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OP sorry for your situation, but thanks for sharing. people need to see what can happen in an HOA community.
... if you don't pay attention to what your HOA is doing.
I finished your sentence.
I love how people are quick to bash an HOA, yet they never go to meetings, they don't vote on new board members, and they have no clue what is actually in their by-laws. Ignorance is not an excuse and it won't hold up in court.
Is it possible that they real problem is that you have a car that is too big to fit in your garage?
I live in a very small (17 families) condo complex and there are FOUR large trucks parked every day on our small private street because they don't fit into the garages.
All of the trucks were bought after the owners bought their condos.
During snowy weather it is a nightmare driving around those vehicles.
But, our rules say that as long as they are operable it is OK.
For those not always on guard, a HOA could continually make up new rules they don't like. I would consider this the first of many annoying hassles to come.
I think the OP had the car long enough and it's time to say goodbye to it. Junk it or sell it to pay down the medical debt and keep the hood ornament as a memento. I'd also be looking to get away from the HOA and sell the place.
... if you don't pay attention to what your HOA is doing.
I finished your sentence.
I love how people are quick to bash an HOA, yet they never go to meetings, they don't vote on new board members, and they have no clue what is actually in their by-laws. Ignorance is not an excuse and it won't hold up in court.
I really don't mind HOA living...as we all know it's a double edged sword. Protection from crappy neighbors vs. doing anything we want. A HOA in the Atlanta helped me with a crappy neighbor once...
The lots in our neighborhood were about 1/2 acre, and because the people next door were loud, screaming-at-each-other types, we never cleaned out a small wooded area between the houses. We knew they worked on cars in the driveway a lot. But in the fall when all the leaves fell off the trees, I saw some large red objects in the woods on our property. I trudged over there to find...car doors, a car hood, and assorted engine parts scattered everywhere. He was making his own little junkyard between our houses!!! No way was I going to confront this screaming guy. I called the HOA, which contacted the city code enforcement department. The property was inspected, and they found entire engine blocks in the woods in back of the house in addition to all the stuff on my side. The owner was fined and given 5 days to have the stuff removed. He had to get a tow truck to come and pull the engine blocks out.
So you can see why I appreciate HOAs a little more than most.
Well, it's closing the barn door after the horse has run away, but I would have been damned if I would have let them in my house uninvited without a subpoena.
Given that, I would contact your local legal aid society, explain the situation, and see if anyone can help you.
Meanwhile, why not just sell the car? Regardless of the sentimental attachment, it needs to go somewhere where it can be appreciated and used and enjoyed, not just parked in a garage under canvas for years and years and years. I know it irks to be told what you can and cannot do in your own home (that's where Legal Aid comes in), but it would the simplest remedy to a lot of problems (space, money, getting the HOA off your back, etc.) and take a lot of stress off of you.
The issue seems to not be the car in the garage but the request for a parking permit. It's likely that the parking permit will be revoked if the garage isn't used for parking cars. This car is storage (same as boxes or old furniture).
In giving permits for scarce on street parking, HOAs quite rightly make sure (to be fair to the "collective") that people aren't storing their "junk" in one half of the garage and then wanting to use shared space. Memorobilia or not, this is a souvenir, not a working car so I can see the HOA's position.
Why someone would buy a vehicle that doesn't fit in their garage when they can't park on the street (without a permit) is perplexing to me.
I lived in an HOA for 14 years and it was awful`. We certainly never expected it when we bought the house. Very few people vote for board members or go to meetings, but please don't infer that the 'fix' for this is to do those things- I tried, I went to meetings and even ran for the BOD and tried to get my neighbors involved. Of course the old timers prevailed and retained control of the board and made my life even more miserable because they felt threatened by my activism. There's very little recourse because attorney's are so darned expensive and finding one who has expertise in HOA's and represents homeowners rather than associations is very tough.
And HOA 'nazi' is a strong word but it's quite fitting. We had a hired gun who would spend all day driving through the community taking pictures of alleged violations. She did everything she could to avoid just driving up and talking to you about the problem, so she would sneak up take their pictures and speed off, then two days later you would get a certified letter which was either a warning or a fine. Fines were generally $100 a day until remediated. One of violations I received was for "hanging laundry outside" except it wasn't exactly laundry, I had a tarp draped over my porch railing while I was touching up paint on the exterior of the house.
We had certain times when we could put our garbage cans out for collection and when they had to be brought in. Too bad for people who were working during that time, they ended up begging neighbors to manage the cans for them. Then to add insult to injury the HOA decided we all needed 'bear proof' cans. It didn't matter that there had never been a report of a bear getting in garbage in the HOA -this was just something the board decided we needed to do. So... a bunch of people went out and spent $200 on bear proof trash containers and lo and behold the garbage company wouldn't pick them up, they said that the only receptacles you could use were those distributed by their company..oops
We were fined for having brown spots in our lawn in September even though watering was restricted to twice a week (this was in Northern Nevada). If you removed a plant from your yard, and wanted to replace it with one that was not identical you needed to submit a "plan" with drawings and complete written details to the Architectural Control Committee before you could proceed.
One of my neighbors received repeated fines and warnings because he owned a motor home and while he paid to store it off site, he would park it in front of his house for a few hours when loading or unloading it.
We couldn't stand it any more and sold our house there last year. My husband and I don't always agree but we were in complete accord that we would rather live in a tent than ever live in another HOA. Now I live in a neighborhood where one guy doesn't mow his lawn very often and another has firewood in his driveway - I will take that in a heartbeat over what we endured in that HOA
We've lived in the Village Walk Town homes in Santa Ana, CA for over 25 years. At first, it was a great place to live, we didn't have any issues. We inherited my husband's Grandparents car and it has been kept in our private, attached, enclosed 2 car garage ever since. We have it registered at Non Op, and we park it and one of our other cars in the garage. As I said, we haven't driven it in over 20 years. We had no complaints about it until this year. This year, the HOA made us allow them to illegally search our garage ...
They made you? Seriously, did they hold a gun to your head?
Quote:
Originally Posted by headingtoDenver
... if you don't pay attention to what your HOA is doing.
I finished your sentence.
I love how people are quick to bash an HOA, yet they never go to meetings, they don't vote on new board members, and they have no clue what is actually in their by-laws. Ignorance is not an excuse and it won't hold up in court.
Exactly. If the HOA board is out of control, the homeowners can change things. My husband and I did this very thing. It took some effort to get the word out, educate the other homeowners (who didn't bother to read the by-laws and therefore didn't know that the board couldn't invent new restrictions without our votes), get them on board, and take action. Too many people would rather just whine and complain.
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