A fun experience I have to deal with on Monday...<br><br>I've been parking my van in the driveway of my parents house while I get my life set up to make the switch to a mobile lifestyle for the past year. No issues or complaints, until yesterday. I finally installed the roof rails on the van the week before easter, the only external addition I have. The plan is to put up some ply and mount the solar to it. <br><br>Apparently now the HOA now considers it a commercial vehicle, and has said that it has to be parked in the garage or removed. Here in AZ all 1 ton vehicles are licensed commercial, even if its only for personal use, but it wasn't until I added the rails that they felt I crossed some line. I have no signs or advertising on it, so I'm hoping that I can talk them out of it. <br><br>Just an interesting note that I thought I'd share. Roof racks will get the early morning HOA walkers that measure weeds and look for violations all riled up.
Stealth and HOA
- Thread starter adi
- Start date
Help Support Van Living Forum:
sparky1
Well-known member
<SPAN id=post_message_1277540922>another reason I loathe HOA's <IMG class=bbc_img src="/images/boards/smilies/frown.gif" rel="lightbox"><BR><BR>I lived in one once----hated coming home from work, Dam note on the door about some crap."i can here your dog bark" no you can't my X wife took him 2 years ago/ bleeding heart Liberals cry if you yard has a dandlelion in it.."crap---pick it, throw it in the trash for me..<BR><BR>now i live 20 miles from town-in the boonies.(farm land)..some "one??" put a yellow sticky on my house -(said it's looking (ratty)--who gives a crap--i live 850 ft off the road,can't see the house from the road..(trespasser), if i had been there--- the buzzards would be having a (meal).<BR></SPAN>
WheelEstate USA
Well-known member
Most of them are yuppy a$$#0!!s who have nothing to do with their spare time but snoop in other people's business.<br><br>Adi, glad you skated on that one. Lots of HOAs don't even want RVs of any kind on the property.<br>Plant the wrong kind of flower and someone will complain <img src="/images/boards/smilies/crazy.gif" class="emoticon bbc_img">
A lot of them just need an excuse to try to throw their weight. We have those types in Austin, whom will sit in their driveway with their aging Crown Vics, then pull out in front of people with their "SPEED LIMIT PATROL, PASSING FORBIDDEN BY LAW" signs on the rear, randomly slam on the brakes and go 5-10 miles under the limit. Just needing some excuse for a power trip.<br><br>When I was looking at a Sprinter conversion, I got complaints about "commercial vehicles" when the one I rented was a Freightliner. I swapped the rear emblem on the door with a Mercedes badge, then got compliments about how good my vehicle taste was and how welcome I was in the area. Same exact van.<br><br>I'm not a fan of HOAs. Ultimately, they can be used to take your house. I've read about neighborhoods in Florida having an HOA assess a sizable fee, spawn lawsuits about the justification of it, then assess everyone multi-thousand dollar fees to cover high-zoot lawyers for the case, and people had to pay that in 30-60 days or face foreclosure. People lost their houses in droves, the HOA then turned the properties back over to a developer who plowed everything under and started another neighborhood.<br><br>
mockturtle
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 28, 2012
- Messages
- 1,510
- Reaction score
- 1
Totally agree about HOAs. They are inevitably run by power-tripping retirees who feel the need to exert their authority over everyone.
Pikachu711
Well-known member
I've read the past comments and I'll add a few comments of my own. I used to be a security guard in more than a few HOA's and have had to be their eyes and ears here in Las Vegas.<br><br>Lampliter & sparky1 raise valid points. At times HOA board members do seem to be "control freaks" when it comes to board members. They want everything "as per the CCR's" on the property they oversee.<br><br>Adi, most HOA's define what a commercial vehicle is down to the height, weight, length, type of vehicle, color of vehicle, etc. It's amazing how the HOA's define what is & isn't a commercial vehicle. That unfortunate part is that as a security guard I had to know what defines a commercial vehicle. I've had to document with digital pictures and when & how often a resident had a commercial vehicle was parked on property. I wasn't thrilled with this aspect of my job at the time but I did what I had what was required at that time. Thankfully I'm no longer in that line of work.<br><br>Long story short, you will in all likelihood have little success fighting a HOA board if you park on the property. You can fight this issue but it's very possible you'll get a few "nasty-grams" and possibly a fine or two raised against the resident of the unit in which you have connections. Sorry about that! I'm speaking as one of the former "foot soldiers" who helped the HOA board members make peoples life miserable at times. I've seen cases where residents/owners have had liens placed against these properties. <br><br>The best advice I can give you is to find somewhere to park that won't get your family & friends in trouble with the HOA.
D
Donedirtcheap
Guest
You can't buy entertainment this good. Lol
jeanontheroad
Well-known member
- Joined
- Nov 12, 2013
- Messages
- 598
- Reaction score
- 0
If you don't like the HOA rules, don't live there. People buy in those neighorhoods because that's the way they want to live. We never bought in an area that had a HOA because we did not want people complaining about our boats or camper's or trucks or kid's playhouses. We bought where other people who thought like we did lived.
mockturtle said:
"Bored on the Board" is one of the descriptive phrases. These people used to have jobs where people had to pay attention to them. Now that they're retired / drummed out, they lack relevance and can't control anybody. So they seek new people to try to control. The retirees who don't have a need to control other people, are too busy having a life to sit bored on the Board and fight back. So yes you get mostly a specific personality type who relishes making up rules for other people.
arizonatruck
Well-known member
I have avoided living in hoa's ever since moving out of my parents house. My parents don't live in an hoa and their neighborhood is very nice. No one has exactly the same yard either. Their house was built in the early 80's and no one tells them what to do. Same with the neighborhood my wife and I have lived in for three years. I have a pickup and an enclosed trailer, so the hoa thing wasn't an option for that, plus, I don't like being told how to take care of my property. I go out living in my truck for long weekends, but I am not usually at the truck most of the time, just to sleep and cook some food. The backseat of my cc super duty isn't all that bed, although I still like my sleeping bag laid out on the ground better.
sephson
Well-known member
Years ago I had an issue with the association for a rental condo out of state. They wanted me to move "my" bench out of a common area. Unfortunately the bench was neither mine nor my tenant's. Since it was not my property and not on my property I couldn't legally touch the bench, never mind move it. Through a series of back and forth e-mails I made it clear to the representative of the association that it was not my bench and as such they could do with it as they pleased. I thought everything had been cleared up and they would deal with the bench, but a month later they find me for failing to remove the bench. At that point I contacted an attorney and informed the association that I was doing so. The attorney never even had to contact the association. They dropped the fine within 24 hours. I never heard about the bench again.
While this one had a good ending, it should never have reached the point where I had to contact an attorney. The association should have simply dealt with the bench themselves when I informed them that it was not mine or my tenant's. My running theory on why they were so dogged about this is that they wanted someone else to fork over the fifty bucks to get someone to haul the thing away.
While this one had a good ending, it should never have reached the point where I had to contact an attorney. The association should have simply dealt with the bench themselves when I informed them that it was not mine or my tenant's. My running theory on why they were so dogged about this is that they wanted someone else to fork over the fifty bucks to get someone to haul the thing away.
totally disagree with Pikachu711 and agree with stephson
I'm in almost the exact same situation as the OP. parents have a hardcore HOA, they are always making threats, like when they declared our 8ft x 8ft moveable chicken coup (its a rural area) a violation of the "architectural committee" because the blueprints for the 5 peices of wood and a screen door were not approved by a HOA chosen 300.00 per hr paid architect before building it, or when they tried to tell us the easment on one side of the property the tree trimers must have access too cannot be parked on by us (just because we let them use it does not mean its not our property!), or any one of like 1000 things they've tried to fine us or site us for.
we found out the secrete... those home owners dues barely pay for upkeep on the common areas (roads, easments, tree triming etc) and if you have your attorney call them and say that you are demanding a decision by jurry (add 100+ days of attorney time for jurry selection) and want to know what day the HOA's attorney is free to begin proceedings they will back down EVERY TIME. (at least our HOA)
so now... we completely ignore the HOA, and when they do have a legit issue they would like us to deal with, they are extremely polite and apologetic when they approach us.
I'm in almost the exact same situation as the OP. parents have a hardcore HOA, they are always making threats, like when they declared our 8ft x 8ft moveable chicken coup (its a rural area) a violation of the "architectural committee" because the blueprints for the 5 peices of wood and a screen door were not approved by a HOA chosen 300.00 per hr paid architect before building it, or when they tried to tell us the easment on one side of the property the tree trimers must have access too cannot be parked on by us (just because we let them use it does not mean its not our property!), or any one of like 1000 things they've tried to fine us or site us for.
we found out the secrete... those home owners dues barely pay for upkeep on the common areas (roads, easments, tree triming etc) and if you have your attorney call them and say that you are demanding a decision by jurry (add 100+ days of attorney time for jurry selection) and want to know what day the HOA's attorney is free to begin proceedings they will back down EVERY TIME. (at least our HOA)
so now... we completely ignore the HOA, and when they do have a legit issue they would like us to deal with, they are extremely polite and apologetic when they approach us.
Let's not forget the obvious here folks.. While yes we can all agree that HOAs can often be very annoying and full power trippers. They also have a reason to exist and that is usually to keep the development's property value up.
They also are usually not too keen on people living in vans in front of their parents homes.
It's probably not about the roof racks, but more so that someone realized you are living in the van..
They also are usually not too keen on people living in vans in front of their parents homes.
It's probably not about the roof racks, but more so that someone realized you are living in the van..
Similar threads
