Non enforcement of Covenants by Board

I am a member of a home owners association and we have assessments and enforcement like all associations. Unfortunately there is an issue reloving around tree height restrictions.

There is a walk around procedure that our Design review committee uses and they identify covenant violations, send notices, they get fixed. To date there have never been any violations noted by the dsegin review committee involving tree height violations. In fact they asked a homeowner to repaint their hot tub that is surrounded by trees above the height restriction. When the are asked are they identifying all covenat violations in their review they say yes they are except you have to complain to the design review committee if you want them to assess tree height violations.

So to me the first issue is they do not equitably enforce all the covenants.

Secondly, once I complained, they said mine was not a legitimate complaint since the tree height did not affect me. Am I missing something here? Our covenats don't say anything about me having to enforce them.

I have made a formal complaint that the HOA is not enforcing the covenants. They say who is the victim? Without a victim, there is no violation. I think that I bought the house and the covanents as my property and insurance policy. If they don't enforce my insurance policy then I am the victim along with each homeowner.

I'm sure someone else has had to deal with these type of issues?

Any thoughts are welcome.

Steve

Steven,

It sounds a bit to me like you got your tail chewed on something and you are now out looking for company.

Restrictions can be put into two categories:

(A) Those that affect everyone's property and this would include worn or missing paint, bad gutters, damaged roofs, broken concrete, etc. It detracts from the entire neighborhood.

(B) Those that have the potential to only affect a neighbor’s property. This would include tree height, and oh… I don’t know… cooking cabbage every night??? J

Tree height is in there at best to prevent a neighbor’s yard from constant shade, thereby restricting their access to sunshine in their own yard, use of satellite dishes, and inability to grow grass or other plants. No way this affects anyone but their immediate neighbors, so why not leave it alone and just take care of what you need to take care of.

BTW… it sounds like you have lots of time on your hands to go around checking out every house for every infraction and going after the board. How about using that time constructively for your own neighborhood or better yet, go out and help an elderly neighbor get some yard work done.