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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.
HOA rules: You can't have $(object X) sitting in your driveway.
$(object X) being a TARDIS neither makes me outraged, nor makes this news for nerds.
"HOAs are completely up front about those things and if you don't read the bylaws before buying, you're a dumb motherfucker."
Wrong. The "consent" to the "contract" is usually a legal fiction known as "constructive notice"; i.e., the H.O.A. corporation's governing documents were filed with the county, therefore the homeowner should have known about them.
This concept was best illustrated in that scene from "The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy", when the construction foreman informs Arthur Dent that "the plans were on display".
I've been trying to get documents and records -- including the governing documents, rules and regulations, etc., from my H.O.A. for several years. In response, they decided to stop accepting my H.O.A. dues payments so they could turn around and sue me for not paying them.
See my web site, madisonhillhoa.com , for details (it hasn't been updated because I've been busy with the court case). You can also get a free copy of my book in PDF form from that site, at madisonhillhoa.com/book
"These days it's hard to find a new construction home that isn't part of a neighborhood that has a HOA"
Municipal governments have been requiring H.O.A. corporations as a condition of granting building permits to housing developers.
That way, the home owner gets to pay the private H.O.A. corproation for traditional municipal functions like parks, street maintenance, trash removal, etc., while the government still gets to collect taxes for those goods and services they no longer have to provide.
The home owners are, in effect, being double-taxed.
> I would be pissed if some douche had this in his front yard, just like I'd be pissed if you had trash in your yard
> or broken down cars in front of your house. My home is an investment and I don't want you dragging that investment down,
> because you're a piece of shit. If you want that, put it in your back yard.
MY investment carries no obligation in regards to your investment and/or property! You got, what you paid for, extending exactly to the borders of your property. ;-)
With other words, shove your self-righteous garbage not into your backyard, but straight up your ass!
HOA boards are proof that "for evil men to accomplish their purpose it is only necessary that good men should do nothing." The problem is that most good people would prefer to skimp on their community political engagement and let others deal with the bother of it all... they don't realize the danger of the vacuum that they leave.
The main difference between HOA and non-HOA development is not the price range of the development, but rather the age of it. Up until something like the '70s or '80s almost no new subdivisions had HOAs; by the '90s almost all of them did. Therefore, if you want to live in a house less than 30 years old or so, you're probably going to have to accept an HOA.
The correlation with richer, whiter areas is merely a consequence of white flight.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz