Homeowner’s associations are great in theory until they start crossing boundaries. Certain HOAs try to be controlling of people beyond the scope of what’s legal, and that’s when things get really tricky. Residents share the infuriating times they were wronged by their HOA. Content has been edited for clarity.
Overzealous Much?
“I live in a rural area on a family farm. The farm next to ours was sold to a developer who built a bunch of mini-mansions that have an HOA. The mini-mansions come clear up to the property line of our farm and I get letters every week from the HOA complaining about the tractor sitting in the field at the front of my property where it can seen from the street. However, we’re working that field and the tractor is necessary.
I’ve had them complain about my barns, outbuildings, the sound of the large tractor when I’m seeding, and once my grandfather saw some people he didn’t recognize checking out the barn. He went out with his double barrel 12 ga to see what they were up to. They said they were HOA ‘inspectors’ who declared their ‘right’ to inspect the building to make sure it met HOA rules. Not to mention our property is fenced and posted.
I was informed by the HOA that they were going fine me $1000 a day until the offending striations and machinery were removed. I informed them that my property and me are not part of the HOA and if their inspectors set foot on my property again, I would have them arrested.
They went nuts and called the county sheriff’s office. Little did they know, my family had been living there for generations, so we know the Sherrif. He came out and asked me what was going on and I told him. He also visited the HOA and heard their demands that he take immediate action to ‘protect’ their inspectors.
They were less than happy when he informed them that since my property is posted and fenced, I was well within my rights to not allow them on my land. He also informed them that as I am not a member of the HOA, I have no requirement to allow them on my land and if he gets another call he will arrest the ‘inspectors’ for trespassing.
I have since been sent a letter from the HOA’s lawyer telling me to cease and desist all operations until they get a court date because they are suing me for ‘damaging the value of their property.’ I forwarded it to my lawyer who, after he got done laughing, was amazed. First, because a court has to issue a cease and desist order, and secondly, we’ve been here farming for four generations.
I have spoken with the HOA board and told them to leave us alone or we’ll be more than happy to take them to court. Apparently, the developer of their property told them I would be selling my land to him eventually. They were more than a little surprised when I told them that we’re currently training the fifth generation to take over and we have no intention of selling our farm, period.
God have mercy on overzealous HOA’s.”
“Not Our Fault”
“There were these lamposts all over my neighborhood that were about 6 feet high. To replace the light bulb, you had to take a pointy top off with a screw and a nut. Well my HOA thought that was too much time so they used wire. So when I was about 3, I was playing outside and for one reason or another which I cannot remember, the top of the lampost fell off onto my head.
I had to get 8 stiches. My HOA said publicly that my parents were terrible parents for letting me out of their sight and that it wasn’t their fault. That was our first major issue with our HOA.
Another example was when they said cats had to be on leashes and it was a county law. For reference, there were a lot of middle aged dog owners who never had kids, so they were jealous that cats could roam free, but dogs couldn’t. So they spread the information that if you saw a cat without a leash, call animal control. My dad tried to combat the rule on a local forum but it was an uphill battle.
Well one day, my cat wanted to go outside, as most cats do. So a college-aged daughter of someone two doors down picked up my cat, who was comfortable around humans, and gave her water which she drank. The girl took that as evidence that my cat was a stray and called animal control. We didn’t know and she ended up going without her medicine for about a week, which forced us to put her down. So at 9 years old, I was already fully aware that HOAs sucked.”
The Flood
“My house flooded two months after I bought it. Our HOA got involved and blamed my kids saying they put toys down the toilet (they are too old for that). I spoke to my neighbors and found out five houses in a row had flooded.
We all got together and demanded an investigation by an independent plumber. Long story short, our HOA owns the sewage and water lines under all the houses that connect to city water. They had not been repaired for years or flushed out, and were made of a material that eroded underground. It back flowed raw sewage into the 5 houses affected and flooded the grassy areas with sewage also.
All my other neighbors are senior citizens. The HOA admitted responsibility and held an emergency meeting to repair the damage. My house was done last and I agreed with that because the other ladies are 70+ and wheelchair-bound or disabled whereas I’m under 40.
By the time my house was done, the sewage had been wiped up from the tile floor and treated with fungal chemicals, but mold was growing in the master shower and all the carpet was destroyed. They had to replace carpet, drywall, and re-tile my whole shower. When the old shower tile was torn out, the plumbing wasn’t to code, so that was done too. They spent about $15k on my house alone. I also told the HOA never to accuse my kids again.”
Wrong Color
“My cousin’s family bought a former farmhouse out in a rural area just before a housing development went up behind them. Fast forward to after the houses were finished and my cousin started getting letters from the HOA that ran the housing development. They said his house’s colors did not comply with HOA standards and he was required to repaint the house.
He ignored them at first but the HOA kept sending him letters and fines. Then they sent a rep to speak to him face to face. He explained to the rep that his property wasn’t part of the development and he didn’t have to comply with their requests nor did they have any authority over his property. The rep however was a dick and replied by threatening to have his home foreclosed and said he’d personally have them kicked to the curb.
So what did my cousin do? He repainted his house with the most garish clashing colors he could find: yellow, bright green, and purple. The HOA was PISSED. Eventually, the HOA did take legal action against him to which the judge ruled in my cousin’s favor because SHOCKINGLY he didn’t have to comply with the rules of an HOA he wasn’t apart of. He still lives there and eventually repainted his house after the old HOA was ousted after the 2008 economic crash.”
The Rest Is History
“My cousin bought a disaster of a house in Virginia. It was trashed but overlooked the James River and was a ‘historic’ property. The yard was filled with brush, weeds, and trash. She cleared it and brought in a dumpster and filled it several times during demo.
She replaced all the windows, some bad trim, and doors. Since it was a historic property, any changes to the outside had to be approved by the Historic Commission, which was time-consuming. But she plugged through it. The interior of the house was fantastic with a state-of-the-art gourmet kitchen, a large deck on the back, and well-laid-out gardens. The place looked great.
They had a ‘neighborhood association-‘ more like a group of busybodies with nothing better to do than go around looking in people’s yards and finding things to complain about. The association started complaining that she hadn’t pained the exterior. She pointed out that she couldn’t paint it until the Historic Commission signed off on it.
They then sent my cousin a letter to inform her that they were going to sue her because the color scheme would ‘devalue’ the neighborhood and their properties. My cousin told them they had no say in it but they sued her anyways. The court date came and my cousin came in without a lawyer. The ‘neighborhood associations’ lawyer was there and proceed to make his case.
The judge turned to my cousin and was surprised that she had no lawyer- she felt she didn’t need one as she offered the judge a small folder of her evidence. The evidence was the letter from the Historic Commission stating that the house’s original colors had been blue, grey and yellow. It also started that they would not permit any other colors to be used due to the historic nature of the property. All that to say, she won the case.”
Let’s Make A Deal
“I received a bunch of attorney office spam mail in January 2019 with my real name and address on them. This prompted a ‘What the?!’ moment. I promptly checked my state’s judicial case system and found that my HOA has opened a case against me.
Backtrack to August 2018, I lost a contract that accounted for about 30% of my monthly income, so a pretty good chunk. Money was tight, and admittedly I did not/could not make my second annual HOA payment. So I got a few notices, and the ambulance chasing ‘attorney’ for the HOA mailed me saying late fees etc.
I called to make arrangements in early December and they were none too helpful. I had already shipped off my check for the back balance but they wanted their ‘fees’ and ‘legal costs.’ They demanded that I pay by end of December. I got the money and sent the payment on 12/28.
The lady at the HOA office said she had a note of my incoming payment so I was under the impression everything had been resolved. That’s when I got word that my HOA and its collections were taking me to court for the balance. The collections company didn’t like that my check came in late because of the holidays and opened a case against me.
We set a court date, I prepared all of my evidence including call records, emails to and from the HOA, and copies of the checks to inform the judge I paid per their direction. Two days before court, I got a call from the collections people. Suddenly, they wanted to make a deal. Their deal, I bring them the checks that I had originally sent them, and we call it a deal. Those checks had already been refunded so I rushed to the bank.
I hand-delivered a cashier’s check to them the next day, and the case was dismissed within the business day. I think they realized they had opened a case they might lose.”
Thanks, HOA!
“Our HOA had a rule that you were allowed decorations inside your windows, and one piece of decor outside. Following this rule, we placed a political sign (someone in the house was running for an office) in our yard. Two days later, we found it jammed under our door. Thinking that the gardener the HOA provides moved it or accidentally knocked it down, we replaced it out front.
The next day, it was jammed under the door again. Finally, we spoke with the HOA president and found out she had done it, claiming that she was allowed to (despite the one decoration rule). We didn’t fight it, just put the sign in our window.
During the next week, we had so many people come by and talk to us about it, we met much of the neighborhood! They were disgusted at the HOA and were excited to show up and vote for our cause. By doing what she did, the HOA lady won us way more support than if she hadn’t!”
Late Fee
“I was switching from paying my HOA by check to ACH. Something fudged in the system and my payment didn’t come through until the month after. After this happened, I was assessed a $25 late fee. Keep in mind this is April of 2020 amid a global pandemic where foreclosures are frozen and everyone’s finances were in question.
After that first fee. I was then assessed a $50 late fee MONTHLY throughout the pandemic. After a few months of this, I finally called the HOA company and spoke to the manager. He needed my help letting a contractor into our building and told me he’d ‘do me a solid’ in return by removing my balance.
Fast forward a month and the HOA board elections were going on and I was running for treasurer. As I walked in, the manager of the association was handing out ballots. He told me I couldn’t vote nor run for treasurer due to my outstanding balance. He even had the balls to tell me he had never spoken to me in his life!
Another few months went by and my balance continued to grow. It got up to $500 off of the original $25 late fee. I was getting charged more penalties and interest than a credit card company by my own HOA. I then got a letter in the mail from the county letting me know a lien has been placed on my property. I believe this was in spite of the election results (results that fell in my favor).
I called the attorney offering a settlement and got no response from the HOA. So I called the president of the board and got a letter clearing my balance with the association. It cleared my lien and even got the collecting attorney to pay all legal fees.”
Bye-Bye HOA
“A friend of mine (let’s call him Bob) lived in an HOA neighborhood but his house had been in his family for generations so it wasn’t a part of the HOA. Bob wasn’t even aware the HOA existed. Bob is single and travels a lot, but he came home one day to find a total of $13,000 in HOA fines.
The HOA said his house was the wrong color, his deck was unapproved, and a bunch of other BS. Bob outright refused to even acknowledge the fines and had the post office return to sender. A few months later, he came home to see that his deck had been demolished and his house repainted.
Apparently, the HOA had granted itself the right to correct any violations of exterior appearance upon failure to pay the relevant fines. Unlucky for the HOA, Bob happened to be a former lawyer. He sued the HOA and the HOA smugly thought it was a clear-cut case in their favor. Bob only had to say a few words in his statement, most of which was, ‘I’m not f*cking part of the HOA!’
The HOA ended up admitting liability, had to pay a bunch of fees, and ended up disbanding.”
Wrong House
“A few years back I lived in some condos as a renter that had an HOA. Each condo had a street-facing door and garage as well as a door on the inside facing the pool. I am a typical working middle-class guy with a typical family, a wife, some kids, and the occasional pet.
The president of the HOA for the condo’s was also the majority owner and he lived hours away but would come vacation at his condo during the summer to be by the beach. One night, my wife and I had just put the kids to bed and we hear this obnoxiously loud knock on the front door. I looked through the peep hole and realized it was the HOA owner and could tell something was up.
My wife freaked and called the cops like right away. I opened the door and the guy started screaming, ‘You dealing! I want some, I will pay right now hook me up!’ He was accusing me of dealing drugs from my house. I explaned to him that the family next to us regularly had questionable late night visitors and he should go over there if he was going to make a scene.
But no. He insisted he had seen people that could only be drug dealers come in and out of my unit for the past week. Frustrated at being yelled at by a drunken idiot this late at night, I told him if he thought he found a drug ring, he should call the cops and not go knocking on doors putting himself in danger. He took it as a threat and in return started threatening me.
I had enough, so I went inside. About the second I got the deadbolt locked, he started banging again, waking up my sleeping 3 and 1 year old’s. He then called the cops on me. John our family friend who was a cop on duty that night arrived with lights on and everything. I stepped outside to talk the situation through. John cleverly asked him to cross the street for questioning the placed handcuffs on him for being in public domain while intoxicated. He blew a 1.2 .12 BAL, and got arrested that night. The cops told me that if he was ever a problem again just to call.
The next week we got a letter from his wife, the HOA VP informing us that we had to move out. I took that to the owner of the unit we where leasing and we threatened to take it to court. I attended the next HOA meeting with the owner, with police report in hand and the board unanimously voted to remove the President and VP completely from the HOA and they comped our fees for the next 2 years.”
