Originally Posted By: antiqueshell
Originally Posted By: Astro14
I merely pressured the HOA to change the rule. They changed it because of me. Everyone who was considered to be in violation of the HOA rule benefitted from my success in the rule change.
Perhaps in my attempt to be brief, I ommitted a few salient points.
However, with some understanding of the law, and some reasonable discussion, accommodation and compromise can be found. Even when dealing with HOAs.
Except I may have purchased my home in that neighborhood BECAUSE of the HOA or Covenant restrictions concerning that aspect of things, and your imposing your personal needs would annoy me greatly.
The fact that you feel that putting your personal needs above the entire neighborhood is exactly why I prefer to be in HOA /Covenant enforced communities, if you didn't like the rules why not move somewhere else? I wonder how many other rules you agreed to when you signed the HOA you will try and eliminate?
You're taking this all wrong.
When I looked at the house, roughly half of the houses in the neighborhood had cars in the driveway. The HOA (it was actually part of a PUD, a very tight legal construct in Colorado) clearly wasn't enforcing the "No overnight parking of vehicles in the driveway rule" with any of those owners.
But think about that rule for a minute. You can't buy another car? Your family can't visit overnight? If you've got a kid or two that drive, you have to leave the neighborhood?
My personal needs? Sure, and the needs of everyone else. When the HOA can dictate that no one can visit you overnight, based on the number of cars and your garage size, that's not a reasonable rule.
The driveways were large. The neighborhood was very nice (I had a 3 car garage, so did most of the homes). Parking a car in your driveway doesn't detract from that.
In talking with the HOA president (yep, tried that bizarre tactic of picking up the phone and calling the guy), the HOA intent was to keep commerical vehicles from being parked overnight. Work trucks. Things of that sort. One of my neighbors had a work truck. He had a FOUR car garage to be able to keep his jet-skis and work truck in his garage.
I spent the usual $400 or so to have my attorney review the contract before I bought. Colorado has lots of mineral/riparian property rights that are unique and with which I wasn't familiar. I recommend you always have an attorney review a purchase, but in this case, it was important because of Colorado laws and the PUD. He laughed at that rule, said it was unenforceable. Said it was unreasonable and not to worry about it.
I didn't "change" the neighborhood. I think I was singled out by some grouchy neighbor that didn't like my 4 Runner, I reckon because it was a "truck". I tried to accommodate them by swapping out what went in my garage so they wouldn't have to look at my clean, modest SUV (SUVs were pretty new back then, so they weren't common). When it wasn't good enough for them, and they continued to pressure the HOA to get me to "move" my cars.
Move them where? Across town? Lease another garage? Parking a car in one's driveway was already common in this neighborhood when I got there and is, frankly, part of the purpose of driveways, isn't it? What's ironic about all this is that the HOA could dictate that I not park in my driveway. It was stipulated. But they couldn't stop me, or any overnight guest, from parking in the street. That was perfectly legal.
So, I legally park in the street, which detracts from the neighborhood appearance and reduces visibility for traffic, or I illegally park in my nice big driveway, where my cars (two of them) are completely out of the way of pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
Because I was singled out, and other residents (who had cars in their driveways, in violation of this unenforceable rule) were not, I pushed back. I pushed back reasonably.
Antiqueshell, you're always talking about standing up for yourself, but when I do exactly that, I'm the bad guy?
No. This rule was odd from the beginning. The HOA was being used by some neighbor that singled me out for enforcement. I simply put a stop to it. I showed (by using the city's laws and a modest demonstration) how enforcing the rule was also ridiculous. They amended the rule, through their process, whatever it was, to simply say, no work trucks overnight.
To be quite honest, the neighborhood had already voted on this issue before it came to me. They were parking their cars in their driveways. Even HOAs have to accept the will of the majority.
Perhaps those people who were so offended by the sight of a car (or SUV) in a driveway should be the ones to move.
Originally Posted By: Astro14
I merely pressured the HOA to change the rule. They changed it because of me. Everyone who was considered to be in violation of the HOA rule benefitted from my success in the rule change.
Perhaps in my attempt to be brief, I ommitted a few salient points.
However, with some understanding of the law, and some reasonable discussion, accommodation and compromise can be found. Even when dealing with HOAs.
Except I may have purchased my home in that neighborhood BECAUSE of the HOA or Covenant restrictions concerning that aspect of things, and your imposing your personal needs would annoy me greatly.
The fact that you feel that putting your personal needs above the entire neighborhood is exactly why I prefer to be in HOA /Covenant enforced communities, if you didn't like the rules why not move somewhere else? I wonder how many other rules you agreed to when you signed the HOA you will try and eliminate?
You're taking this all wrong.
When I looked at the house, roughly half of the houses in the neighborhood had cars in the driveway. The HOA (it was actually part of a PUD, a very tight legal construct in Colorado) clearly wasn't enforcing the "No overnight parking of vehicles in the driveway rule" with any of those owners.
But think about that rule for a minute. You can't buy another car? Your family can't visit overnight? If you've got a kid or two that drive, you have to leave the neighborhood?
My personal needs? Sure, and the needs of everyone else. When the HOA can dictate that no one can visit you overnight, based on the number of cars and your garage size, that's not a reasonable rule.
The driveways were large. The neighborhood was very nice (I had a 3 car garage, so did most of the homes). Parking a car in your driveway doesn't detract from that.
In talking with the HOA president (yep, tried that bizarre tactic of picking up the phone and calling the guy), the HOA intent was to keep commerical vehicles from being parked overnight. Work trucks. Things of that sort. One of my neighbors had a work truck. He had a FOUR car garage to be able to keep his jet-skis and work truck in his garage.
I spent the usual $400 or so to have my attorney review the contract before I bought. Colorado has lots of mineral/riparian property rights that are unique and with which I wasn't familiar. I recommend you always have an attorney review a purchase, but in this case, it was important because of Colorado laws and the PUD. He laughed at that rule, said it was unenforceable. Said it was unreasonable and not to worry about it.
I didn't "change" the neighborhood. I think I was singled out by some grouchy neighbor that didn't like my 4 Runner, I reckon because it was a "truck". I tried to accommodate them by swapping out what went in my garage so they wouldn't have to look at my clean, modest SUV (SUVs were pretty new back then, so they weren't common). When it wasn't good enough for them, and they continued to pressure the HOA to get me to "move" my cars.
Move them where? Across town? Lease another garage? Parking a car in one's driveway was already common in this neighborhood when I got there and is, frankly, part of the purpose of driveways, isn't it? What's ironic about all this is that the HOA could dictate that I not park in my driveway. It was stipulated. But they couldn't stop me, or any overnight guest, from parking in the street. That was perfectly legal.
So, I legally park in the street, which detracts from the neighborhood appearance and reduces visibility for traffic, or I illegally park in my nice big driveway, where my cars (two of them) are completely out of the way of pedestrian and vehicle traffic.
Because I was singled out, and other residents (who had cars in their driveways, in violation of this unenforceable rule) were not, I pushed back. I pushed back reasonably.
Antiqueshell, you're always talking about standing up for yourself, but when I do exactly that, I'm the bad guy?
No. This rule was odd from the beginning. The HOA was being used by some neighbor that singled me out for enforcement. I simply put a stop to it. I showed (by using the city's laws and a modest demonstration) how enforcing the rule was also ridiculous. They amended the rule, through their process, whatever it was, to simply say, no work trucks overnight.
To be quite honest, the neighborhood had already voted on this issue before it came to me. They were parking their cars in their driveways. Even HOAs have to accept the will of the majority.
Perhaps those people who were so offended by the sight of a car (or SUV) in a driveway should be the ones to move.
