This sounds a lot like our neighborhood/HOA. We’ve recommended the magnetic sign approach to a couple of people who challenged the work truck thing, and one of them went that route. We try to work with property owners to come up with a suitable resolution for everyone.
That’s the thing - we aren’t the slightest bit adversarial unless you end up being a d*ck about things, like our resident who openly flouted our “no boats or RVs for more than 24 hours” rule. They constantly ignored this, and simply ignored the HOA when we called them on it. Over two years later they ended up paying our legal bills of $6500 and agreeing to never break the rules again (or they would be sanctioned immediately). They had hired an attorney as well, so their costs had to be higher than that, we suspect. The running joke is, “How much does it cost to be “most right”?” $6500.00 -D > On Jul 9, 2019, at 8:37 AM, Meade Dillon via Mercedes <mercedes@okiebenz.com> > wrote: > > The only thing close to that for my neighborhood is a restriction on > commercial signs. One cannot advertise their business at their home using > a visible sign. One example of that would be a truck or car with your > business info affixed to the car, and that is easily addressed by parking > your car inside your garage at night, or getting magnetic signs that you > take off once you park for the night. The flipside of that is we have a > monthly newsletter and a neighborhood website, and business owners are free > to advertise to their hearts content (free on the HOA website, for a small > fee in the newsletter). > > We also have a restriction on parking boats and campers and RVs in the > drive, but there is a loophole: Temporary parking is allowed, but > overnight parking is prohibited. However, the definition of overnight is > defined by "before and after midnight" so if a neighbor want's to report > another neighbor, they have to stay up until midnight and take pix or a > video or something to prove the violation. This results in a letter (not > even a strongly worded letter). > > Most of the rules are about keeping your house and yard appearance up, not > putting trash out until trash pick-up day, gotta pay your dues before you > get access to the pool and clubhouse, not making changes to your house > (additions, changing the paint color, etc) or major landscaping changes > without approval in advance. We just put on a new shingle roof, and went > from black shingles to a very light grey (Energy star) so I put in a > package to the ARB and then went to the meeting to explain my choice. I > think they gave me about 30 seconds before the first question interrupted > me, and that was "how much was your quote?" followed by "yeah that's a fair > price" and then they voted to approve it. > > Almost every single house in town is under an HOA, so if you want to live > in town, there's not much choice about it. It does add another calculation > - one must check the HOA finances to see if they are financially sound and > you can expect the dues to be reasonably stable, or do they have unfunded > liabilities and the next time something out of ordinary happens they levy a > special fee on top of the regular dues. Our board went to great pains to > identify all the HOA property and liabilities and build a plan for > replacing things at a typical lifecyle, and then paid an accounting firm > for a really big audit to check their work. I think they paid $30k for the > audit, found a few issues, and then increased dues just a bit to cover > those issues over a few years. Pool deck and furniture was just replaced > last winter, all covered. Tennis court complete teardown and rebuild > underway now, no increase in dues required. > > We have one neighbor between our neighborhood and the next, single home on > a really nice creek-front lot that is probably five or ten acres, which he > purchased before the land was inside the town boundary line. He's kept his > property out of the town and out of any HOA, so his only immediate higher > authority is the County. A very rare situation, and I'm sure he's not > selling anytime soon, and the place is surely worth a couple million or > more. > ------------- > Max > Charleston SC > _______________________________________ > http://www.okiebenz.com > > To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ > > To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: > http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com > > _______________________________________ http://www.okiebenz.com To search list archives http://www.okiebenz.com/archive/ To Unsubscribe or change delivery options go to: http://mail.okiebenz.com/mailman/listinfo/mercedes_okiebenz.com
