HOA giving grief about fence

 Hi,
Please help us in our new 'situation'. Our HOA is giving us grief over
our fence color. We painted our fence a light oak color stain TWO AND
HALF years ago. The HOA sent us a notice yesterday saying the color is
unacceptable. Our brick color is gray. They said the color of the
fence should go with the color of the brick. And they suggested GRAY
color for our fence.

I think this is ridiculous. First of all, why should I paint my fence
gray and make it look hidious.

We painted it oak color because that matched the original color of the
wood closely and we liked the way it looked against our brick. We
already told them why we chose the stain but they still want us to
change the stain to gray.

Can they wait until two and half years to complain about the stain
color of our fence? Do we have any rights over this? There are dozens
of houses in our neighborhood that didn't stain their fences and let
them rot for years. I don't know why the HOA targeted us. We are very
quiet people and never butt in anyone's business.

Please suggest what we should do. Thanks.

  tedneeley@yahoo.com (ted) wrote in


Because you chose to live in a development with a Home Owner's
Association.

--
Bert Hyman | St. Paul, MN | bert@visi.com

 

And more importantly, you agreed to follow the HOA rules. You have read the HOA
rules, right?

 

Have you try to enforce them in the court of law?
-Sub

 The HOA can do whatever the HOA charter, bylaws, etc. say it
can do.  You agreed to abide by the rules of the HOA when you
bought the house.  If you want to know what the HOA is
allowed to do, go read the documents; they can tell you
definitively.  We can't.

I suppose it's possible that the HOA documents specify a
"statute of limitations" for HOA complaints against homeowner
changes, but I doubt it.  In short, it seems likely that the
HOA can, in fact, tell you to change something 2 1/2 years
after the fact.

Perhaps the HOA waited 2 1/2 years to complain because they
were trying to be nice to you -- they waited to tell you to
repaint your fence until the old paint job was starting to
wear and could benefit from being redone.  Stain doesn't last
forever.

As for why the HOA targeted you, perhaps the "dozens of houses
in [your] neighborhood that didn't stain their fences" aren't
in violation of HOA rules, at least not in the opinion of the
HOA board.  After all, when unstained wood weathers, it turns
a grey that some people find attractive; the fact that the HOA
is suggesting that you paint your fence grey to match your
house lends credence to this theory.

It's also possible that there's a busy-body in your
neighborhood who makes it his/her business to file HOA
complaints about anyone he/she thinks is violating the rules.
In fact, there may be people on the HOA board who look for
violations.

It's also possible that you made an enemy in your
neighborhood.  Just because you think you never bother other
people, doesn't mean everyone else in your neighborhood
thinks that.

Finally, I doubt you have any way of knowing that the HOA
"targeted" you; do you know for a fact that they haven't
attempted to enforce the HOA rules on others in your
neighborhood?

You wrote, "Please suggest what we should do."  What you
should do is check with the HOA before making externally
visible changes to your property.  You didn't, and they have
the right to demand that you bring your property into
conformance.  I think what you should do is repaint your
fence.