Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on this…I live in a division with a HOA, New neighbors want to put up a small chain link fence for their small toddler. The community surrounds a 15 acre lake. Our homeowner’s board is trying to fight this because they don’t like the look of it. In our law’s there is nothing about fences…however, there is something about board approval for “construction”. So, first question…is a fence considered construction? second question…if it is considered construction, does this person’s individual rights as a landowner supercede {sp?} the HOA?
This is why I don’t live in an HOA, I don’t want anyone telling me what I can or can’t do on my own property, while paying them for the privilege. In fact that was pretty much the one condition I was completely inflexible on when I was looking for a house.
Anyway, unless you have friends in high places on the HOA board, you’re probably out of luck. Homeowners have been struck down for lesser infractions.
AFAIK, no. When you sign your CCRs, you are giving up your rights under the specified terms.
I have a question: Suppose the HOA has rules against constructions/additions that are counter to its concept of uniformity. What if a person becomes disabled and requires a wheelchair ramp? Are HOAs ‘corporations’ that are subject to the Americans With Disabilities Act? Or can they say, ‘Sorry, you’ll have to move.’?
Tangentially related: My coworker owns a condo. She’s recently discovered that there is a limit to the number of units that may be rented out. Currently there are 22 people on the waiting list, with no sign of current renters moving to free up a space. She says this wasn’t a problem years ago, as if she wanted to move she could just sell the unit. Not much chance of that nowadays. She’s 60 and will want to retire in several years. When she does, she wants to move – which she won’t be able to do if she can’t let out her condo or sell it. Of course she won’t speak up at the homeowners meetings.
I personally think it’s not such a big deal, but I’d be in violation of my HOA rules if I put up a similar fence. Under our HOA rules, anything to be built that is visible from the road or publicly accessible water must first be approved.
Does your status as a landowner supercede the HOA rules? Depends on what you signed. To purchase my home, I had to give the HOA the right to approve or reject publicly visible changes to my property, including some of the fencing and even includes any house paint color not the original color.
I didn’t think that was entirely right, but almost all the homes in the Houston metropolitan area (> 95%) are covered under similar agreements. Some HOAs are more stringent than others, but you’ll be hard pressed to find a decent home in an area not covered by any HOA. There are benefits, though. The homes covered under more strict HOAs tend to hold their value better.
The thing to remember about a HOA is even if you win, you may lose. You may win the right to put up a fence, but then you better be prepared to live to the letter of the contract, 'cause they’ll be gunning for any other reason to zap you.
No, the ADA supersedes the HOA authority. I’m on the “Architectural Control Committee” for my HOA, and another thing we don’t get to regulate is the placement of satellite dishes. The FCC has absolute authority on that.
That’s pretty much why I’m willing to serve on our HOA. Someone has to do it, and I’m willing to be very reasonable. I figure my job is to keep everyone’s property values up. Being a capricious asshole about the regulations would make people want to move away, lowering our values. But being a pushover and allowing chain link fences would also lower values. I try to find the sweet spot between the two.
ETA: concerning the OP, I’d try to work with the homeowner to find a solution that’s acceptable to all. A chain link fence would not be OK (our neighborhood includes a small lake, and some of our houses back up to that). But there surely are other ways to contain a toddler that would pass muster. How about a short wood fence, with spaces between the pickets?
Sounds like the HOA doesn’t like the aesthetic of a “chain link” fence. Maybe decorative metal fencing,like this, would satisfy the HOA and be able to protect their child.
My HOA gets under my skin sometimes. Whenever it does, I drive through a part of town that doesn’t have them. A few blocks of houses with cars up on blocks in the driveway, refrigerators on front porches, color schemes so loud you can hear them over the car stereo, and lawns overflowing with fake deer and birdbaths, and I forget whatever it was that was bothering me.
There are non-permanent fencing solutions that may satisfy the HOA requirements. There are free-standing fences, and fences where only the post holes are permanent and the sections of fence can be removed. The HOA could also amend the rules to exclude non-permanent fences if you go that route.
There are invisible fences too, if your neighbors don’t mind putting a shock collar on their kid.
I would never buy a piece of property regulated like that. The great joy of owning property is knowing that you can out and dig a hole in the ground if you feel like it, and it’s nobody else’s business.
A fence is construction if it’s high enough to require a permit. For example, sometimes knee high devices would be exempt. Your overly broad HOA rules try to cover everything and may not cover anything. If you change the rules and add fences, everybody can vote on it and you would have a lock on this issue.
In my view, a chain link fence in the middle of a neighborhood with no others looks like hell.
Except that I lived in a nice home in the Houston metro area that had no HOA and found when I needed to sell it, that it had appreciated in value very well without an HOA hovering over me to protect community and real estate values. My current neighborhood has also avoided degenerating into a slum over the last decade despite the lack of a busybody council.*
I think you exaggerate a wee bit about the difficulty of finding a decent non-HOA home. :dubious:
*Of course, there was the time two summers ago when my neighbor came over to ask if we minded her allowing her son to park his pickup in her driveway for a couple of months. It was fine with us and the affair passed without incident, though I suspect that in a rigorous HOA-controlled neighborhood, we both would have been thrown in the Gulag.
Yes, a fence would be considered a construction.
But first, what are the base rule in this HOA? There is a good chance you don’t soley own the ground outside your unit. You may not even be the sole owner of anything outside the paint on the walls. If the land where the fence would be going is community property, you wouldn’t have the right to put anything there.
If the issue is the fence itself, point out the safety concerns and try to reach a compromise. If the issue is the style of the fence, work with the board to find a style that would be acceptable.
If you’re lucky, the HOA has an outside manager with no personal interest in the matter, preferably one that manages multiple associations. They tend to be reasonable about things like this.
Above all, appealing to the “think of the children” emotion might help.
(As a side note, a toddler shouldn’t be left alone even with a fence. I’ve seen videos and heard stories of kids using ingenious methods to get over normal doorway-type baby gates.)
The OP should not be surprised that an HOA would be up in arms over a chain-link fence. That’s the kind of abomination that strikes at the very heart of fears that produce HOAs.
Allow a chain-link fence and it’s like throwing out the welcome mat to trash, sleazebags and all manner of unacceptable ethnicities.
You must live in one of those southern states, without zoning codes, which is the other way to deal with such things.
I would never live anywhere that is covered by a Home Owner’s Association, if for no other reason than their origin – they began as ways to keep any Negroes or Jews from living in the neighborhood. That kind of language has been removed or overridden from them now, but I still decline to participate in racist institutions.
Oops. You are correct. I meant deed restrictions and conflated the two.
It is possible to find a home that falls outside an HOA, but they are a minority of available homes. Finding one that’s not even covered under some type of deed restriction is a bit tougher but not impossible.
This might have been a problem?
My HOA is more on the rigorous side (but not overbearing) and this wouldn’t even be brought up. Of course, the stuff any particular HOA will crack down on depends on the neighborhood. Some of them don’t like cars parked on the street. Some don’t like excessive lawn gnoming. It really depends.
Some people do have problems with their HOAs, but most people don’t. It’s like anywhere in Texas, with or without HOAs. You’ve got a lot of “live and let live” types and a few clueless jackholes that ruin it for everybody else (Rick Perry come to mind here).