HOA fined woman for painting her mailbox the color they asked for—her bold response settled the matter once and for all
When rules feel unfair or enforcement goes too far, staying silent only empowers the system. Sometimes, the most important thing we can do is stand firm — just like one woman did when the Home Owner's Association (HOA) came knocking. The HOA told everyone in the area to paint their black mailboxes beige and the woman did as directed. However, she didn't know that the association would slap a fine on her for that. The person had no other option but to take a firm stand against it, per u/lorenz-nike.
"So the HOA here sent out a notice last month saying all mailboxes needed to be beige instead of black. Mine was black, so I went out, bought paint and did exactly what they asked," the woman explained. "Two days later, I get a violation notice saying 'unauthorized alteration of property' with a $50 fine." She called them up and told them that she had painted her mailbox beige because of their letter and the manager told her that she should have "filed an architectural request form first and waited for approval." The person was shocked that such a thing would happen just because she made a "required" change. "Now they’re telling me it’s $50 a day until it’s 'corrected,' but when I asked what 'corrected' means, they said to leave it as-is but still submit the form and wait up to 30 days."
In an update, the woman revealed, "I went to the HOA board meeting today and brought the original notice with me. I read it out loud....and you could see the board members staring at each other, confused." She found out that most of the members at the association had no idea that such a letter had been sent out. "The manager admitted it was a miscommunication." Eventually, one of the members made a motion to cancel the woman's fine and refund her $50. "The best part is they also voted to make mailbox color changes 'pre-approved' so nobody has to file a request form for it ever again." The woman wasn't expecting the situation to get resolved so easily and all of them even laughed at the end of it all. "Walked out smiling for once about this HOA mess."
People shared their own experiences with the HOA in the comments section of the thread. u/IGotFancyPants wrote, "Our HOA is generally good, but we hired a new management company that was not just incompetent, but also irrational about the enforcement of certain rules. The Board got so many complaints, they fired them and got a better one. Going with the cheapest firm is not always the best choice." u/kberson commented, "Congratulations, it’s rare to win one against the HOA. I would love to hear how long it takes for the refund to appear."
u/idkmyname4577 remarked, "Most of the time the Board members don’t know violations are issued. It’s the property manager that issues them. Glad it worked out for you. Often it is a simple fix." u/Excellent_Spare_4284 shared, "Yeah, the majority of what you have listed isn’t really anything that happens over email for us. Home sales are handled exclusively between the title company and the management company. Architectural requests are through a portal and the board/management company has no say on the matter unless it’s an appeal, which never happens. The only emails we ever get from homeowners are complaints about common area landscaping or their neighbors and those are the 2-3 emails per month."
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