Home Owner Associations....

Many of you probably know that we live in a community that has a home owner association. We moved into our neighborhood because of this "perk", and because Joe and I are super picky about the appearance of our house, we wanted neighbors to feel the same way. We thought this would be a perfect solution to the problem of "messy" neighbors. Well, we have been here in this house for about 9 years, and over the years we have seen more bad neighbors than good. For some reason, the board of directors of our association doesn't seem to enforce many of the rules in our CC&R's. Our neighbors yards are full of weeds and dying, their houses need fresh paint, they have multiple cars parked outside their garage, they park on the street and in the sidewalks, their dogs bark at all hours of the day and night, all of these being violations. We have written letters, gone to board meetings, called members of the board, to no avail.

This is why it seems strange to us, that whenever we have a small "violation" of the CC&R's, they quickly send us out a notice and are right on top of it. So, yesterday I received a letter from the board about our boat being parked on the side of our driveway, as we were cleaning it up to sell and it probably sat there for 5 days. This was definitely a temporary thing, as we already sold it. Anyway, I will let you see the letter that the board member sent us, and the letter that I am sending them in response.

His letter is this.....

Dear Mr. and Mrs. XXXXXXXX, (us)

The home owners association is working very hard to preserve the value of the homes in our development, by eliminating unsightly conditions, such as parking and other violations on the individual lots. It has come to my attention that you have a boat parked in front of your home in violation of our CC&R's. Please remove said boat immediately. I know that you take great pride in your home, as we all do, so please cooperate with us in our attempt to maintain the beauty and value of the development.

Sincerely,

John XXXXXX

Architectural Compliance Committee

Here is my letter in response:

John XXXXXXX, Chairman
Architectural Compliance Committee


Dear Mr. XXXXXXX:
We would like to inform you that we did receive your letter about our boat being parked in our driveway and that it was a violation of the CC&R's of our development. We had already moved the boat behind our fence (which we have a variance for ) upon receipt of your letter.
We were actually quite surprised that you would even notice our boat in our driveway, as our neighbors 3 cars are always parked in their driveway and over the sidewalk, thus blocking the view of our boat. We were under the impression that the board could at times be lenient with certain situations, and would allow a boat or RV parked in front of a house for a couple of days out of the 9 years that we have lived in this community. Unfortunately, that does not seem like the case.
So, you will be happy to know that we sold the boat, and now you will not have the problem with us, but we would hope that you are following our other neighbors just as closely as you do us. We can see many violations right out of our front door, and have complained numerous times about these violations, to no avail. We are one of the few houses on our street that uses our garage for our 2 cars, and do not park in our driveway. Our three neighbors have a total of 12 cars and 1 boat that are parked on the street, in their driveways, and over the sidewalks in front of their houses. We would appreciate some attention to this matter.
Thank you for your time,


Joe and Kelli XXXXXXX