Couple Battles Homeowners Association Over Bricks

[Ptarmigan]

Couple Battles Homeowners Association Over Bricks
Updated: Wednesday, 04 Nov 2009, 12:19 AM CST
Published : Tuesday, 03 Nov 2009, 10:10 PM CST
RANDY WALLACE
Investigative Reporter

HOUSTON - Want to live close to Lake Houston? Then The Commons of Lake Houston is the place to be. It's a subdivision filled with posh homes on spacious, manicured lots.

"We love working on our house and it's been great to work on it," homeowner Ben Corbin said.

When Corbin and his wife Cindy Kroth bought their place it had been vacant for two years.

"The neighbors talk about grass being waist high as you drive by," Kroth said.

My Fox Houston-Couple Battles Homeowners Association Over Bricks

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Those HOAs are insane. I got a good laugh out of this.

We asked the association president plenty of questions, he chose to ignore all of them.

What happened soon after Fox 26 Investigates showed up came as a welcome surprise to Corbin and Kroth.

"We have spent thousands of dollars in legal fees and haven't been able to get any response," Kroth said. "And as soon as Randy and you guys show up, you attended the meeting, you confronted them and within 24 hours they had dropped it and the board president resigned"

That HOA president could not take the heat and resigned.

[mamacags]

I really do not like painted brick, but it is their house.  You couldn't pay me enough to live with a HOA again.

[Thor]

Many HOAs are Facist. I lived in two of them. The first one I thought it would be OK. It wasn't. I couldn't do ANYTHING without "permission". In order to fight some of their "rules", I obtained an inoperable one meter satellite dish and simply placed it on the ground outside of my house. As I had expected, I received a letter regarding said satellite dish. I was threatened with lawyers, fines, etc. if it wasn't removed. I had done my homework prior to the "installation" of the dish and discovered that their rules were in violation of the FCC laws of 1996 (stating that there could be NO restrictions against having a satellite dish that was one meter in size or smaller). I threw that in their face. They backed down very quickly. Ultimately, I became the President of said HOA and helped the association become more "home owner friendly".

The second HOA I had little success with, nor did I have the interest in pursuing any involvement with them.

[Chris_]

I really lucked out when I found my house. It's in an HOA-free neighborhood which, anymore, is a rare find in the valley. The homes aren't rundown, there aren't any toilets out in the front yards. It's a nice neighborhood. I'm glad I don't have to put up with things like that.

[debk]

We have a pretty strict HOA, but since most of the houses aren't visible from the road....it's hard to tell if some rules are being broken. I'm sure we are breaking some....