What would you do if your HOA illegally towed your boat from your own driveway and tried to charge you seven hundred dollars to get it back? I filed a police report and called a lawyer, but what they didn’t know is that a clock was ticking on a much, much bigger bill they were about to get.
I’ve lived in the same house for twelve years now, and for eight of those years, my eighteen-foot fishing boat sat peacefully on the side of my driveway. It never bothered anyone. My neighbors actually liked it. Some of them would stop by to ask about fishing spots or just chat about weekend plans on the water. The HOA had never said a word about it until last year when we got a new HOA president who decided she needed to improve the neighborhood’s appearance.
Let me back up and explain the setup. My neighborhood has an HOA, but it had always been pretty relaxed. The rules were reasonable. Keep your lawn maintained, no trash bins visible from the street except on collection days, no major exterior modifications without approval, standard stuff. The CC&Rs, which are the governing documents that actually matter, had very few restrictions on what you could park in your driveway.
They specifically mentioned that commercial vehicles over a certain size weren’t allowed and that any vehicle had to be operational and licensed. My boat met all those requirements. It was registered, the trailer had current tags, and I took it out fishing regularly, so it wasn’t just sitting there gathering dust.
The previous HOA board had been made up of mostly older folks who’d been in the neighborhood since it was built. They were reasonable people who understood that the HOA existed to maintain property values and handle community expenses, not to micromanage everyone’s lives. But over time, several of them moved away or passed away, and new people joined the board.
Last year, we had an election where barely anyone voted and a woman I’ll call Patricia became the new HOA president. Patricia had moved into the neighborhood about two years earlier. She and her husband had a pristine house with a perfectly manicured lawn that looked like it belonged in a magazine. Nothing against people who like things neat. I keep my own property well-maintained, but Patricia had a very specific vision of what the neighborhood should look like and she made it her mission to enforce that vision on everyone else.
About three months after Patricia took over as president, I got my first notice about the boat. It was a formal letter on HOA letterhead stating that I was in violation of the newly updated community rules regarding visible recreational vehicles. The letter claimed that boats, RVs, trailers, and similar items were no longer permitted to be visible from the street and must be stored out of sight or off the property.