Chance Gates' Blog

Published: September 21, 2010

http://members.houselogic.com/landing/hoa-fees-122011/?nicmp=rcrim&nichn=editorial&niseg=narwr&cid=WR12212011:37679&ed_rid=1698691

Get up to speed with the most outrageous laws and homeowners association rules.

Even celebrities such as Earvin “Magic” Johnson and Samuel L. Jackson can be at odds with an HOA. Here are seven crazy examples of laws and HOA rules:

1. Can’t park your car in your own driveway.

In Odessa, Fla., a resident was fined by his board for parking his pickup truck in his own driveway because it wouldn’t fit in his garage. Not our problem, the HOA basically told him before slapping him with a lawsuit. After a protracted legal battle, he has since won the right to park his car, but only after two years and $200,000 in legal fees.

2. Don’t plant too many roses.

While foreclosure is an increasingly real threat to homeowners, few expect to lose their house based on gardening infractions. But that’s exactly what happened to a Rancho Santa Fe, Calif., resident who planted too many roses on his property. After $70,000 in fees, he lost his legal battle against the HOA and ultimately lost his home to the flower debacle.

3. Indoor drying only.

As seen in a Colbert Report expose, a Bend, Oregon, resident was shocked by her HOA’s rejection of her outdoor clothesline. Her natural drying method was dubbed a hazard, and they began levying fines that totaled nearly $1,000. She eventually took down the offending line, even after the Right 2 Dry movement got behind her.

4. No mothers-in-laws allowed.

If you’re a married man in Iowa, the government grants you a special privilege: you’re allowed to bar your mother-in-law from your home. While certainly useful to men trying to ditch their spouse’s mom, this law does not extend to women.

5. Only use sanctioned paint.

What appears to be an inoffensive pale blue house has caused a stir recently in one Georgia neighborhood. Unaware of his HOA’s rules, a homeowner painted his house before having the color officially approved by his board. And with a $25 per day fee levied every day his house bares the offending hue, he’s already racked up $6,800 in fines on top of legal fees.

6. No service dog for the hearing impaired.

A Fort Collins, Colo., HOA fined a hearing-impaired resident for keeping Pookee, her Pomeranian service dog. The HOA even threatened to put a lien on the property. All this despite the fact that Fair Housing Act requires condo and home owner associations to make reasonable accommodations in their procedures and rules to allow a person with disability to reside in a unit. This includes allowing service animals.

Have an issue related to service animal? Contact your local HUD office or local or state human rights agency.

7. Don’t use ‘inconsistent’ shingles.

As if it wasn’t tragedy enough when a plane fell out of the sky destroying a Sanford, Fla., man’s home, his HOA then challenged his rebuilding efforts. It threatened litigation because the shingles and elevation in his new house’s plans didn’t match his neighbors’.

Bending the rules

If you fight the law, you may lose. But there are ways to work with the restrictions of a HOA and still get your way. The first line of defense is to make sure you understand the HOA or condo association rules before you purchase the property.

If, after you move in, you’d like your home’s appearance to differ from that of your neighbors, you’ll need to submit a “variance” form of request. This request can be accepted or rejected at the board’s will, so it’s good to alert them early in your planning process. One tip to gain HOA support? Understand the challenges and perspective of HOAs, follow the rules to a tee, and offer to help them gain community support for their initiatives. Maybe even run for office. If you can’t beat ‘em, you might as well join ‘em.

What’s the strangest local government or HOA rule you’ve ever heard of?

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks Nevada real estate professional and property manager, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.com http://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  To checkout some of  my property manager services goto http://chancegates.com/property-management-services/

If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable

If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

Property management is hard,  finding good tenants is even harder.  So once you find one, here is a couple of ways to keep him.  Long term leases up  that include longevity-based discounts and bonuses on rent can help keep good tenets staying long term and inspire better behavior.

After 12 months is a good time to give residents a small discount on their 13th or 14th month of rent if the resident lives violation-free and have no late payments.

After 24 consecutive months with no rental agreement violations and no late payments.  Give residents  a slightly larger discount on their 25th month of rent or for the month of December if it is close.  This is also a good time to get them to re-sign into another long term lease.

Socialism appeals to better classes and has far more strength. Attack the state and you excite feelings of loyalty even among the disaffected classes; but attack the industrial system and appeal to the state, and you may have loyalty in your favor.
John Bates Clark

The decree of a coercive tribunal would not need to conform to the true standard of wages, the final productivity of social labor. It would introduce into distribution a genuinely arbitrary element, with a very large ultimate power to pervert the natural system.
John Bates Clark

The limit is not as narrow as it might be. I do not claim for this action, as it now goes on, an ideal degree of efficiency. What I do claim is that this type of competition already reveals its nature and its ultimate power to hold seeming monopolies in check.
John Bates Clark

The market tends to pay as a wage what an individual laborer is worth. But the case last studied suggests the question how accurately the law operates in practice. May it not be an honest law, but be so vitiated in its working as to give a dishonest result?
John Bates Clark

We cannot afford to have any large section of the business world in doubt whether they have broken the laws or not, and we cannot let the laws become a dead letter through vagueness. In this view it is clear that an administrative commission can render invaluable service.
John Bates Clark

When we say that the persistence of competition is ensured by fate, we mean that individual freedom is so guaranteed. The one thing to which fate binds us is liberty.
John Bates Clark

Mark your favorite properties and get instant updates price changes,  new pictures and status changes.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog. Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and most Northwest Nevada neighborhoods. I can be reached by email @ chance@ballard-company.comhttp://www.myspace.com/chancegates .  You can also follow me at http://www.twitter.com/chancegates .  If you are behind on your house payment and looking for a loan modification, go to making homes affordable For a free copy of my report   “5 Steps For Reno/Sparks Homeowners To Prevent Foreclosures” go to my about page http://chancegates.com/about and ask for more information on preventing foreclosures. or   to request a modification.  If the modification fails, contact your local real estate professional to help short sale your home.  To make sure there is no deficiency judgment a homeowner might find it necessary to hire an attorney.

If men were angels, no government would be necessary.

It will be of little avail to the people that the laws are made by men of their own choice if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.

Liberty may be endangered by the abuse of liberty, but also by the abuse of power.

The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.

Wherever there is interest and power to do wrong, wrong will generally be done.

All men having power ought to be distrusted to a certain degree.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional, I encourage all questions and comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any of the articles posted in this blog.  Please feel free to use my back door to the MLS and search the houses available in the Reno/Sparks and all Northwest Nevada neighborhoods.  I can be reached by email @  chance at ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

On 7-1-09 a homeowner, owner-occupied residents, will be allowed to request for mediation in attempts to keeps his house and negotiate a loan modification.
Here the site for more information http://www.leg.state.nv.us/75th2009/Bills/AB/AB149.pdf

The 3 steps for a homeowner to keep his house:
1.) Talk to the bank and try to refinance.
2.) Contact a senator and ask for his help getting a loan modification.
3.) Request Mediation

Understand I’m not a lawyer and will not give legal advice, however if I can be of assistance with Reno/Sparks Nevada Real Estate part please let me know.

As a Reno/Sparks real estate professional I encourage all questions and comment on the Reno/Sparks real estate market or any article posted.  I can be reached by email at chance@ballard-company.com or http://www.myspace.com/chancegates

Being a Reno/Sparks real estate consultant I always appreciate any question or comments on the Reno/Sparks real estate or any of the articles I post.

Send all questions to chance@ballard-company.com

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