Comments on: Home is Where the Petty Restrictions Are

By: JamesC

JamesC — Thu, 08 Apr 2004 16:51:02 +0000

Did I find the right place? I have an association that requires a fence to park a boat. While this somewhat makes sense, my issue is that I live on a corner lot and with city restrictions on the height of the fence on a corner, I cannot put up a 6ft fence without basically giving up several feet of my lot. I put in a request for sort of an exemption from this restriction and I was planning on pouring a driveway extension to the side of my house without a fence. I sent in pictures of similar set ups in more upscale neighborhoods, proved that it would not hurt property values and proved that this could be done without looking unsightly to the neighborhood. My boat looks better than many cars in the neighborhood but I was still denied.

How can I fight this or what steps can I take to try to get this restriction amended??? Any guidance would be appreciated

By: ernest

ernest — Thu, 19 Feb 2004 00:43:25 +0000

It's rather interesting for me.. http://nipple-rings-bear.skidman.com http://grateful-dead-belly-button-rings.skidman.com

By: Lee K.

Lee K. — Tue, 20 Jan 2004 22:01:36 +0000

I know this is an old thread, but you'll probably want to see this: http://www.onthecommons.com/ There are dozens of audio programs on mandatory homeowners associations, discussing the issue from all sides (city planner, homeowner, association president, lawyer, realtor, novelist, civil libertarian, etc.). Richard Oulton is one of the special guests (see http://www.americanflagtrial.com/ for his case).

By: Micha Ghertner

Micha Ghertner — Fri, 15 Aug 2003 02:42:55 +0000

Anon @ 2:23 PM,

Perhaps a possible solution to prevent future encroachments on property owners who agree to join an HOA but fear that the rules might later change for the worse is an extremely difficult to change Bylaw Constitution. For example, Amendment #2 to the Bylaw Constitution might read,

“A well regulated Porch, being necessary to the beautification of a free Home Owner’s Association, the right of the neighbors to keep and bear Flags, shall not be infringed.”

What could possible go wrong with something like that?

By: C

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 22:40:56 +0000

Yes anonymous poster. Let’s protect people from their own stupid selves. We need more paternalism in government to prevent impulse and emotion… Oi vey. Is self responsibility dead?

By: Anonymous

Anonymous — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 19:23:35 +0000

Covenants and busybody homeowners associations stick in my craw and I’d avoid them at all costs, but i have sympathy for those who’d get stuck in a fix when they bought a house they loved in a great spot and figured it would be OK, then later got surprised when the assoc got taken over by a bunch of tightpipes. I’m not especailly troubled by reasonable and sensible appearance restrictions. But regardless of private property rights, people deserve some protection from arbitrary and capricious rule by the burghers of Elm st. Some sort of pettty home-owner’s assoc dispute will end in ugly violence one day, and it will be because people aren’t very good at minding their own business, and loving their neighbors enough to cut them a little slack. Don’t even get me started on the huge gray area that constitutes a contract “freely” entered into….

By: C

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 17:16:31 +0000

Isaac- I’d say that’s sad. If a person willfully enters into a contract (regardless to if he reads it or not), then he or she is obliged to honor it. At least I believe that’s the law. I could be wrong these days. I’m not a lawyer.

The moral of the story seems to be you are responsible, unless you can spend your way out of it. Then again the bylaws seem absurd, but that’s no reason to let a moron get out of a situation he or she got himself into.

By: jay

jay — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 17:16:01 +0000

but what was did the contract state in this case?
he was already displaying a u.s. flag. He took it down and replaced it with the un flag.
does the contract state which flags can be displayed? I just can’t believe that the contract would state the permissable flags.

By: Chris

Chris — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 17:10:43 +0000

When I lived in a condo, I broke all the rules. I landscaped around my unit, added archetectual lighting. Upgraded the porch lights. The result. A better looking condo than anybody else. And, I got a higher price for it than any of the other owners. Nobody seemed to mind the improvements. Most associations are pretty lienient.

By: Perry

Perry — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:58:50 +0000

I think that the whole condo-commando thing is going to backfire eventually and will serve to devalue units in associations and condos and etc.. when that day happens, however will be a different story.

By: Isaac Simerly

Isaac Simerly — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:52:36 +0000

C — the bylaws said no pools since there was a neighborhood pool.

By: Jim

Jim — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:49:06 +0000

I lived in a community with an association. The bylaws book was an inch and a half thick and about 20 years old, with a few amendments tossed in on loose leaf paper. It was abysmal. We could only buy one of two kinds of screen doors, had to have a certain style privacy fence, built by a certain company. The windows had to be a certain kind and only one unresponsive company was permitted to change them if there was a problem. Needless to say, my wife and I took the easy road and left.

I see the point of such associations in keeping a neighborhood nice. But when they tell me that my house basically belongs to them, all I can do is vote at meetings and my neighbors dont care one way or the other, I exercised my American right of choice and told them to stick it. It took two years for that house to resell… wonder why…

By: Nicholas Weininger

Nicholas Weininger — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:24:34 +0000

Grant: yeah, I agree that perpetual restrictive covenants are bad. But that’s kind of beside the point here. The issue at hand is a rule which the association set and which it can change if it wants to.

By: C

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:13:25 +0000

Was the “no-pool” clause written into a contract the homeowner signed?

By: Isaac

Isaac — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 16:02:45 +0000

there is one way to beat the contract. a house in my neighborhood wanted to put in a pool which was restricted by the association. so the house threatened to sue the association with high paid lawyers and run up the costs. the association quickly caved in, each member not wanting to pay a share of massive court fees/lawyers.

as a possible libertarian i’m not sure how to look on this… is this capitalism at work? or is this an attack on rule of law?

By: C

Thu, 14 Aug 2003 15:30:28 +0000

I didn’t know Radley was spelled “N-I-C-K”. Grant has a valid point. However Nick brings up a very contemporary issue. YOU NEED TO LOOK @ THE CONTRACT (or think of the consequences) for the collective you are joining. You have to realize who the collective is you are joining. With so many ideologues out there, you have to block out their prerecorded message and ask for starters-

1) Are you going to like what they stand for?
2) Can you abide by their laws?
3) Do their women have pulchritude?

This goes for homeowners’ associations, religions, professional societies, and gaming guilds. Ultimately this is why I am drawn back to the rural communities of my childhood. The lower the population density, the higher the freedom. No need to worry about waving the original 13 stars like my family does when the neighbors are deer, bears, and vicious fishers.

By: Grant Gould

Grant Gould — Thu, 14 Aug 2003 14:39:04 +0000

Radley —

On the one hand, you’re right that freedom of contract is quite sensibly in play here. But you miss one of the real dangers of the mechanism of homes with restrictive covenants attached to their deeds.

That’s the danger of legal pollution. Since most deed conditions are written such that they will attach to the house until the end of time, they form at best a sort of legal pollution bound to accumulate until no-strings-attached homes are an exceedingly scare commodity. At worst, they will form a reverse tragedy of the commons, in which even the simplest act of home repair can be vetoed by the lawyers of a dozen people you’ve barely met.

While private choice and freedom of contract are fine, the attachment of a permanent condition to a piece of property with no way of removing it before the heat death of the universe is wasteful, inefficient, antisocial, antimarket, and simply a bad idea all around.
–G