HOA rule book in letter , missing principles/spirit

Background/Intro

The ACC (architecture control guidelines) , which is part of HOA rule book(s) for Bridgeberry community exists and shared with home owners as soon as we close the deal on home. It is 70 pages and at least I assumed they are decent set of guidelines that we all can live by – a baseline to start with.

Only to realise that as we start to make simple additions to our home, it is ambiguous, mostly written in favour of the folks who want to play gatekeepers (and call themselves approvers …the types who want to swing on chandeliers and piss on people beneath) – Yes this is another rant based article on HOA board (TM appointed elite management company). The previous rant is here

Raised Beds

We wanted to plant some vegetables and have the joy of eating the produce from our backyard. So we look up the ACC book and find the below verbiage in terms of the materials to be used

So obviously all list of materials are not included. We looked up costco and bought this one

Then measured the dimensions and took the survey map and marked it on the survey map as below (which was mentioned in the acc guidelines) . We took the backyard portion of the map

So we did all the work as mentioned in the guidelines and submitted an ACC request on 5/22/2022. We were all excited to start growing the plants. We even submitted the list of all seeds that we bought online and submitted along with the request.

Day 0: To get a head start, we started sprouting the plants, so that when ACC request comes through, we can transfer the sprouts to the soil bed.

Here are the series of events that transpired from Day 0

Events

5/22/2022 through 6/2/2022 : We really hoped that they would respond fast as our sprouts were turning into tiny plants. I logged in to hoa portal just in case and I find that the ACC request was rejected a day ago (The portal doesn’t send any notifications to email and that itself shows how bad they maintain the system and expect us to check daily. Neither do they inform us when acc is approve/denied. It is totally on submitter to keep checking daily – obviously such an archaic way of working , but that blog for another day)

FIRST RANT

The above image of our backyard was exactly taken from plan/survey map and we thought focusing on backyard where the modification is being done – would help focus on the area. But unfortunately the guys (after taking ~8-10 days) reject following the rules in letter – not principle. I am not sure what additional value (or lack of information thereof) attaching the entire survey plan/map gets.

And truly disappointed that the HOA guys could have been a little bit more collaborative & wrote to us proactively – asking us to attach the full map instead of rejecting after making us wait for ~10 days and not even informing us when they rejected (sure you can blame on the IT system, but still that falls on you HOA guys to maintain – that is entirely your responsibility to maintain minimum standards of IT systems)

Anyways, we sucked it up – and once again redid the map with the full survey map – Submitted again on 6/2/2022 on the HOA portal and immediately wrote to the guys requesting them to take a look asap as our sprouts need to be transferred to the bed – and YES we REQUESTED – not demand – to take a look at our request asap as sprouts cannot stay too long in their tiny incubators !

SECOND RANT

6/2/2022: After re-submitting with full map attached now , we were waiting that the elite-management guys would consider our request (because of sprouts) and approve, so that we can move on

Again after 6 days – Crickets ! So I follow up again on 8/6/2022 as below

8/6/2022: No response after Reject > Re-submit same information > follow up 1 > follow up 2

10/6/2022 : Followed up again. Again no response till now

The HOA guys with elite management/TM are testing our patience for quite some time now.  I am not making the statement with one example or as a knee-jerk reaction. There are enough instances now in terms of their overall communication, inaction, tardiness and this new one – where I even gave a reason why this is time sensitive (yet no response)….our sprouts died today 🙁

Outro

I generally empathise a lot with the TM builder folks that interfaced with me so far. I understand all the supply chain issues, worker follow-up to ensure quality work is done etc. and though there were many mishaps after closing – I patiently waited for issues to be fixed and give-and-take maintenance issues were generally followed through and done – basically accepting responsibility and doing their job.

But HOA ACC requests so far have been a pretty sour bitter experience (probably elite management – I don’t know who monitors them or manages them from TM, but their standards of working are not so customer friendly, and there is a pattern here)

If rules have to be followed in letter – there are many ways to make things go legal and arbitrate through third parties – But really, is that the route we want to go for such small things ? Not sure how many more homeowners have the same experience as mine

I will definitely continue blogging on the elite-management guys until they get their act together and though I have no control to influence the outcome, at some point in long term…there should be consequences !