HOAs are notorious for implementing nit picky rules that many homeowners don’t like.

In today’s story, one homeowner is upset that he can’t plant sunflowers.

He’s so upset that he pays a lawyer to look at the contract and verify whether or not he can plant sunflowers.

The lawyer doesn’t think he’ll like what he found, but the homeowner actually uses the legal advice to formulate a plan.

Let’s see how the story plays out…

Won’t let me plant sunflowers? Fine.

Client walks into the office and asks us for a contract review. He then hands over an HOA contract.

Before slogging through a whole HOA contract, I asked him what he was hoping to accomplish.

“They want me to dig up my sunflowers.”

“Your… sunflowers?”

The man elaborated.

“Yes, I planted a row of sunflowers outside my house. They pranced by and said that sunflowers are not allowed per the contract I signed. So I want you to tell me if that is true or not.”

“Sir, before anything else I need to tell you that this will likely be an hourly fee bill.

HOAs are notorious for dragging things out.

So these could quickly become expensive sunflowers.”

“I don’t care. This is America and I should be able to plant sunflowers.”

The man was serious.

Still thinking he wasn’t that serious about sunflowers, I asked for a three hour retainer.

He immediately pulled out a checkbook and paid for four hours.

So I buckled down to review the alleged anti-sunflower clause.

Just for reference, the sunflowers he wanted to plant were really big (5ft) and all along the front of the house. It was a very substantial amount of sunflowers.

Sunflowers were indeed on the list.

The contract did indeed contain a clause, with a very thorough list, on which plants were and were not allowed to be planted.

The list had just about every plant I could think of, in alphabetical order (think apple, banana, cauliflower, dill…). Sunflowers included.

Corn was not included, which becomes very important later.

Here’s some quick legal info…

Quick legal point – if you write ‘no dogs allowed’ it is normally assumed that you are talking about all dogs generally.

If you write ‘no labs, golden retrievers, or poodles allowed’ it is normally assumed that all other dogs are allowed.

Sometimes a not great attorney will write a super long list to pad hours (read: charge more) instead of just writing ‘no plants without prior approval’ or something.

The lawyer broke the news to the client.

I called the client back in for the bad news.

In explaining the above legal point, I let him know that the HOA got a raw deal from whoever drafted the contract.

“No can do on the sunflowers. But if it makes you feel any better they were probably over billed by whoever wrote this contract. Pretty shoddy work too, they even forgot to write down ‘corn’ but they included nonsense like ‘dragon fruit’.”

The client was actually happy!

“So yes to corn, no to sunflowers?”

“I didn’t really check the contract for corn. But its not prohibited in the plant section, so probably?”

“Excellent. That’ll work.”

I thought he was oddly happy with bad news.

He planted corn.

Then two or three weeks later he came in with a picture of his house, surrounded by huge sunflowers.

What happened?

This guy drove out to the country and bought obnoxiously large and ugly cornstalks.

He promptly planted them where the sunflowers had been.

The HOA backed down.

When confronted by the HOA he told them (paraphrasing) the contract lets me plant corn.

Then after some negotiation he agreed to take the corn down, in exchange for permission to plant sunflowers.

Now we are friends, he is still a great client, and he lives surrounded by a ridiculous moat of sunflowers.

That’s a great story! I love how it all worked out.

Let’s see how Reddit reacted to this story…

This reader offers another tip about how to get what you want when dealing with an HOA.

I love this idea!

This reader loves the story.

Another person applauds the lawyer.

I wonder if the HOA modified the contract.

If they had a sense of humor they would have gotten a kick out of this.

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