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HOA Orders TARDIS Removed From In Front of Parrish Home
An anonymous reader writes A Florida couple learned that they are much bigger fans of Doctor Who than their homeowner association, after receiving a notice to remove the TARDIS from their driveway. Leann Moder and her husband David were given 15 days to get rid of the big blue box. From the article: "It was built by Moder's father as a wedding set piece, and she and her husband, David, were married in front of it. 'My husband mentioned, "Do you want to do a Doctor Who themed wedding?"' Moder said. 'That could be fun.' Since then, their TARDIS has been used at sci-fi conventions and parties, and was even the focus of a Halloween haunt the Moders set up on their driveway in October." The HOA had no comment on their stance on sonic screwdrivers, or the Eye of Harmony.
Leaving a TV prop replica sitting in your driveway is douchey. Store it in the garage, or your storage shed, or the back yard, or a storage facility. Nobody in your neighborhood likes Doctor Who so much that they want to come home to your driveway TARDIS every day. Stop being a douche.
If you don't want to conform, don't buy a home there.
HOAs are completely up front about those things and if you don't read the bylaws before buying, you're a dumb motherfucker.
Not in my case. I didn't see the bylaws of my HOA until I had been it's president for 18 months. It didn't help that it was in a messed up master-sub association hierarchy intended to leave the power in the hands of the developer, so there were multiple sets of rules flying around, only a subset of of which were passed to homeowners.
Fortunately, that leaves the HOA relatively powerless if it comes to a lawsuit and my goal as president was to stop the crazies trying to use the HOA as a tool to crap on their neighbors and settle old differences.
HOAs are evil, in that they are perfectly constructed to set neighbor against neighbor. We would be better off without them.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
This is not exactly true. Many HOA's "make it up as they go" and you find out later you are in violation of somebody's made up rule.
Mine, for instance, sent me a warning letter giving me 15 days to remove an "above ground pool" from my back yard (that had been there 4 years previously) but nowhere is "above ground pool" or anything approaching that even mentioned in the deed restrictions. I know, I read though the 30 pages three times looking for it. I even called the property management company and asked them where it was and THEY couldn't find it. Turns out, it was in ANOTHER document, one that I was not aware existed and one that the HOA board had authored well after the deed restrictions where filed on my home, without my knowledge or consent.
So, what you say is NOT always true. They often do change the rules AFTER the fact and Realtors often gloss over the HOA's authority except to tell you if there are any dues. Usually there is the "transfer paperwork" that is supposed to give you all the details, or at least warn you that there are details you should be warned about, but that is presented to the buyer at closing to sign in a 3 inch stack of paper with hundreds of "initial here" and "Sign here" stickers and who has time to actually understand all that mess? Besides, the REAL details of the HOA are in the deed restrictions and in the 5+ closings in two separate states I've attended in my lifetime I've NEVER seen them in the stack of paperwork.
Personally, I think HOA's are an OK idea that has been made into a really bad one by the builders who use them. My primary problem with them is that they NEVER ever end. It doesn't matter what happens to my current house, in 100 years the HOA will STILL be there. Something tells me that in 100 years, circumstances are likely to change and the HOA will be a legal problem with no good solution.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
No matter where you go though there will be petty politics when you arrive. If you ever find a group of like minded and enlightened indivuduals maybe things will work out briefly until someone cranky moves in and disagrees with everyone else. Soon you get a big collection of nutty guys in the neighborhood and they start getting elected to the HOA board, which is actually pretty common because the sane people want nothing to do with being on the board.
Then it turns out that to "take your business elsewhere" is an extremely onerous task - uproot yourself and the family, sell the house at a loss, move to another neighborhood, and take your chances all over again.