springojoy
New Member
Hi!
My husband and I live in a 22 house subdivision that is basically a 1 street U shape - we have been there about a year. We recently were hit by a hurricane which did no damage to our houses but did damage the fence that blocks our subdivision from the main road and a side fence. Our house is on the basically the flat part of the U shape and all the houses on our side have a ditch and some other neightborhood behind us with no community fence there. There are no houses on the left side of the U shape and there are about 6 houses on the right side of the U shape and that is where a supposedly "community fence" is that was damaged.
We attended a meeting that was said to discuss these "damaged community fences" and found that the homeowners association wanted everyone in the neighborhood to split up the costs of repairing the fence on the street and the side fence behind those 6 houses. Well my husband and I argued the point that we don't mind paying for the community fence by the common area that blocks the neighborhood from the street, but why should we all have to pay for those 6 houses to have a backyard fence. Keep in mind that our houses on our side have no fence at all - people have put their own up but have had to pay for them. Also the houses with this "Community fence" use it as their backyard fence, they connect fences to it and it is only like 10 feet away from the back of their houses. We were pretty much yelled at by this woman who thought she was the homeowner association boss and she said that it is a community fence that was put up by the developers of the subdivision and that we all need to help each other. Well my husband then said that the developer made the mistake when he fenced in only half of the neighborhood and that we should move on from his mistake and either let everyone pay for the front fence that blocks us off from a main road and let those 6 houses pay for their own backyard fences OR lets make it equal and everyone split up fencing in the whole neighborhood which the houses where we are are the only ones without fencing. Well they discussed a little more and basically noone else in the room was saying anything either way and they ended up voting it in.
Also we were told that the original fences were too "shotty" and that the insurance people wouldn't insure them but that these new fences will be insured, which sounds like a load of crap to me.
Needless to say - this HOA boss lady gave no proof of estimates of how much the fence will really cost and just counted hands that went up - I believe some of which were husband and wife - which should have been counted as 1 but got 2 votes.
My husband and I got a plot of the subdivision and the fence behind those 6 houses are not on common area , the only fence on common area is the one blocking us all from the main street. I would think that even if the fence was put up there by the developer that once they bought the house, that piece of fence behind their house became their property since it is their backyard.
They have already voted the fence repairs in and are already after our $425 check- Do we have the right to refuse to pay for the side fence or should we just pay and give it up? thanks ahead for the help!
My husband and I live in a 22 house subdivision that is basically a 1 street U shape - we have been there about a year. We recently were hit by a hurricane which did no damage to our houses but did damage the fence that blocks our subdivision from the main road and a side fence. Our house is on the basically the flat part of the U shape and all the houses on our side have a ditch and some other neightborhood behind us with no community fence there. There are no houses on the left side of the U shape and there are about 6 houses on the right side of the U shape and that is where a supposedly "community fence" is that was damaged.
We attended a meeting that was said to discuss these "damaged community fences" and found that the homeowners association wanted everyone in the neighborhood to split up the costs of repairing the fence on the street and the side fence behind those 6 houses. Well my husband and I argued the point that we don't mind paying for the community fence by the common area that blocks the neighborhood from the street, but why should we all have to pay for those 6 houses to have a backyard fence. Keep in mind that our houses on our side have no fence at all - people have put their own up but have had to pay for them. Also the houses with this "Community fence" use it as their backyard fence, they connect fences to it and it is only like 10 feet away from the back of their houses. We were pretty much yelled at by this woman who thought she was the homeowner association boss and she said that it is a community fence that was put up by the developers of the subdivision and that we all need to help each other. Well my husband then said that the developer made the mistake when he fenced in only half of the neighborhood and that we should move on from his mistake and either let everyone pay for the front fence that blocks us off from a main road and let those 6 houses pay for their own backyard fences OR lets make it equal and everyone split up fencing in the whole neighborhood which the houses where we are are the only ones without fencing. Well they discussed a little more and basically noone else in the room was saying anything either way and they ended up voting it in.
Also we were told that the original fences were too "shotty" and that the insurance people wouldn't insure them but that these new fences will be insured, which sounds like a load of crap to me.
Needless to say - this HOA boss lady gave no proof of estimates of how much the fence will really cost and just counted hands that went up - I believe some of which were husband and wife - which should have been counted as 1 but got 2 votes.
My husband and I got a plot of the subdivision and the fence behind those 6 houses are not on common area , the only fence on common area is the one blocking us all from the main street. I would think that even if the fence was put up there by the developer that once they bought the house, that piece of fence behind their house became their property since it is their backyard.
They have already voted the fence repairs in and are already after our $425 check- Do we have the right to refuse to pay for the side fence or should we just pay and give it up? thanks ahead for the help!
