can’t get along because of a totally legal gate.

Let’s see how Reddit responded to this story.

This is a good point. We’ll assume they voted on it.

Accurate!

This would’ve been funny, but they were probably ready for the battle to be over.

One person refuses to join the HOA.

Living in an HOA certainly isn’t for everyone. While there are some positives to HOAs, like making sure the general neighborhood looks nice and providing community amenities, some HOAs really take it to the extreme with picky rules that only seem to exist to make the HOA board feel more powerful than they really are.

I love the creative way the couple in this story was able to avoid repainting their house again. They basically wore down the HOA board to the point where they weren’t even paying very close attention anymore.

If you try hard enough, you can beat the HOA.