04.26.06
“I’m sorry, but Pepto Bismol Pink is not on the list of approved colors.”
We live in a neighborhood where we have a restrictive covenant. To some people, these inventions of homeowners associations conjure up bad images of bored housewives wandering the neighborhood with clipboards, ready to fine anyone who hasn’t edged their yard in the past two days. However, ours is actually rather un-restrictive, so I don’t think it’s so bad. It’s actually meant to help preserve the value of the homes in the neighborhood, but not be too outlandish in its rules.
Nonetheless, there are a few provisions that some people in our neighborhood just can’t abide by. The first is the dreaded “no chain-link fence” rule. In our neighborhood, if you’re going to have a fence, it either has to be a white picket fence or a wooden privacy fence, surrounding your backyard only. Well, there’s this one guy (serial offender) who, not two weeks after moving in, had a chain-link fence installed. He promptly got a visit from the nice HOA lady who asked him to remove it. I understand he wasn’t too eager to, but faced with the fact that he acknowledged the restrictive covenant when he moved in, he had to remove it or face a hefty fine. The same happened with a lady (thankfully in the VERY BACK of the neighborhood) who decided that she needed to paint her house a lovely shade of Pepto Bismol pink. (In our neighborhood, you have to paint your house either a tasteful pastel or earth tone.) Again, the nice HOA lady paid her a visit, and two weeks later, the house was a nice pale yellow color once more. Other rules we have are generally common-sense rules - no livestock (egads), no cars up on blocks in your yard, no in-laws named Cletus, etc.
However, we know of other neighborhoods where the covenants border on ridiculous. For example, one neighborhood we looked at a house in not only stipulated that you can’t have chain-link fences, but it took it a step further and stated that any fence you built had to be no more than six feet high, and made out of cedar. You were not allowed to do any landscaping without seeking approval from the “architectural review committee.” You could not have any cars parked in the driveway overnight (just how were you supposed to handle out-of-town guests?). All window treatments had to have a white lining so that you couldn’t see the color from the street. Any house repairs that may alter the exterior of your home had to be approved by the architectural review committee as well. Needless to say, we did not buy that house.
So, I guess covenants are a two-edged sword. On one hand, it keeps your neighbor Bubba from setting up his own chicken farm in his backyard. However, in some cases, they go a bit overboard.
_steve Said:
April 26, 2006 at 10:06 pm
I cannot IMAGINE how an HOA could win a lawsuit.
Roger Said:
April 27, 2006 at 8:25 am
We don’t have any such thing in our neighborhood.
Calling Cletus!
scott Said:
April 27, 2006 at 1:29 pm
when you buy a house in a neighborhood with a covenant, you sign an agreement saying “i’ll abide by the rules”. if you sign the paper, that’s it, you don’t have a choice. if you don’t want to play by the rules, then you shouldn’t sign the agreement.
my neighborhood isn’t too strict. they might have the no chain link fences though, because i don’t remember any there. they did make the guy who had the house before me pour that extra concrete on the side of the garage for his boat, cause apparently you can’t park a boat in front of your house. and your yard just needs to be kept decent, no hard core rules.
Adriene Said:
April 27, 2006 at 2:43 pm
Yeah, ours isn’t overly-restrictive. The only thing they ask is that you not paint your house neon colors, and actually mow your yard more often than once every three months.
However, one thing I wish they would crack down on is keeping the exterior of your house in decent shape. Our neighborhood was built in the mid-90’s, and most of the houses were built with the bad Louisiana-Pacific siding and fake stucco. About half of the houses (ours included) have replaced the siding (we now have HardiPlank), and of the ones who haven’t replaced the siding, about 80% keep it in good shape, so it’s not bad.
But the guy next door to us has the fake stucco facade of his house buckling away from the house. There’s about an eight-inch gap you can see between the stucco and the side of the house. First of all, that’s going to bite him in the ass when and if he decides to sell the house, and secondly, I don’t like having to look at it every day.