I liked her immediately. She did not flatter me or tell me that every unreasonable association letter was illegal. She showed me where the enforcement requirements appeared in the bylaws and marked the sections concerning notice, a compliance conference, fines, and the use of contractors. By the time we finished, she had identified several procedural weaknesses but wanted the association's minutes before saying how serious they were.
Mara sent a preservation letter that afternoon. It requested the relevant minutes, correspondence, photographs, board determinations, and any agreements with contractors, and asked the association not to enter my property without authorization. She also requested that enforcement be suspended pending review. The letter was firm without making threats it could not support.
I paid her bill and went home thinking about how much easier the whole dispute could have been. If Celeste had approached the installation with a question rather than a verdict, I would have shown her the permit, explained the emergency purpose, and perhaps agreed to plant another screen tree. Instead, the board had spent a month converting the shape of a water tank into a measure of whether I respected their authority. The money I had spent on legal advice was money that could have gone toward replacing aging valves elsewhere in the neighborhood.
The following Wednesday, I stopped at the hardware store for a tube of sealant and a box of stainless fasteners. The man behind the counter, Ben Haskins, had known me since I moved to the county and usually greeted me by asking what I was fixing. That day he asked how I felt about losing my water tank. He said it as casually as if he were asking whether my truck had passed inspection.
I put the box down. "Losing it how?"
Ben frowned and said someone from Harper Site Services had been in earlier in the week pricing a small crane rental and a low-bed trailer. The customer was a homeowners association planning to remove a residential tank, and the site manager had written my address on the estimate request. Ben assumed I already knew. I thanked him, finished my purchase, and sat in my truck for several minutes without turning the key.
No board member had notified me of a removal date. The minutes available through the association portal contained no motion authorizing the work, and I had received no court document granting access to my land. It was possible someone was merely gathering estimates before asking for approval. But it was also possible Celeste had decided the threatened remedy would seem more legitimate if a contractor had already been booked.
I called Harper Site Services from the parking lot and asked to speak to the person handling the project. The office manager confirmed that an estimator had been asked to inspect access to the tank behind my garage. When I asked who authorized entry, she became less forthcoming and said she would have the project manager call me. I gave her my number and explained that the installation was on private property and subject to a dispute.