Tiki Torches v. HOA rules

After firing up my tiki torches, the first time in a year, I received a letter from my HOA manager threatening legal action. Of course, my spinster downstairs neighbor who hates me dropped the dime, but I suppose I was noisy later that night.

The HOA regulation is entitled Explosives and Flammables.

I suspect a judge would side with the HOA against me for having tiki torches so close to tropical plants like bamboo and wooden fences. The alternative of lighting the tiki torches in the open grassy area invites more input from nosy neighbors.

It would cost my HOA over a thousand dollars to draft and file a complaint, complete with declarations, the fees are assessed against the unit upon judgment.

I may call the HOA's bluff, but what if the HOA is not bluffing. It seems a shame to take down the tiki torches.

HOA's, from what I can tell, are the modern day, US equivalent of a Gestapo Police State. Of course that's not a real comparison, but there is no question that HOA's have WAY too much power in some cases. The fact that they can assess a fine against you for not moving your trash can to where they want it, and then sell your house at auction if you don't pay the fine, is frankly ridiculous. I don't think you really want to press the issue. Instead of having the real ones, how about getting some of the solar powered ones? Sure they aren't as fun, but I don't think you want to try this fight.

Chris

Seems like you gotta grease some palms in the ole trailer park .... Take a bottle of cheap hooch to the Prez of the HOA....

One thing HOAs need to do is demonstrate that the regulation is being enforced uniformly throughout the CCR area. I'd have to see the wording of covenant restriction, but it seems that you could argue that if bbqs, candles, and smoking were allowed, tiki torches should be too. Could you actually lose a case for having a votive candle on your porch under these restrictions? If they maintain that you cannot have them, then request that the flamable/explosives oridinance be equally enforced for bbqs, and smoking. If there is a bbq in a common area, or in ANY neighbors yard, insist that it be removed, in writing, as per the CCR restrictions that banned your flames. That will help establish the case that you are being singled out, if any type of other outdoor flame is permitted, under any case, anywhere else in the Covenant. If they do not initiate the same actions against all neighbors and common areas, as they did with you, then you can play the random and discriminatory enforcement card. Or move.
Finally, make sure you do everything in writing and insist that any personal contacts that are made between you and enforcement officials are summarized in writing, by the enforcement person. As always, request this request for the letter in writing.

Former Code Enforcement Official of the Association of Rancho Santa Fe, Ca. Buzzy Out!

Way to go Buzzy! I can say no more.

Tiki Bill.

There was another thred about tiki torches and I posted I have HOA nd not allowed for me and wondered about solar ones. Just so happens I was looking through a catalogue and found some solar tiki torches just by chance. YOu can get short ones and tall ones.

Damn that HOA!!! Bring on the torches. :tiki:

FATIMA BLUSH: Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet.
JAMES BOND: Yes, but my martini is still dry.

[ Edited by: VampiressRN 2007-07-20 19:48 ]

I'd let you keep the torches. As long as you invited me over for mai tais.
I am the prez of our HOA. I must have 15 or so around my place. And four solar ones from Target.
The target ones flicker. Light up around dusk. Drain down by morning. Recharge all day. The fuel ones hardly ever get lit. Smokey. Run out of fuel. Smell funny.

Read the covenant and find anything and everything you can in it to torque the spinster. LOL

I found some more realistic looking solar tiki torches at Amazon and there are a couple of versions. :)

FATIMA BLUSH: Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet.
JAMES BOND: Yes, but my martini is still dry.

[ Edited by: VampiressRN 2007-07-29 18:31 ]

The solar tiki torches are a great idea, although they do not emit much light.

I have reached an agreement to have tiki torches without tiki fluid in them.
However, although probably equitable, it is deflating to know that I cannot transform my patio & walkway into the patio environment of Tiki's Waikiki with a few flicks of the lighter - particularly this weekend when I was planning on firing them up.

HOA sucks sometimes. I ordered a herd of those solar tiki torches in that last picture I posted. They were just delivered today. I need to have a gardner do some spiffing up in my front yard and then those babies are getting crammed into the ground and soaking up some sun. Might take me a month to get that done...but I will get pictures afterwards.

Christi...maybe you can put some mini lights in those...like those halogen stick-ups...that might give a decent light. :)

Don't know how long you plan to stay there, but HOA boards change like tides. People usually run for the board to solve some personal issue that requires board influence. Once they've accomplished it, they lose interest and either resign or just don't run again. Maybe you should get on the board. At the very least, get on the architectural control committee. Outside of that your main adversary will be fire codes. If the Fire Dept says the torches are a violation you'll be SOL anyway.

Man, it's for reasons like this that I refuse to live in places with HOAs.

But I had a similiar situation many years ago. We were having a party one night with burning tiki torches out front and who shows up but the Fire Department. One of our pain in the ass neighbors actually called the Fire Department saying a hazardous fire was burning. And the worst of it all, it is apparently against a city ordinance to burn tiki torches in your front yard. Yeesh!

No tiki torch = no freedom !!!
MOVE

On 2007-08-31 08:39, The Gnomon wrote:
Don't know how long you plan to stay there, but HOA boards change like tides. People usually run for the board to solve some personal issue that requires board influence. Once they've accomplished it, they lose interest and either resign or just don't run again.

I was one of those people who was on the board and lost interest - or, the weekly meetings wore me out. If I have to spend another 10 hours+ a month being on the Board again, I may remove them - but only after firing them one every night for a week.

Maybe you could try some of these tiki torches from the Spirit Store they should get the heckles up on the necks of the HOA members.

(I really should use spell check damnette)

FATIMA BLUSH: Oh, how reckless of me. I made you all wet.
JAMES BOND: Yes, but my martini is still dry.

[ Edited by: VampiressRN 2007-09-01 18:31 ]

Another HOA nightmare story here.

http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/local/articles/0913tiki0913.html

HOAs have their pros and cons. Problem is, when they are controlled by self-serving idiots they can ruin the good thing that they were put in place to protect.

For a while I was involved in real estate management and was on the BOD of the Washington DC jumbo chapter of the Institute of Real Estate Management (IREM), which is the management branch of the National Association of Realtors. You get to hear just about every kind of horror story experienced by property managers in every area of real estate.

HOAs can establish and modify their "rules," which they can enforce by hiring a contractor to abate and then charge the homeowner the cost of performing the work (e.g., tearing down a tiki hut). Then if the homeowner doesn't pay up, the HOA can put a lien on the property and accelerate it to auction off the property to pay off the debt to the HOA. Of course, there are legal procedures the HOA has to go through to get all that done, which is time consuming, so they jump on it right away.

BUT...one of the downfalls of self-serving idiot-run HOAs often is that the "rules" they make up can be deemed frivolous and contrary to the court's determination of what constitutes a reasonable regulation as it affects a citizen's right to the "quiet enjoyment" of their residence.

So...even if one is in violation of one's HOA rules and regulations, if push comes to shove and the resident can prove that the rule/regulation is not valid, any actions taken by the HOA against that resident can backfire bigtime. Some residents have won sizeable cash settlements from their HOAs that way.

Oooh! A HOA-bashing thread!

I had a similar issue with my old condo HOA some years ago. But in this case they decided to brow-beat me over an electric_element grill on my concrete slab porch (ground floor unit), that I hadn't even USED. They cited the relevant local ordinance banning "flame" near any, "wooden-sheathed multi-unit residence". Clearly they had no idea it was an electric grill, and just decided to be a pain in the a$$.

Beauty of the Internet: Our city had their entire ordinance base online and searchable. So I dug up the full text of the relevant ordinance. It was written to target "open flame". YEA!

But it also cited that electrical grills had to be hard-wired, and not plug-in. BOO!

So, yea, my electric grill was illegal. And the common-area outlet on the porch wasn't subject to my "hard-wiring" a grill up. At least if I didn't want another pissing contest with the board.:D

But the upside was that I got some decent mileage out of documenting and passing on the "open flame" portion of the ordinance (and pointing out that my "electric" clearly possessed no flame), while forgetting to mention the hard-wired part, when responding to the on-site manager. :^D

She was apologetic, that they certainly looked to be in the wrong. So I was magnanimous and "decided" to put the grill away, just to keep the peace.:^P

I lived there for 10 years. That is, until I finally found and married my sugar-mama wahine, who owned her own house! We finally sold off both the old home and condo last year and bought a new BETTER home. With a big-ole backyard just perfect for partying. And WITHOUT a HOA.

-- did I mention she likes to MOW, and SHOVEL SNOW! --
Damn I'm one lucky...

Whew was I glad to have unloaded that turkey of a condo, before the real estate market tanked much further than it had.

Probably the most gauling thing about the whole HOA process, was that at the time, I worked for a management firm that ran commercial and residential properties, and the condo HOA had less respect for the OWNERS, than our management company routinely did for our rental tenants! If you had a good tenant, you sure as heck didn't go out of your way to tick him off! You worked to keep em!

The board knew that we, as condo-owners, had little recourse. The common thread I found, on the legal front, is that the courts believe that because "we" elect the board, we therefore give tacit approval to all of their actions. If we didn't, we'd simply "elect" a different board.

Yea, try that in the real world.

[ Edited by: tin_omen 2007-09-27 12:08 ]

What's funny about HOA rules is that they are EASY to challenge legally. A friend argued two points when she took the association to court: (1) she had no choice but to sign the HOA...hence signing under duress...and (2) she argued that the rule she had broken was "arbitrary" and that her action was in no way damaging to the area. She won.

The HOA rule was that all homes in the tract had to be southwestern colors. After 10 years she painted her house white. They painted it terra cotta while she was on vacation and sent her the bill. She painted it white and took them to court where not only did she recover the cost of painting but damages as well.

HOAs often crumble under civil suits.

Of course I'd camp out at the person who is in charge's house and nitpick. lol

My HOA decided that all the condo owners had to pay for someones mold problem in their condo...It had been vacant for years and when the owner came to check it out it was deemed hazardous ..I still have no idea how the HOA decided we needed to pay for it but we did..Not just to get rid of mold either..They remolded the whole inside with hard wood floors and other upgrades..The owner never intended to live there so he basically got a new condo for free and in So Cal where a 1000 sq ft condo was going for 400,000 we never recooped any of our assessment fees..As a single guy with a single income, assessment fees are not something one can easily take on and especially for 8 months.. We had a meeting and the board told us it would be more expensive to have our lawyers fight it than it was to just pay and be done..I left the meeting telling them I hope my condo has mold cuz I have some remodeling Id like done,however..no mold..Condo living in So California can be a pain in the arse..But what the heck..The weathers beautiful..RANT OVER!!!