CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Homeowners' associations have reached a tipping point in North Carolina - governing more than half the homeowners in the state.
Some of those owners are lobbying state lawmakers for more regulation to reign in the authority of these mini-governments run by small elected boards made up of neighbors. Those neighbors have the power to file liens and even file to foreclose on homes when the owners have not paid fines generated by violations.
Now some homeowners say the pettiness of some violations that generate fines and the lengths to which HOA's will go to collect the fines call for more state regulation of the HOA's.
Jim Lane planted pansies in the common area across the street from his home in the Gilead Ridge subdivision in Huntersville, NC. Jim contends the HOA and its management group does a poor job of maintaining the small park and he was just trying to make it look nicer.
I thought I was going to get a thank you note for helping beautify the community, said Lane.
Quite the opposite. The HOA fined Lane $100 a day for months at a time totaling more than $7,000. At one point an HOA member called Huntersville Police to complain Lane was trespassing in the community common area. No charges were filed.
My first thought was you gotta be kidding, said Lane. The pansy-planting escapade has degenerated to the point that the HOA has filed a lien on his home and moved to foreclose on it. Lane has responded by suing the HOA and its management company for a long list of grievances and mismanagement.
Mike Hunter, an attorney with the Horack Talley law firm that represents the HOA, declined comment because of the pending litigation.
But attorney Tim Sellers who represents many other HOA's says he counsels HOA board members to try to resolve neighborhood conflicts without going to court.
If someone had gone out and pulled up the pansies... then the maximum penalty that could have conceivably accrued is$100, Sellers said.
Lane believes the problem has evolved well beyond pansy planting. He's formed an organization to try to take back HOA's from rogue boards and developed a web site at www.nchoalaws.org.
Attorneys like Tim Sellers who represent HOA boards say homeowners like Jim Lane just need to rally their neighbors to vote in a new board; he says they don't need new laws.
The vast majority of owners we deal with - if not in compliance - we work to with them to get 'em in compliance, Sellers said.
But some homeowners complain that an HOA board made up of a few powerful neighbors can trample on a single homeowner.
Witness the case ofLee Keels.
Mr. Keels' trouble started when someone in his Prosperity Ridge neighborhood in northeast Mecklenburg County complained about a patch of dead grass in his back yard. The only view of the area (of grass) that was dead would be from that window, Keel said pointing to a next-door window mere feet from the offending grass. And that's where the president of the HOA lived at the time.
Long story short: Keel says he tried to plant grass and fix the problem but the next year he was again fined for weeds in the side yard. Keel stopped paying his dues while he disputed more than $9,000 in back dues, attorneys fees and fines. The HOA foreclosed on his home. Keel filed bankruptcy the day before he says his home was going to be sold on the courthouse steps.
This was relentless, Keel said.
Attorney Sellers says Keel should have shown up at HOA hearings to fight for himself at the most local level. But Keel says he didn't see much point in attending ahearing before the same HOA president who complained about his lawn to begin with. So you really don't have much of a voice, Keel said.
Attorneys and HOA managers stress that such stories represent an extreme exception among North Carolina's roughly 18,000 homeowners associations. And attorney Tim Sellers says the vast majority of HOA boards behave neighborly ...to help people understand how to get right; because that's what we want - to help people get right.
HOA disputes can be resolved without fines, liens and court battles with a simple hearing at the neighborhood level. That's what happened to Bob Barz and the Bethel Fields HOA in York County, SC just south of Lake Wylie.
Barz responded to his grass turning brownduring last year's drought by replacing it this year - with sunflowers. A small field of sunflowers now blankets his entire front yard from the curb to the driveway to his doorstep. The tall stalks have yet to bloom but they've eclipsed his mailbox and blocked the view of his doorstep.
HOA leaders were less than thrilled. They called Barz in for a neighborly hearing. I got caught; I accept the ruling, Barz said. He just asked if he could keep the sunflowers until his kids could see them bloom. One way or another, he's agreed to cut them down by the end of next week.
I understand they want to keep the neighborhood appealing and not bring values down, said Barz.
And indeed the seeds of big court fights can be sewn in the first contact between an HOA and an offending homeowner.
As Lee Keels of the dead grass and weed fight puts it, Talk to me rather than just slap me with fines. We're a neighborhood - we're supposed to be neighbors.
