The following is a letter from a Las Vegas Homeowner
I was pleased to find your site on the internet. I am a member of a Las Vegas Homeowners association and I am presently involved in a complaint against one of their board members. As a member of a small “sub-association” that falls under the Master association of ______, I have endured eight years of harassment and unfair treatment by both my local sub-association, as well as members of the HOA board. I too have used my legal, civil, and individual home owners’ rights to successfully ward off many of these attacks.
Unfortunately, my story starts eight years ago when a member of my small sub-division (and Sub-Association) took offense to my personal hobby of auto racing. I realize that just the mention of this sport conjures up visions of backwoods, uneducated, working class folks working as mechanics with cars parked in their front yards. However, I can assure you that this is about as far from my situation as one could imagine. None the less, this individual has been on a campaign to rid our community (and my own garage for that matter) of these “undesireables.” What’s interesting is that for the most part, my garage has served as nothing more that a storage facility for my parked race cars. I do not have a business of working on race cars, nor do I provide mechanic services out of my garage. I am a professional person who works outside my home up to 60 hours a week at my business (which is not autoracing). I am nothing but a hobbiest, and I have restricted my hobbiest activities to only those allowed by our CC&R. Anyways, as I mentioned, this individual simply can’t deal with the fact that someone can enjoy their own hobby, within the confines of their own home and property without this person’s personal “blessing.” To combat these perceived annoyances, this individual (and his wife) have both actively campaigned for membership on our sub-association HOA board. After years of harassment and unsuccessful attempts to impose fines, penalties and un-fair practices against me, this person was removed from our sub-association board. It was made apparent to him that our sub-association board had no interest in exposing themselves to potential lawsuits for discrimination, intimidation and harassment. I am proud to say that I successfully defended myself against ALL charges by this person and board and have never incurred any fines or violations as of this date. What’s most interesting is that I simply used the CC&R’s as protection against these allegations, and was able to legally and properly argue against these complaints, and protect my rights. However, these fights have emotional, financial and time costs to those of us whom choose to stand up for our rights.
Unfortunately, the story continues…
After several unsuccessful attempts to re-establish membership as a board member of our Sub-Association, this person gave up and moved on. However, his determination led him to seek involvement in our Master Association as a board member. This was actually not a bad play on his part, as most local issues are dealt with through the sub-associations, and most issues with our Master association are between the sub-associations and the Master association. None-the-less, this individual has positioned himself on the HOA as a director and chairperson for the Architectural Review Committee. Evidently, after eight years of existence, it seems that the association has taken a keen interest in the Architectural compliance of my existing home and yard. Coincidence? I think not. Anyways, after receiving a request from the HOA to submit a landscaping plan for my back yard (now this is after 8 years of living in this community) because they can not locate an existing landscape plan in their records, I can only wonder if everyone is receiving these requests. In the spirit of cooperation I was happy to provide the missing information for their records and submitted the requested information. To my surprise, it seems that this was evidently not enough to appease this person’s ego, so he took it upon himself to “investigate” my yard. Evidently this was to “prove” that I had an “illegal” shed in my back yard. Can you believe this? This person actually approached surrounding neighbors requesting access to their back yards for the purpose of “proving” that I had an “illegal shed.” I couldn’t believe it when I was informed of these activities. This man has gone off the deep end, and as a bare minimum invaded my privacy, practiced harassment and intimidation against me and my neighbors, and may have shown intent to gain illegal access to my yard and trespassing.
I have since informed the Board of my concerns and requested an immediate meeting to stop this harassment and to resolve any issues of concern in a proper and professional manner. I am seriously considering legal action against this individual, the HOA, and members of its board for participating in institutional harassment, intimidation and invasion of privacy. What’s really interesting is that if I’m not mistaken, these Indemnification policies and liability insurance policies that are typical of HOA boards only protect Board members against acts of negligence, and not illegal acts. This may very well expose these individuals personally, and that’s not something that I’d like to be on the wrong end of the stick of. Anyways, my plight continues, and we’ll see if the board (and hopefully their counsel) realizes the importance of conducting matters of our master home owners’ association in both a legal and professional manner.
I’ll keep you informed as to the progress.
I’d be happy to share this with others, however, I would only ask that my name be kept anonymous as I would like to avoid any personal retributions by other board members or their representatives.
Sincerely,
A homeowner
Note: The above situation has a happy ending for the homeowner. The master association refused to go along with the person bent on harassment and sided with the homeowner. However this does show the lengths to which some misguided individuals will to in their attempts to boss their neighbors.