Owning a RV makes one a criminal!

... At least thats how I have felt since June of last year. I figured I'd give a highlight on why I feel this way:

May of 2008 we bought a new house with room to park an RV on the side yard. 3/4 of an acre, but in an HOA. Their were rogue gates everywhere and RVs everywhere, and it is allowed to park your RV in the driveway per the covenants. CC&Rs read "RV may be parked in side yard if accessible with permission" and no mention of any reason I couldn't put in a gate to make it accessible. We parked the RV in the driveway for a few months, then I knocked down the block wall and put in a gate, and parked our RV and truck there. In June 2009, I received word that my RV would have to be removed and the wall put back in the original condition. Long story short, I was in the wrong for not getting the approval... But 3/4 of an acre of desert land is an absurd amount of property to have without any backyard access.

I've been fighting, arguing, and debating for around 8 months and have finally got somewhere in they now understand that having property this large is a curse without backyard access, and planting/xeriscaping this much land is unrealistic - and the threat of filling it full of small sheds makes them shudder - me too! I had to jump through hoops, find all the neighbors owners (they are all renters) and get them to sign papers saying everything was A-OK to do what we wanted to do. They were out of state so this was challenging.

In the meantime I parked my RV at a friends house across town that has no HOA and plenty of lot. During this we even had the house up on the market for awhile - only potential buyer had a contingency of backyard access so it failed to sell even at a loss. I went and got the RV last Monday since we're going on a spring break trip next month and needed to do some maintenance. On Thursday, I had city code enforcement over at my house saying I am blocking the sidewalk and I have to move the RV as soon as possible - no time frame given. Mind you, the 5th wheel goes over the sidewalk, but it's jacked up way high, and I live at the tip of a cul-de-sac with no curb space; I cannot even load the RV without putting in the driveway unless I block my neighbors driveways.

So I arranged a new storage place since I don't want to impose on my friend anymore, and before I could get it there this morning I got an official "warning ticket" for the same thing again.

I've heard people at HOA functions speak negatively of RVs and I really wonder how much is due to jealousy and how much is due to closed-mindedness. I feel I'm being courteous by trying to do my thing and doing so in a way the doesn't inconvenience others. Now the only way I can load my RV is to make it look ridiculous by parking it diagonally and then parking all my vehicles (2 cars, 1 truck) in front of my driveway and the short curb space we have. That, to me, is ridiculous looking and inconvenient to my neighbors since I get to take up half the small curb they got to park guests in as well.

This makes me want to go buy something in a field somewhere and build a house on it 100 miles away from everyone else. I tolerate my neighbors without question because they are good people, can't see why they can't return the favor. My immediate neighbors don't seem to be the problem, we are friends with most of the houses around us, but some dolt drives through and see's a RV and tries to find any means to get rid of it.

I can think of many hobbies that are much more annoying!!

Sorry for the rant, but I figured I cant be the only one?

Joel

Got to love HOA's............

I just can't ever see me buying or building a home where someone is telling me exactly what I can or can't do. (zoning laws excluded)

gota love that hoa! i have heard of some folks challangeing whoever runs the hoa by a vote, and getting someone else incharge a little more understanding.

It's like my father-in-law's community in easter NC. Their covenants don't allow the residents to own pick-up trucks. They say that it welcomes the wrong crowd. Visitor's with PU's are supposed to park in the maintenance area, I guess with the rednecks who do all the manual labor there.

They'll have to pry my cold dead fingers off of the steering wheel before I'd give up my Ram heavy hauler.

I can't even fathom the thought of buying property where I'm told what type of tree I can plant or where I have to park or what type of mailbox to have or ect...

It simply will never happen as long as I have a choice.

If I had the means I would own a thousand acres with my home directly in the center.

Sounds like you live in Southern California,,, that is one of the reasons we left 36 years ago and moved to Northern California, where we can do what we want on our own property. My brother still lives in Phelan, and can not remove a tree on his property without a permit. They do allow him to pay taxes on his property. He has two acres as we do, but up here, we have few restrictions. The one I know about is that we can not have sea crate containers in our county, unless we have over 33 acres of agriculture land. One of the board members who established this ordinance had 34 acres and a container.
Politicians love to tell others what we can and can not do.

We have an HOA, but it was formed AFTER the houses were built, and our house was already purchased. We did not join, along with a few others, but in years past the HOA has tried to "convince" us to join, even to the point that I was invited to attend a meeting to explain my view on why I should be allowed to park my fifth wheel in my back yard. I declined, explaining I felt no need to do such. I consulted an attorney, and was told not to worry, that due to our state laws that we are "grandfathered", cannot be forced to join, and cannot be forced to abide by HOA "laws", unless, of course, those laws are the same as state or county code. My opinion is that some, (not all) HOA's become for the "leaders" of this group an "empire" over which they reign, difficult if not impossible for the average Joe homeowner to get anything changed, but let one of the "leaders" of this empire decide they want to purchase a boat, rv, put up a particular fence, cut down a tree, and see how fast "laws" change.

I have no first hand experience with a HOA (from the sounds of that's a GOOD thing! ), but we've struggled with the camper parking issue for years. RV owner for 5+ years now and it's been in storage since day one, can't have a parking pad next to the house due to landscape issues. So, in house hunting that was a MAJOR criteria for me. It ruled a LOT of houses out, tough to find a place that allows RV parking. Only rule is, the camper must be behind the fence, no biggie for me really, little more $$, but 'eh.

Can't WAIT to have our camper next to our house so I can finally start all the projects I have planned! Good luck with your battle!

Our HOA isn't telling us trees and such as long as we dont touch the front yard... but the rest has been a battle.

Now with the whole city code thing and the sidewalk just adds to it. I understand it sucks for others if others care about the sidewalk. In our case we live in a cul-de-sac where only 8 houses reside, and all of us know each other and no one uses the sidewalks anyway. Kids get to play in the street since it's so quiet and safe. Besides, it was not going to be there for a long time anyway.

At the end of the day, it's sad when you try to be respectful of others and someone out there take the subjective stance that it doesn't effect and makes the change by finding a technicality. Its petty and makes others lives a pain.

Oh well, soon it should be fixed. I'm on the home stretch of getting the RV driveway approved and not longer then 3 days from then I will have the construction crews starting on it. No reason to let the ink dry given the circumstance. Later I think we will sell it just to get away, but right now it will be killer on our bottom line due to the housing market. We put 30k down on this house and not likely to see a dime of that for the next if we sold today.

Joel

I feel you pain. Where I life rv's are not allowed in the front by law. On our street we have a school bus, an air boat a furniture delivery truck and 6 cars and truck (all working) on another lawn. Guess what, I park the WC in the front. So far so good. Some people are narrow minded.

I would sugest putting in a hog lot in the backyard and see how the HOA enjoy's the new neighborhood smell. I am sure they would be more receptive to having RV's in the backyard.
Charlotte, NC passed a law saying you cannot park a car on your own grass! Geez these ppl are idiots.

Good luck and hopefully you will get it resolved.

Ya we cant have livestock or smell bad per the covenants... heh.

We can't park on our gravel in the front either... I didnt want to park on the gravel, I wanted to just drive over it and put things in my backyard.

In the end, if they would have came over and told me to concrete it in the first place, I would have jumped up and called the concrete guy. Now... 8 months later, I might just get to call the concrete guy next week!

Joel

Just an update because I'm bored and bummed.

Fast forward to a month after the last post, the HOA board came back and told us to double our planting/landscaping expenses to plant some special trees. Then they told us we couldn't park our truck anywhere on the new driveway or behind the gate. Then they told us we couldn't level the backyard (right now it slopes really bad towards the house) without having an engineer look at it. Then they told us if we ran into anything with truck/trailer we had only 5 days to repair it. And then to top that all off, we could only have this driveway (6yrds of concrete) as a temporary variance and any new owner would have to apply (and thus could be denied) for this to convey in a sale.

Since I get to pay taxes on improvements, but I could not possibly collect it in equity later since there would be no guarantee any new owner would get it, combine that with the fact that I may have to pay to restore it if any future owner gets denied, we said forget it.

We put the house back up, and in about 1.5months we sold it. 3 days later the deal fell through. Then a week later the same people got their finances together and signed a contract again.... We found a house, offered money, and after 2 months we were supposed to move into it next weekend. Our house was boxed up, etc. We got word friday they were denied for another part of their loan (They are doing some special financing through our state MFA which uses the Tax credit as a loan for the down payment). I guess they made to much money for MFA by $350 dollars since once of them worked overtime or something.

So. My wife and I have spent the weekend unboxing everything, hanging pictures again, restaging the house and have got it ready in 2 days for being back on the market.

It sucks, I can't agree to the terms here so we are doing the right thing and moving, AT AN EXTREME LOSS. We made a VERY poor decision to buy here. Now we can't fix it. We have lost the new house we bought because of it. And Now we are stuck in a place that we can't do anything with the backyard. The yard is so eroded that I need the B/Y access to fix it.

Right now I can't even bring my RV home, I have to run all my stuff to
the storage lot, and the lot size is so small I cant get the slide out more than 1 ft and the front door cant be opened all the way. It's tight getting the trailer in and out as well and feel like I'm going to cause damage backing her in and out.

We are appealing the MFA tomorrow since normally they dont count overtime or bonuses, but I doubt that'll be very fruitful. I am wondering if this is some joke on me at this point. I sure hope I learn whatever lesson I'm supposed to learn soon so me and my family can get on with out lives.

Joel

Thats a pretty wild ride your on. Hope it works out for ya'll.

Where is this at ?

They finally got us. The city gave us 10 day notice to move ours. The fine is $250.00/day. We asked about the two jet ski's across the street the air boat, school bus, and misc trucks BIG TRUCKS parked on the lawns ans the officer said "I didn't see them". We also have four houses in various state of foreclosure on the street. We decided the same thing. We are going to move and Karyn has lived her 15 years. It makes you laugh when certain people say that they are trying to make an area better for the children or a better place to live.

Well, I know it is no consolation, but this is one of the things I looked very hard at when we moved from our place in San Antonio. We moved to the Houston area. I am 35 miles from work, but I wouldn't give it up for anything. I have a half an acre on a small lake, with an adjoining unimproved half an acre, and NO HOA! We have some deed restrictions, but they are minor and very fair. This is one big thing I looked at when moving here. I would not own a house again with the kinds of restrictions we had at our old place, and it sounds like yours are even worse. I sure hope you get things worked out soon and are able to get out of there. It sounds like a typical HOA run amok!

It all sounds like a bad dream you can't wake up from!!

TC

This is in the Albuquerque, NM Area.

Ya, and talk about a bad dream, thats a great way to describe it. We have a house we are scratching and clawing now to still purchase but we gotta sell this one.

I'm about to fire sale it for zero net out or maybe even pay to get it off my hands. Only 2 years ago we put in $30k. Thats all gone, but oddly enough I don't care about the money as much as I want to keep myself sane.

There is so much more to this story I could make a book out of it. I haven't dented they absurdity. Top this all off with a "I knew better" because we knew better than to buy in another HOA. Well, we are telling ourselves "I told ya so"' and beating ourselves up about it.

If you own an RV, more than 2 or 3 cars, like to DIY home projects, like to occasionally make noise doing those DIY home projects, like to have dogs, like to paint and maintain your home without hassles, or do anything a home owner should be able to do... STAY WAY FROM HOAs.

Because I didn't heed my own advice, I will be missing well over $45,000 and 1.5 yrs of my sanity. I'll give you a good example of why you should stay away....

...Conversation about my proposed driveway...

Me: You say I can't park my truck on the new driveway, and I have no curb since I'm on a Cul-De-Sac. Where can I park my truck?

Them: Out of the cul-de-sac down the road (A block away mind you) you can park it in front of someone elses house that has more room than you.

...(words are no match to the feelings I had at this point)

Joel

Holy Cow Joel! I don't feel near so bad now about the silliness of our old HOA. They have brought up the idea of a HOA in our current place a couple of times, and I have vehemently argued against it. They actuall apparently had one back in the mid 70's, shortly after the area was developed, but it folded due to a lack of support. Best thing they ever did was to incorporate. Yes, we have higher taxes, but we have no HOA and are able to do many things we couldn't do in our old house. Man, I feel for you, and wish you the best of luck in your escape attempt.

Joel
After reading about all your problems with your HOA, it makes me very glad I do not have to deal with one. We are lucky to live in an old town that is fairly liberal with there ordinances. In our case you may park as many rv trailers behind the front line of your home that you want as long as it is parked on concrete. (I only have the one rv) Hope things work out better for you.
Lou

dumb question from a Canadian...what's an HOA?

Kim, Pretty sure it stands for Home Owners Association.

TC

Is is where all the homeowners in a community agree to certain term by-laws for the neighborhood. Like no American Flag flying in the front yard on a flagpole, Houses will be a certain range of colors, no windows in the garage door, sometimes a certain kind of blind/curtain in the front windows. it takes away the individuality of the home owner. Some HOA's can cost hundreds of dollars a month, depending on the community. Can be a real bomber sometimes. But it does tend to keep the rift raft out of the neighborhood. Sometimes. And that is my 2 cents worth.

Yes, Home Owners Association. Also around here we have some POA's, or Property Owners Association. As Ole Yella said, can cost quite a bit. In San Antonio, ours was $250 a year. Some of the POA's around here are around $600 a year! And while they tend to keep the rif-raf out, some of the associations tend to take on a Nazi like mentality in the enforcement of the rules. I am glad I am done with that mess!

Hang in there Joel. We're rooting for you!

I got informed yesterday that I can no longer talk to them and have to talk to legal if I wish to continue. The reason was because I threatened them. When I questioned it, they said It was because I said that if no one was listening I was going to make a sign and stand on the side of the entrance road. The claim was that I would do this for slander and libel.

I never said what would be on the sign. Sigh. Oh well.

Time for me just to bend over and sell the house for what I owe and move on. This who 2 year escapade is going to cost me about $45000. The house won't sell at the 185k price for a 2300 sq ft home on 3/4 acre lot.. and while I'm not a math professor, seems to me like a bum deal. I won't live in another Home owners association ever again, and I suggest that anyone else who doesn't want to deal with moving targets for rules and crazy people don't either.

Funny thing is, aside from only brief moments in the last few months, I've been very civil. I've never threatened anyone, yet I've gotten emotional and argumentative. I guess if you have an opposing position, you just supposed to be quiet.

Joel

Wow. Best of luck Joel. Hoping you get out of that mess soon!

Kim wrote:dumb question from a Canadian...what's an HOA?

A comment like that makes me jealous of Canada. Do you not have HOAs or POAs there?

joel

I guess we do to some extent but mostly in condominiums and townhouses. They call them strata councils...and I have heard some nasty stories about some of them. Like everyone must use the same planter pots or you can't have satellite dishes.

I'm not aware of any HOA's involving single family residences (free standing houses) other than the normal rules you get from your city or municipality.

I keep my WC in my driveway and have never had a complaint except for the one time I had it on the street for more than 72 hours. And that complaint came from a neighbour who lives a block away and is known as the neighbourhood nazi.

So what is the penalty for ignoring them ? What exactly can they do. You own the land.

You get a fine ? Go to Jail ? Has anyone else in the neighborhood challenged them ?

Can't you get on the board for the HOA ? And then get like minded people on the board also ? Can you have someone on the board kicked off or voted off ? Can you paint your house Neon PINK and then sell it to some Mexican drug dealers ?
Just wondering.....

I want a house on the local lake so bad I can't stand it, but theres not much privacy and not really a HOA in the area. Being used to living in the woods I'm afraid I'd get arrested for public exposure from the habit of Whizzing freely anywhere I like in the yard or roaming around in my boxers. Even my family if there passing by and no one's home have admitted to using my outdoor natural restroom every once in awhile in an emergency stop.

I'm just not sure I could adopt to the city again.

I think the most an HOA can do is put a lien against your house. I've never heard of one actually being able to take the home away from you. Fines are common, though I'm not sure I've heard of many instance of that going all the way either.

You can get on the HOA board, but it's a tough process if the board is already established. It is even harder to get someone kicked off the board. We put enough pressure to eventually get one person to resign, but it took a lot to do that.

Gawd I do not miss any of that at all.