Drawing a line with HOA

[Salodin]

If you read the FWP thread, you might have seen my post about my bullshit with the hoa,

Spoiler: show

Not my fault but my community association's...

So I live in a condo community that doesn't have assigned parking. This usually isn't a big deal but lately it seems either all the kids are now driving or we have multiple families living under one roof because for some reason parking has become atrocious; to the point where after 1am you might not even find a parking spot if too many people have guests staying over (with their guest parking pass). Some people double park next to medians, but as I live in front of the club house I don't want to block the road so I just parked in the mailbox 5min spot. Of course, I get a warning. Furious, I call the management company and she tells me they're aware of the parking problem and not to worry about the warnings as there's just not enough spots. This was Monday.

Fast forward to last night. Same deal, so I park at the mailbox spot. I come outside this morning, and my car is gone. My first reaction is I got robbed, but then I remembered where I live...so I call the tow company and sure enough they have it. This is after the manager said it was nbd. I call the office, it transfers me to a call center because apparently no one works on the weekends there. They transfer me to an emergency line, which apparently only handles emergencies like fire or floods, and they tell me too bad just go pick up your car all the while refusing to give me and number to reach the people in charge of my community.

So now I gotta spend $150 to pick up my car. But boy oh boy wait till Monday morning...you guys might see a story of me in the Florida thread titled "belligerent man shoots up hoa office". The worst part is we've had many issues in the community, including a water issue where the pressure is barely enough for a trickle, we can't even wash dishes properly. We're being patient, but now? Fuck them, I'm getting the city involved, I'm getting lawyers involved, these mutherfuckers gonna pay for this shit. >_<

So on monday I talked to the management, who said she can't do anything she has to talk to the board. They responded this morning, saying they will not cover the fee but will issue new parking permits (I plan on blasting them for this "solution" later).

BG, what other recourse so I have? I am absolutely pissed to the point that I'm willing to spend another $100 just to ruin these peoples day and involve small claims court, etc, because my hate for them is just that strong. I'm in the process of writing another email basically saying they need to pay it or I'm not going to drop this and take it through other routes. I also plan on adding to the email things like why the parking is this bad if we have the money to buy new pool furniture, why the water pressure hasn't been resolved if we have the time and money to build a new waterfall for the pool, and why we're pressure washing and repainting all the buildings in the community but we can't afford to repay for their fuck up.

If you can't tell BG, I'm seething with rage...any suggestions?

Tl;dr: Parking is permit based, but with no assigned spots. At times, there are no free parking spots except illegal spots. HOA/board are aware, but offer no alternative solution. Homey is sick of it, has 9 months on his lease, and is just trying to get through this thing called life.

[Byrthnoth]

1) Fighting with your HOA never leads to anything good
2) If you don't like where you live, move out and go somewhere else

[Salodin]

That's not a very helpful answer when the lease isn't up for 9 months. In the mean time, I need to deal with the issues at hand, hence the plea for advice in the OP.

[Serra]

I'm a little confused -- You said condo and HOA, so I assumed you owned the property, but then you said lease, so you're renting it?

I owned the last condo I lived in, so I was able to participate in HOA meetings and discuss changes (like the pool furniture, and the power washing you mention). If you're a tenant, you might not have the same stakes in the property. Your issues sound like things you need to take up with your landlord/management company, not the HOA.

In terms of the parking situation though, if there's no assigned parking and people can park wherever they want without a permit, I'm not exactly sure you have any grounds for complaint. Especially when you start talking about going to court, if you don't have it in writing that they said you could park there (and even then, all you've said is don't worry about the warning, not that you could park there in the future) I think you're going to be fighting a losing fight. 'I couldn't find parking' is not exactly the best defense..

[Wulfgang]

The towing fee is a lost cause imo. Polite appeals to the HOA citing the specific person with whom you had a conversation may do something, but it's unlikely. Your legal recourse is not particularly strong and will just end up costing more money and time/frustration. Unless you have written documentation (e.g. an email) of a manager explicitly saying something to the effect of "You can park in the mailbox spot and you will not be towed" (or a signed affadavit from the person in question; unlikely), then it's your word against theirs.

[Salodin]

No, I lease. I've already contacted the owner, and they're handling what things they're responsible for, but parking is a community board/management thing, so the owner can't help me there. Parking in the community is permit based. There are no assigned spots, but you aren't allowed to park in the community with out the permit sticker or a temporary guest pass (each unit gets 1). That's not the issue, the issue is when you come home late at night to find only the mailbox spot and handicap spots open, what then? Roll the dice? I did and look where that got me.

I should have recorded the call where the manager said not to worry about the parking, but I do have an email from the management company responding to me saying they're aware of the parking issue and the board is as well, and that they're going to reissue parking permits. I'd go into why that won't fix anything but it's irrelevant. I also sent an email back asking what the temporary solution is, since obviously they don't want people parking in the 5min spot and the only other spots are handicap spots, so I'm expecting I could use that too if need be.

I'm not looking for a pay day or anything, I'm just looking for my damn water and parking situation to be fixed by the people that make a living off of making sure I have shit like this taken care of. As a renter I don't have skin in many things in the community, but when it comes to parking and water I do.

Tl;dr: Parking is permit based, but with no assigned spots. At times, there are no free parking spots except illegal spots. HOA/board are aware, but offer no alternative solution. Homey is sick of it, has 9 months on his lease, and is just trying to get through this thing called life.

[tyven]

fam u should move this community is terrible

[Salodin]

Bro I'm trying. I asked for copies of contracts/obligations with the hoa/board so I can see exactly what they're responsible for before moving forward. If I can wiggle a break of the lease over the water/parking thing I'll do it, even if it's only because they're annoyed and don't want to deal with me any more. I wasn't having issues 3 months ago, so I thought I was in good shape renewing the lease; hindsight is 20/20

[BerenTebogo]

Could always start being a petty asshole and calling and reporting the non-permit cars taking up spots after whatever time. Record the calls or at least document them. If it gets to the point you've reported the same car like 5x with no tow being called or whatever you would have at least a slightly stronger position.

[Salodin]

That's the thing, it's not really unpermited cars. I've walked one length of the community while walking the dog, and checked the cars out of curiosity and if they didn't have resident permits, all but 1 had guest permits, and even that is par for course because the community only requires overnight guests to have permits, not people just visiting. Not that that doesn't create problems of its own, but it illustrates how the problem isn't a lack of enforcement, it's a problem of too many capable drivers having vehicles in this community.

I seriously doubt they have data on the amount of vehicles registered to owners in the community, only because I see the same cars with guest passes on them all the time. I'm pretty sure the issue is people with garages using them for storage instead of parking (I can't blame them for that), and units with large/more than one family living in them needing a bunch of vehicle parking spots (again, not really their problem). Tyven is right, this community is terrible, and I wish it showed during the first 15 months of living here >_<.

[Serra]

No, I lease. I've already contacted the owner, and they're handling what things they're responsible for, but parking is a community board/management thing, so the owner can't help me there. Parking in the community is permit based. There are no assigned spots, but you aren't allowed to park in the community with out the permit sticker or a temporary guest pass (each unit gets 1). That's not the issue, the issue is when you come home late at night to find only the mailbox spot and handicap spots open, what then? Roll the dice? I did and look where that got me.

I should have recorded the call where the manager said not to worry about the parking, but I do have an email from the management company responding to me saying they're aware of the parking issue and the board is as well, and that they're going to reissue parking permits. I'd go into why that won't fix anything but it's irrelevant. I also sent an email back asking what the temporary solution is, since obviously they don't want people parking in the 5min spot and the only other spots are handicap spots, so I'm expecting I could use that too if need be.

I'm not looking for a pay day or anything, I'm just looking for my damn water and parking situation to be fixed by the people that make a living off of making sure I have shit like this taken care of. As a renter I don't have skin in many things in the community, but when it comes to parking and water I do.

Tl;dr: Parking is permit based, but with no assigned spots. At times, there are no free parking spots except illegal spots. HOA/board are aware, but offer no alternative solution. Homey is sick of it, has 9 months on his lease, and is just trying to get through this thing called life.

Unless your lease guarantees you a spot, then yeah, it sucks that you can't park on your property, but they don't need to provide you a spot (and that'd be an issue to bring up with your landlord, not the HOA). I'm assuming their response will be park on the street or somewhere else. It'll be really hard for you to get them to commit to anything as you're a tenant, not an owner.

As far as the water pressure goes, you said you contacted the owner, but I'd put pressure on him/her to get that fixed. I don't know what that would entail, since I don't know your property, but that's who you should be dealing with.

[Salodin]

I, more and more, get the feeling that's what I'm going to get with the parking, but I'm still trying.

As for the water, afaik the community provides that, with part of the dues going towards that maintenance. I have to wait on those papers detailing the obligations, but I'm pretttyyyy sure the landlord/owners washed their hands of it in exchange for letting the hoa handle it with the accompanied fees.

[Serra]

Even if that's the case, my advice is the same -- keep putting pressure on your landlord. Whether that means you need to call him/her every day, or multiple times a day, you need to make sure he/she realizes that it is their responsibility to ensure it gets fixed.

I don't know the laws where you live, but there might also be the option of threatening to call a plumber and deducting the amount from your rent, but I don't know how that would work with the HOA/whether they would allow an external plumber to do any work.

[Salodin]

It's not a plumbing to the unit issue, it's a "not enough pressure to the community" issue, hence why the hoa has to deal with it. Long story short, we have one meter (the term main might make more sense for people) feeding the community. However, the buildings are so tall and there are so many buildings in here that it isn't enough to properly supply water at a decent pressure. The solution would be to raise the pressure sent in, which can be done but only slightly (talking like going from 40psi to 50psi at the meter), or get a second meter on the other side of the loop to the community pumping water in, but because this has to be done on private property the community has to pay for it over the city (hence why it isn't fixed yet).

Alternatively, the city engineer told me they could install pumps in every building to pump water up, but that's probably even more expensive and won't even really fix the problem.

[Aylee]

Water is simple, turn in a written request for a repair and either have it signed or sent certified mail. Landlord has like 2-3 days to try and resolve the problem once they are aware of it. After that if the issue isant fixed then you have legal recourse to either A) get it fixed and send the landlord the bill (bad choice as it can back fire easily) or B) force the landlord to let you out of your lease (best case senario).

Didnt know shit was this bad you should have told me, I only knew about the towing. I've been to court as a tenant (Sued the apartment complex) and my family owns a rental company. Tenants have all the power to the point its stupid you just have to go about it the right way.

[Brill Weave]

Could always start being a petty asshole and calling and reporting the non-permit cars taking up spots after whatever time. Record the calls or at least document them. If it gets to the point you've reported the same car like 5x with no tow being called or whatever you would have at least a slightly stronger position.

This man has it. If you get a bullshit fine you start turning in every mother fucker that does something wrong.