As for quick background, I moved into a townhome of 9 units with my brother last March. We have two dogs. Seems the HOA (3 households in the complex) had it out for us a bit from the beginning. In general, they are a little bit older and quite a bit pretentious. A few months ago, we came to an “agreement” that we would add a pet waste station if the dog owners (3 units have dogs) maintained it. I agreed to maintain it.
Fast forward to about a month ago, there was an unannounced board meeting and in the meeting minutes they had noted 1) pet station was not being maintained and so they would like to remove it and 2) dogs were presumably peeing on bushes and killing them.
In hindsight, I definitely shouldn’t have done this but I responded to the email, stating that the dogs weren’t killing the bushes and that I would try to ensure they wouldn’t pee on the bushes as possible. There was some correspondence back and forth thereafter. I also proposed that someone could text me if they noticed the pet station getting full and mentioned that, otherwise, another owner could alternate/hep me to maintain it. A couple emails later (one of which stated that texting is not sustainable and dogs must be escorted to the nearest fire hydrant upon going outside), the HOA president responded with an attorney cc’d and said that the HOA was interested in moving this discussion to mediation. Not sure what we would be mediating, I asked that question. No response.
Since the email exchange, I ran into our landscaper, and he admitted that the dogs most certainly were not killing the bushes with their pee.
Yesterday I went to get the mail and saw that we missed a certified letter from their attorney. I went to the post office to get it today. The letter said that we cannot communicate with board members outside of board meetings. It continued to list various provisions in the bylaws that we were being accused of not adhering to. They were all about dogs and the accusations were not true, and they basically said that dogs cannot be on our common property and essentially that they could vote to evict the dogs through a vote. Basically a threat even though our dogs never behaved in ways insinuated in the letter.
I’m not trying to get anything out of this but want to share my experience with my HOA as a first time homeowner. If you have the opportunity to buy without the presence of an HOA, I would do that. Even though I feel like we have been harassed and now threatened, it seems they can do whatever they want.
Fast forward to about a month ago, there was an unannounced board meeting and in the meeting minutes they had noted 1) pet station was not being maintained and so they would like to remove it and 2) dogs were presumably peeing on bushes and killing them.
In hindsight, I definitely shouldn’t have done this but I responded to the email, stating that the dogs weren’t killing the bushes and that I would try to ensure they wouldn’t pee on the bushes as possible. There was some correspondence back and forth thereafter. I also proposed that someone could text me if they noticed the pet station getting full and mentioned that, otherwise, another owner could alternate/hep me to maintain it. A couple emails later (one of which stated that texting is not sustainable and dogs must be escorted to the nearest fire hydrant upon going outside), the HOA president responded with an attorney cc’d and said that the HOA was interested in moving this discussion to mediation. Not sure what we would be mediating, I asked that question. No response.
Since the email exchange, I ran into our landscaper, and he admitted that the dogs most certainly were not killing the bushes with their pee.
Yesterday I went to get the mail and saw that we missed a certified letter from their attorney. I went to the post office to get it today. The letter said that we cannot communicate with board members outside of board meetings. It continued to list various provisions in the bylaws that we were being accused of not adhering to. They were all about dogs and the accusations were not true, and they basically said that dogs cannot be on our common property and essentially that they could vote to evict the dogs through a vote. Basically a threat even though our dogs never behaved in ways insinuated in the letter.
I’m not trying to get anything out of this but want to share my experience with my HOA as a first time homeowner. If you have the opportunity to buy without the presence of an HOA, I would do that. Even though I feel like we have been harassed and now threatened, it seems they can do whatever they want.
