HOA and painting dish

As a long time board member of an HOA, I've found that our HOA (and others) do these sorts of things out of ignorance and inertia.......

When I first saw our property manager writing "violation reports" for visible sat dishes, the HOA trying to plug dishes into the architectural submittal process, etc., I made multiple copies of OTARD and other applicable FCC regs I could find and carried them to the next board meeting.

Those materials got placed into the board member's handbooks as well as the "official" rules and that was the end of it. There has from time to time been new board members who have tried to stir things up, but they've been referred back to the materials I provided and the "problem" was over.

And.....not really D* related, but.......if you dislike your HOA, have problems with your HOA.....the best course of action is participation. Don't sit back and complain.....run for a seat on the board, at the very least attend the meetings, get to know (even get friendly with) board members, they are your neighbors too.

I've had to remind the property management company (hired by the HOA) several times over the years that the BOARD interprets the CC&R's...not the management company, and not their lawyers. A Board member's primary responsibility is to represent their neighbors in Association business....I don't personally understand the "thugs" and "idiots" comments.

 

You are welcome to address me personally, as opposed to hiding a sentence at the end of a long-winded post with vague reference to my post.

The thugs and idiots comment comes from living in south Florida for several decades, and owing a roofing company. My experience with HOA's has been that in this area quite a large majority of them qualify for the thug and idiot label. This may not be true in other areas, I concede. If you wish, I can direct you to numerous criminal and civil filings within the Florida court system to demonstrate.

 

Its like that all over the country. Its extremely rare to find a good HOA, even with the rare good ones all it takes is one or two bad apples to ruin it for years.

 

When we moved the last time to our current house, we drove our realtor nuts. We refused to consider anyplace that had an HOA. That eliminated about 90% of the houses on the market at the time. The great news was, it landed us a place in a nice older neighborhood with extra large lots, as opposed to the newer developments jammed together on zero lot line. Of course, I have to tolerate a few eccentric neighbors whose idea of a clean lawn is only having one car on jack stands at a time, but that, to me, is better than having other people tell me I have to paint my sat dish so as to not damage their tender sensibilities.

 

I will never live in a HOA, my sister and her husband have so many problems with theirs. Same for a former co-worker, he got a $50 fine because he got stuck at work late and his trash can was out past 5pm on trash day. What a freakin joke, his biggest ***** was that the biggest violators of the HOA rules were the board members/president...

 

Yep, when I was looking for my house the first thing I told the realtor was if you show or try to talk me in to buying anything that has any CC/R's or HOA attached or potentially attached to it I am going to fire you on the spot!!!!

 

All it takes is 30 seconds and your wallet to make a thug mugger happy. It would fall under the category of helping the poor, and not wasting too much of your own valuable time arguing with idiots.

Give baby his pacifier.

 

I hear the "no HOA" chorus thing and I appreciate it. In my own situation, I have a townhouse and the HOA is fairly benign - its a small neighborly complex and nobody every says boo to me. The big problem is that every time something goes wrong I have to deal with the board and it takes a year to get anything done. I had a leaky wall alongside my garden. If I owned the exterior, I would have just dug it up and fixed it over a weekend.

Still, one urban reality is that HOAs are often economically necessary. My Los Angeles townhouse cost $368,000. You couldn't get near a single family home for that price around here - even after the economic meltdown.

In any case, I believe the FCC rules are pretty widely misunderstood.

First, the HOA does not have to allow you to mount the dish on your balcony or porch - they just have to allow you to mount the dish somewhere - in a way that does not lead to additional cost or degradation in signal quality. In my case, my home has two balconies and they HOA demanded that I put the DISH on a roof with a non-penetrating mount (which I did).

Second, the FCC rule also says very little about the actual cabling. I do not think there is anything in the FCC rules which allows tenants and condo owners to penetrate walls for cables, for example. In my case, I don't own the exterior walls, so the HOA could have said "You can install a dish, but you can't run a cable through the wall..."

Third, the FCC laws do not restrict HOAs and landlords from rules and procedures related to appearance. In one case that I know of, the HOA required the homeowner to paint wiring to match the exterior of the building. Since the homeowner was not particularly handy, she had to assume the costs of hiring a handyman with a ladder.

 

It's also not visible from the street so what does it matter what color it is?
I'd paint it bright orange and see what happens.:lol:

 

You are right, the rules are widely misunderstood. For instance, they do have to allow you to mount the dish on a balcony IF it is in an exclusive use area and it does not extend beyond the railing, and mounting it anywhere else would incur an additional cost, ie, a pole mount.

 

This posting is quite senseless.

 

Of course I read the post! Just because a CSR at DirecTV says something does not make it true (as we all know). This subject has come up many times over the years.

 

It was a comment on letting others push you around just to make them happy and so they will leave you alone, even if it is something you don't agree to. Perhaps I didn't phrase it correctly.

 

The comparison you chose is in no way valid. Additionally, there's a difference between "letting others push you around" and trying to be a good neighbor and picking your battles wisely. Too many people these days want to go the mat over the most trivial crap.

 

But he agreed to it at closing. He signed something where he promised he would abide by the HOA rules. All of them, not just the ones he liked. Except if they clearly conflict with state or federal laws.

Anyway, it was a mistake.

FYI, towns are now passing similar "draconian" laws. So it's not just limited to HOAs anymore.

 

The problem, IMO, is that too many people go under the mat and hide/comply on the most trivial crap.

Just like post #26. The HOA charges a $50 fine for a trash can. Stand up and fight back! Don't let them push you around! Would you be a good neighbor and pay your $50 if that happened to you?