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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.
The homeowners association demands that unless every single house has a TARDIS in their front yard, yours must go.
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
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.
Die by the sword. If you dislike the rules, don't go live in an HOA. Zero sympathy.
Looking at the photos it kinda looks like it is just left on the driveway. But that said I don't like the idea of being told that I have to remove it.
Would they have more luck if they placed it on a plinth and maybe had it decorated in with a cyberman?
Of course, a true Whovian will install some nice statues of weeping angels in the front yard!
bada boom
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.
As a corporation, an H.O.A. is a defective product.
The purpose of a corporation is to protect an investor's personal assets from the debts and liabilities of the corporation.
For example, if you owned 1,000 shares of Enron, the only thing you had at risk were those shares. The creditors of Enron could not go after your house, your car, your bank account, etc.
But an H.O.A. corporation works exactly the opposite. The assets of an H.O.A. corporation are the obligations of the home owners to pay the uninsured debts and liablities of the H.O.A. corporation, secured by lien and foreclosure rights against an owner's property. If you own property under the jurisdiction of an H.O.A. corporation, everything you own is forever collateral to whatever debts and liabilities the H.O.A. corporation creates, even if your mortgage is paid and you own the house free-and-clear. Thus, any creditors of an H.O.A. corporation can go after your house, your car, your bank account, etc., to collect what your H.O.A. corporation owes.
See Why There’s No Protection for Members When Community Associations “Go Broke” (January 27 2010), and Bankruptcy Won't Work (July 17 2011).
FYI: The industry refers to H.O.A. corporations as "community associations", which is why the the 501(c)(6) trade and lobbying organization for the industry’s attorneys, property managers, and other vendors is called the Community Associations Institute ( C.A.I. ).
The contracts for those houses typically state that you can't sell the house unless the buyer agrees to be in the HOA, so you'd just not be buying that house. But it's not such a problem -- the real estate web sites list whether they're in HOAs or not, so you can just exclude the ones that are. There are plenty of good houses out there without having to get involved with the crab people.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I once had a next door neighor that had 4 cars on blocks in his driveway.
A) This guy is cooler than any neighbor I've ever had in an HOA
B) This guy's car collection did not devalue my home one bit or make it harder for me to sell it (location baby).
HOAs are just an affront to your personal liberties and a money pit. Their enforced conformity preserves nothing and gives you nothing (except some light fascism).
They don't even enforce the useful (safety) rules.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
> 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!
The HOA in my neighborhood hasn't socialized shit. They haven't even built the park that was supposed to be built 10 years ago. The closest thing we have to a park is the drainage ditch behind the neighborhood, which if you bicycle down, you can access both the garbage dump and a state prison. They definitely made sure to clear out all of the trees from the supposed park site to build more houses on, though.
Disclosure: I am a realtor, mostly on the sell side 96% of the time, not representing the buyer. 4% representing the buyer. So I will speak from the selling side. And a big Doctor Who fan from the 80's
HOA's, condo's, and Co-op's are a form of corporations (non-profit) that run the land you are on and issue a set of rules you need to abide by.
When you buy into any of the above, you are required to abide by those rules. When I do a transaction I am required to present to you the rules of the association, sometimes in excess of 200 pages. And you have 3 days to execute a confirmation that you read these rules, otherwise I will put it back on the market. It's a take or leave situation, I think most people don't read the rules.
Most of the rules are common sense, for example, allocation of parking, pet policy's, exterior paint colors, lawn height (which in a condo is the association responsibility not the condo owner usually), cannot hang wet towels on the balcony rail to dry and a ton more. Some of the more interesting rules are
A) How bad of criminal are you... ( Violent crime of murder not permitted, but a Bernie Maddof welcome)
B) You cannot buy the property on credit, must be a cash transaction close
C) Limit on how many occupants in the unit
A common rule I tell people when they are presented with my property is, you are buying conformity, a lifestyle and sometimes peace of mind.
One of the huge problems in HOA's is the Flagpole issue, ex-military wants one on the front lawn of their house, most, if not all HOA's did not permit this, but every year we see it as a lawsuit http://blog.chron.com/advocate... ( that's a Texas one)
It got so carried away here in Florida that the state had to chime in http://www.hoaleader.com/publi... ( summary is, you can within reason)
When the 9 /11 happened, people hung American flags on the railing, well after 3 months some condo association and HOA's were tired of this, asked the residences to remove them, Boy did that start a huge problem, it's considered un-American, while the truth is, following rules is a rather American thing, otherwise why would we need so many lawyers to interpret these rules.
So I don't understand what the big fuss is all about, the guy has a big blue box ( which I would love to own), it's rather different than what is normally seen, people complained, put it in the yard, end of problem. Or if the guy was smart, he should have asked his association about how to hold a wedding at his home, and they would have let him slide properly with all the form executed to do it. ( You need parking permits for gated communities when you hold huge parties, advise the association and they will set up a little shuttle cart for the bride and groom if needed, provide parking assistance ( by sending a note to the neighbors, see whom wants to offer up some driveway space, provides the cleaning service for all the exterior the next morning... )
if you see me, smile and say hello.