The next morning, I found a letter from the HOA in my mailbox. It had been hand-delivered, not mailed. The letter informed me that because I had failed to comply with the violation notice, my boat had been relocated to appropriate storage, and that I could retrieve it by paying the associated fees. The letter included an itemized bill.
The HOA was charging me something like three hundred fifty dollars for the tow, two hundred dollars for the initial violation fine, and fifty dollars per day for storage starting from the day they towed the boat. The storage fees had already accumulated to one hundred fifty dollars, bringing my total to around seven hundred. The letter said the fees would continue to accumulate until I paid the full amount and retrieved the boat. There was a phone number to call to make arrangements for payment and retrieval.
I called the number. It went to a voicemail box that identified itself as the HOA management company. I left a detailed message explaining that the boat had been taken from my private property without my permission, that I had not authorized any towing, that I had filed a police report, and that I expected the boat to be returned immediately at no cost to me. I said that any damage to the boat would be their responsibility, and I requested the current location of my property.
Three days passed with no response from the HOA. During those three days, I had actually started preparing to move the boat to my backyard, exactly as Patricia had demanded. I had gotten quotes for removing some landscaping and had scheduled my friend to bring his truck over that weekend. I was literally going to comply with her unreasonable demand, even though it would destroy my yard, but she couldn’t wait. She had my boat towed before her own deadline, and now things were about to get interesting.
I did exactly what the police officer had suggested. That night, I found a lawyer who specialized in HOA disputes and had a consultation the next morning. The lawyer advised me this would take time. These things always do, but he was confident we had a strong case. I showed him the CC&Rs, the correspondence with the HOA, the security camera footage, the police report, and the demand for payment.
He actually smiled when he read the HOA’s letter demanding payment. “They really stepped in it,” he said. “They removed your property from your private driveway without legal authority, and now they’re refusing to return it unless you pay them. That’s not how any of this works.” He drafted a formal demand letter on his firm’s letterhead.
The letter stated that the HOA had no authority under the CC&Rs to prohibit boats in driveways, that the removal of my boat constituted an illegal taking of property, and that their refusal to return it unless I paid constituted extortion. The letter demanded the immediate return of my boat at no cost to me, compensation for my time and trouble, and reimbursement for my legal fees. He gave them five business days to respond.