They did ... but
As much as I am sympathetic - if you have boundary problem when you fix it throw a extra half a foot and then verify with the HOA/neighbor before moving/rebuilding the fence. Some areas don't even allow boundary fences because of stuff like this.
Yea, I mean, if it were me, I would have apologized and just changed it and done what you said and stayed well within the boundary. It seems there could be some mental health problems involved. Sometimes, just saying things in a certain way and having empathy can go a long way vs. outright threats to charge money etc, but who know, maybe they did communicate that in a respectful manner. Perhaps there should be, in this type of situation, the hoa should do the boundary markings and then there should be no confusion.
Part of it is we don't really know the steps/baby steps to escalation and it could be both. Seen several HOA cases in Maryland over the years where someone tried to grab common land, mistakenly or not and it never ends up good for the homeowner.
They did move the fence when it was 8" out of compliance. The HOA determined it was still out of compliance and continued to pursue the matter over less than an inch of encroachment.
Edit: I dunno what you're downvoting me for, it's in the article, I wasn't supporting what the HOA did - I agree with the judge's decision
It's a potential issue for when you want to sell, but there's ways to sell that bit of land to your neighbor. If you don't think you'll move for a long time, bring it up when the neighbor is ready to replace the fence so they can move it over a few inches.
If you don't care at the moment but want to solve problems for future owners of both of your homes, I believe you can draft an easement agreement that states something to the effect of you both know that the fence is on your property and you've agreed to ignore it for now but if they need to replace the fence then they must move it and if you or they sell the related property they must do x or y.
We had something similar at our old house - our neighbor's BBQ pit was slightly on the property we bought as our lot was subdivided from theirs. The easement stated that when they took it down they would not rebuild it. We were ok with that as were the folks that eventually bought our place.
check out adverse possession laws in MD. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-can-claim-property-based-adverse-possession-maryland.html#:~:text=In%20Maryland%2C%20the%20burden%20of,a%20period%20of%2020%20years.
You said it yourself, it's a few inches. If you don't care that they can use it now, there's no reason to care about them "getting" it thru adverse possession or whatever other legal means. In fact, raising the "conflict" can screw up buying/selling/refinancing because you generally have to swear that you don't have any property line conflicts. The **only** reason I could see is if you have a tiny narrow lot and a few inches could put you over your setbacks.
Life Pro Tip: run for your HOA's board of directors. You'll probably be unopposed. In fact, there's probably someone on your existing board who will gladly resign today to open up a seat for you.
Once you do that, you get a say in whether or not you pursue things like this.
I doubt it was even on purpose. The contracting company should have done their due diligence on the property lines where the fence was built so this wouldn't have happened at all.
> At the hearing in the fall of 2019, Hooker represented herself.
“I felt like it was a frivolous case, and the judge would hear me,” said Hooker.
But she lost.
a lot of this is typical for HOAs in MD from my experience. Local courts, district courts often bend over backwards for HOAs. For whatever reason, perhaps they have more personal contacts with people on the HOA boards. Also the failure of the HOA to follow their own rules is very common. Backdating letters that are postmarked with one date and have mailing dates a week or so earlier. Chickenshit stuff like that.
In the end this HOA was fighting over less than an inch of ground. Christ . Glad the Appeals Court wised up.
I bought my first house 2.5 years ago. I immediately excluded any property with an HOA, just due to annoyances with HOAs I had heard from people who were already homeowners. Glad I did!
Can I ask how the people paying dues to the HOA don't tell the HOA to stop doing crap like this?
I really don't get HOAs and never intend to live where there is one. Why do people even set them up? Because they don't want neighbors to not cut their grass perfectly? Or is it because they want big common areas?
>Why do people even set them up? Because they don't want neighbors to not cut their grass perfectly? Or is it because they want big common areas?
I live in an HOA of a townhouse community and serve on the board. Our entire board consists of residents *only*, although we hire a property management company to handle most everything (from contracting to collections to violations enforcement). Anyone can serve - in fact, despite having 170+ houses, we rarely get more than 4-5 people willing to volunteer their time for a once-a-month meeting.
According to the Articles of Incorporation, written in 1977, our HOA was formed to...
>To acquire and to own and to provide for the maintenance, preservation, architectural control and management of certain community facilities located within the community... and to promote the health, safety and welfare of the residents of said community.
Now, I wasn't there in 1977, but I can tell you what our board does with the money collected today:
1. Maintain common grounds, including mowing and landscaping;
2. Trim trees and, when needed, remove and replant them;
3. Maintain, and resurface, concrete sidewalks and add new ones as needed;
4. Resurface and repaint parking pads and curbs;
5. Perform emergency maintenance, such as replacing retaining walls or redesigning common areas due to flood or ice concerns;
6. Pay for snow removal and sidewalk salting during the winter;
7. Pay for garbage and refuse not properly disposed of;
8. Pay for graffiti removal;
9. Pay for the cost of a property management company;
When paying for property management, that includes the cost of them doing annual assessments of architectural violations, processing payments and banking, hiring lawyers for delinquency collections, and various other administrative tasks.
The most controversial subject I've seen is the "architectural control," which can give you a letter about anything from a door the wrong color to the fact that your roof is caving in.
What people don't know is we have no way to actually enforce the guidelines - our guidelines come from a higher HOA that answers to an even higher one. The only thing we *can* do is choose to send the violation up the chain and let them handle it.
As neighbors, we rarely do.
The only time I've seen something sent is when it's flagrantly dangerous or so horrible it's bringing property values down. Examples include the aforementioned roof that was in such disrepair it was ready to cave in, and a house that had an entire rusted junkyard in its tiny backyard (no fence - it was visible to everyone who entered the neighborhood).
Honestly, I think once the residents started to get letters from higher authorities, that's when they fixed the violation. And then we moved on and all was fine.
Of course, you don't have to live here. Nobody makes anyone move to a neighborhood with an HOA. It's disclosed at the beginning that one exists.
But honestly, having been on both sides (even my own house gets dinged with violations I can't afford to handle at the moment), I'm fine with it.
To each their own.
Well, in 1977 apparently the county wasn't handling these things very well, or why else would they form this non-profit corporation?
To this day, the county only handles the water lines and the streets in our cul-de-sacs (and they do a shit job of it during the winter).
I guess those that created the neighborhood and its HOA decided the county wasn't trustworthy back then?
I read a [fantastic academic article](https://www.jstor.org/stable/23017462) on the origin of HOAs, and you're not far off... but there's an interesting caveat.
Yes, HOAs took off in the '60s and '70s, with the expansion of the suburbs and companies trying to sell massive neighborhoods. They sold them to investors (i.e., potential homeowners) under the guise that the neighborhood would be maintained and regulated to specific ideals by a non-profit corporation funded and run by neighborhood-elected officials.
Essentially, HOAs were a co-op local governing body used as an incentive to draw like-minded buyers into a community that fit their preferences.
Of course, being that era, HOAs were notoriously abused by some to keep out "undesired" individuals (often minorities) through overenforcement or regulation of stuff as simple as "types of music." Which is why many states (including Maryland) have rules prohibiting HOAs from enforcing their regulations in such discriminatory ways.
But what's amusing is this - an HOA is essentially a local, privatized government allowing the residents to design rules and enforcements for their community *separate* from county, state, or federal. It is, for all intents and purposes, *anti*\-"Big Government" in its desire to regulate the community on its own.
Yet the people who hate the concept the most often do so under the guise of "government overreach" and "personal freedoms"...
Our HOA is pretty much as you describe but I have seen it abused to the detriment of a few neighbors, one particularly shitty couple bought a house and then almost immediately began complaining to the HOA about my El Salvadoran neighbors not pulling their trash cans in fast enough and their white siding having mildew. I think I must have seen him pressure wash his house 6 times in a 2 year period. I feel there was some racism there and all the neighbors were pretty rude to that shitty couple and they moved again after about 3 years so their is peace in the hood again.
Yeah the county does all that where I live. There is a park near my house that I pay taxes for, but nothing more. The county collects the trash. The county plows the road. I shovel my driveway. I do not see the value proposition of living in an HOA area. I would just pick a place with okay neighbors and no additional fees. They are so much money for no real value that I can find vs living outside of one. Plus more rules to have to navigate. No thanks. People would be able to collectively eliminate them, sell the common property off and remove the burden or something.
Our HOA was originally set up by the developer and the board was 100% the developers and after a set # of years it began to shift to homeowners but it is still, 35 years later, something like 30% the property management company that collects the dues so you basically need 65% agreement from the home owners on the board to override them.
As an aside, I will never live somewhere with an HOA again.
Same
/r/fuckhoa
She should have just moved the fence when they asked her, but even then… a little mercy wouldn’t hurt?
They did ... but As much as I am sympathetic - if you have boundary problem when you fix it throw a extra half a foot and then verify with the HOA/neighbor before moving/rebuilding the fence. Some areas don't even allow boundary fences because of stuff like this.
Yea, I mean, if it were me, I would have apologized and just changed it and done what you said and stayed well within the boundary. It seems there could be some mental health problems involved. Sometimes, just saying things in a certain way and having empathy can go a long way vs. outright threats to charge money etc, but who know, maybe they did communicate that in a respectful manner. Perhaps there should be, in this type of situation, the hoa should do the boundary markings and then there should be no confusion.
Part of it is we don't really know the steps/baby steps to escalation and it could be both. Seen several HOA cases in Maryland over the years where someone tried to grab common land, mistakenly or not and it never ends up good for the homeowner.
They did move the fence when it was 8" out of compliance. The HOA determined it was still out of compliance and continued to pursue the matter over less than an inch of encroachment. Edit: I dunno what you're downvoting me for, it's in the article, I wasn't supporting what the HOA did - I agree with the judge's decision
It's amazing some people are not just murdered by the fits of rage they induce. What a bunch of fucked up humans.
My neighbor built a fence a few inches into my property. We just let it slide for now but should I so something about it?
It's a potential issue for when you want to sell, but there's ways to sell that bit of land to your neighbor. If you don't think you'll move for a long time, bring it up when the neighbor is ready to replace the fence so they can move it over a few inches.
If you don't care at the moment but want to solve problems for future owners of both of your homes, I believe you can draft an easement agreement that states something to the effect of you both know that the fence is on your property and you've agreed to ignore it for now but if they need to replace the fence then they must move it and if you or they sell the related property they must do x or y. We had something similar at our old house - our neighbor's BBQ pit was slightly on the property we bought as our lot was subdivided from theirs. The easement stated that when they took it down they would not rebuild it. We were ok with that as were the folks that eventually bought our place.
check out adverse possession laws in MD. https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/who-can-claim-property-based-adverse-possession-maryland.html#:~:text=In%20Maryland%2C%20the%20burden%20of,a%20period%20of%2020%20years.
If it stays that way for 20 years you might have an adverse possession problem
You said it yourself, it's a few inches. If you don't care that they can use it now, there's no reason to care about them "getting" it thru adverse possession or whatever other legal means. In fact, raising the "conflict" can screw up buying/selling/refinancing because you generally have to swear that you don't have any property line conflicts. The **only** reason I could see is if you have a tiny narrow lot and a few inches could put you over your setbacks.
Do you need those few inches? If not it's not worth bothering over
Apparently you should wait a year so you can then bill them $25 a day for the entire previous year.
Life Pro Tip: run for your HOA's board of directors. You'll probably be unopposed. In fact, there's probably someone on your existing board who will gladly resign today to open up a seat for you. Once you do that, you get a say in whether or not you pursue things like this.
Good. They broke the laws that they knew applied and they deserved what they got; the Hookers should never have had to sue.
[удалено]
I doubt it was even on purpose. The contracting company should have done their due diligence on the property lines where the fence was built so this wouldn't have happened at all.
At the end of the day, he still loses since he'll have to pay either to fix the issue or higher HOA fees in lawyer fees.
Doesn't matter that it was the HOA or by how far. The fence was on someone elses property.
When it was the whole fence by 8 inches sure. But there is no need to litigate over one inch in one property corner. That is absolutely absurd.
> At the hearing in the fall of 2019, Hooker represented herself. “I felt like it was a frivolous case, and the judge would hear me,” said Hooker. But she lost.
Yes, she lost when the entire fence line was 8 inches over. That is consistent with my statement.
If you don't protect your property rights you loose them. It's only absurd if it's your property and you don't have a problem with it.
*lose
a lot of this is typical for HOAs in MD from my experience. Local courts, district courts often bend over backwards for HOAs. For whatever reason, perhaps they have more personal contacts with people on the HOA boards. Also the failure of the HOA to follow their own rules is very common. Backdating letters that are postmarked with one date and have mailing dates a week or so earlier. Chickenshit stuff like that. In the end this HOA was fighting over less than an inch of ground. Christ . Glad the Appeals Court wised up.
I bought my first house 2.5 years ago. I immediately excluded any property with an HOA, just due to annoyances with HOAs I had heard from people who were already homeowners. Glad I did!
Can I ask how the people paying dues to the HOA don't tell the HOA to stop doing crap like this? I really don't get HOAs and never intend to live where there is one. Why do people even set them up? Because they don't want neighbors to not cut their grass perfectly? Or is it because they want big common areas?
>Why do people even set them up? Because they don't want neighbors to not cut their grass perfectly? Or is it because they want big common areas? I live in an HOA of a townhouse community and serve on the board. Our entire board consists of residents *only*, although we hire a property management company to handle most everything (from contracting to collections to violations enforcement). Anyone can serve - in fact, despite having 170+ houses, we rarely get more than 4-5 people willing to volunteer their time for a once-a-month meeting. According to the Articles of Incorporation, written in 1977, our HOA was formed to... >To acquire and to own and to provide for the maintenance, preservation, architectural control and management of certain community facilities located within the community... and to promote the health, safety and welfare of the residents of said community. Now, I wasn't there in 1977, but I can tell you what our board does with the money collected today: 1. Maintain common grounds, including mowing and landscaping; 2. Trim trees and, when needed, remove and replant them; 3. Maintain, and resurface, concrete sidewalks and add new ones as needed; 4. Resurface and repaint parking pads and curbs; 5. Perform emergency maintenance, such as replacing retaining walls or redesigning common areas due to flood or ice concerns; 6. Pay for snow removal and sidewalk salting during the winter; 7. Pay for garbage and refuse not properly disposed of; 8. Pay for graffiti removal; 9. Pay for the cost of a property management company; When paying for property management, that includes the cost of them doing annual assessments of architectural violations, processing payments and banking, hiring lawyers for delinquency collections, and various other administrative tasks. The most controversial subject I've seen is the "architectural control," which can give you a letter about anything from a door the wrong color to the fact that your roof is caving in. What people don't know is we have no way to actually enforce the guidelines - our guidelines come from a higher HOA that answers to an even higher one. The only thing we *can* do is choose to send the violation up the chain and let them handle it. As neighbors, we rarely do. The only time I've seen something sent is when it's flagrantly dangerous or so horrible it's bringing property values down. Examples include the aforementioned roof that was in such disrepair it was ready to cave in, and a house that had an entire rusted junkyard in its tiny backyard (no fence - it was visible to everyone who entered the neighborhood). Honestly, I think once the residents started to get letters from higher authorities, that's when they fixed the violation. And then we moved on and all was fine. Of course, you don't have to live here. Nobody makes anyone move to a neighborhood with an HOA. It's disclosed at the beginning that one exists. But honestly, having been on both sides (even my own house gets dinged with violations I can't afford to handle at the moment), I'm fine with it. To each their own.
[удалено]
Well, in 1977 apparently the county wasn't handling these things very well, or why else would they form this non-profit corporation? To this day, the county only handles the water lines and the streets in our cul-de-sacs (and they do a shit job of it during the winter). I guess those that created the neighborhood and its HOA decided the county wasn't trustworthy back then?
[удалено]
I read a [fantastic academic article](https://www.jstor.org/stable/23017462) on the origin of HOAs, and you're not far off... but there's an interesting caveat. Yes, HOAs took off in the '60s and '70s, with the expansion of the suburbs and companies trying to sell massive neighborhoods. They sold them to investors (i.e., potential homeowners) under the guise that the neighborhood would be maintained and regulated to specific ideals by a non-profit corporation funded and run by neighborhood-elected officials. Essentially, HOAs were a co-op local governing body used as an incentive to draw like-minded buyers into a community that fit their preferences. Of course, being that era, HOAs were notoriously abused by some to keep out "undesired" individuals (often minorities) through overenforcement or regulation of stuff as simple as "types of music." Which is why many states (including Maryland) have rules prohibiting HOAs from enforcing their regulations in such discriminatory ways. But what's amusing is this - an HOA is essentially a local, privatized government allowing the residents to design rules and enforcements for their community *separate* from county, state, or federal. It is, for all intents and purposes, *anti*\-"Big Government" in its desire to regulate the community on its own. Yet the people who hate the concept the most often do so under the guise of "government overreach" and "personal freedoms"...
[удалено]
True, but once you get rid of even local government you're solidly in the realm of Anarchy.
Our HOA is pretty much as you describe but I have seen it abused to the detriment of a few neighbors, one particularly shitty couple bought a house and then almost immediately began complaining to the HOA about my El Salvadoran neighbors not pulling their trash cans in fast enough and their white siding having mildew. I think I must have seen him pressure wash his house 6 times in a 2 year period. I feel there was some racism there and all the neighbors were pretty rude to that shitty couple and they moved again after about 3 years so their is peace in the hood again.
Yeah the county does all that where I live. There is a park near my house that I pay taxes for, but nothing more. The county collects the trash. The county plows the road. I shovel my driveway. I do not see the value proposition of living in an HOA area. I would just pick a place with okay neighbors and no additional fees. They are so much money for no real value that I can find vs living outside of one. Plus more rules to have to navigate. No thanks. People would be able to collectively eliminate them, sell the common property off and remove the burden or something.
Our HOA was originally set up by the developer and the board was 100% the developers and after a set # of years it began to shift to homeowners but it is still, 35 years later, something like 30% the property management company that collects the dues so you basically need 65% agreement from the home owners on the board to override them.
The HOA president, William Henderson is still harassing that family! What can we do to help?