During this time, I received a panicked call from the property management company. They wanted to work something out and asked if I would be willing to just pay a reduced fee and take my boat back. I told them I wasn’t paying anything and referred them to my attorney. They tried to argue that the daily fees were becoming excessive. I agreed that they were, and I suggested they return my boat immediately if they didn’t want the fees to keep climbing.
Here’s what was happening behind the scenes, which I found out later. The marina had been billing the towing company for the storage. The towing company had tried to bill the HOA. The HOA was claiming they had never authorized storage at a marina and refusing to pay. The property management company was stuck in the middle and getting increasingly worried about the liability exposure. And Patricia, the HOA president, was insisting that I was responsible for all of it because I had refused to comply with the violation notice.
The restraining order hearing was brief. My lawyer presented the CC&Rs, showed that there was no valid restriction on boats in driveways, and argued that the HOA had taken my property without authority and was now holding it hostage. The HOA’s lawyer tried to argue that the board had broad authority to enforce community standards, but the judge wasn’t buying it.
She read through the relevant sections of the CC&Rs, asked the HOA’s lawyer to point to any language that prohibited boats in driveways. And when he couldn’t, she ruled in my favor. The order was clear. The HOA was to immediately return my boat at no cost to me, and they were prohibited from taking any further action regarding the boat pending the resolution of the lawsuit.
I retrieved my boat from the marina two days later at no cost to myself. Here’s how the liability chain worked. The towing company had an account with the marina and had delivered the boat there. The marina’s policy was clear. Whoever drops off a boat is responsible for storage fees until it’s picked up. The towing company tried to argue they were just following the HOA’s instructions, but the marina didn’t care about that.
The marina’s contract was with the towing company, so the towing company owed the fees. The towing company, now stuck with a massive bill exceeding twenty-two hundred dollars, went after the HOA with their own contract, which stated that the HOA was responsible for all costs associated with storing items they requested be towed. The HOA tried to claim they never authorized such expensive storage, but the towing company pointed out that the HOA never specified where to take the boat. They just said to remove it.
The towing company chose the marina because that’s where they take boats. It was all perfectly documented in their standard service agreement. The HOA ended up paying over twenty-two hundred dollars in storage fees to the towing company, who paid the marina. I didn’t pay a cent.