Applying Ice melt to private driveways

Started by MarkR9 • 5 replies • 2028 views

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MarkR9 (New Jersey)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Our HOA consists of free-simple, detached homes, each with its own garage. The driveways are not part of the common element but the POS calls for the driveways to be cleared if snowfall exceeds 2". After a recent snowfall, our snow contractor applied ice melting salt to some of the driveways "that needed it". Setting aside the obvious poor judgement of allowing the contractor to decide on an application for which he gets paid, isn't the HOA assuming risk for deciding which driveways needed deicing and which did not and also creating an on-going responsibility (until all the snow is gone this time) for re-applying the salt to areas that ice up from melting and refreezing?

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,062

Posted:

Mark,

Did the contract with the service call for applying ice melt on driveways or is this something that the Contractor decided on their own (perhaps by a misunderstanding)?

If the contract calls for it does it contain language that says the contractor will apply salt at it's discretion or when requested to do so by the HOA (ours does)?

Is it possible that the salt you are talking about was just an over spray from doing the road, perhaps in the areas the plow could get closer to the driveways on?

As you can see, there are a lot of unknowns. Therefore, I would recommend that you contact your Board and request a copy of, or to view, the contract for snow removal. This way you will know what the Board has or hasn't agreed to with the company.

Tim

MarkR9 (New Jersey)
Posts: 4

Posted:

thanks,Tim. We have a Board meeting today and I will have them pull the contract. Seems that when left to their own decisions, the plow company always chooses to add more service to bill the community for. We're also checking with our attorney. Seems that if they apply salt and someone falls, we're responsible...and if they choose not to apply salt and someone falls, then the plow company, their choice, decided not to salt and we're still responsible. We're going to look into telling the residents that clearing the driveways means clear path to street and any ice treatments are their own responsibility.
Thanks again for your suggestion.
Mark

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

the HOA should maintain the common areas. Period. THey, nor their contractors, should be maintaining or servicing private property. You raise good questions about liabilities for slippage, maintenance, etc. Let me add ammunition to your chamber.

I have beautiful flower beds and shrubs lining my driveway. I will sue your assetts off if you salt my drive, and the leachate kills those beds next spring. that stuff is toxic to plants, and you just ruined the edging on my lawn.

I had a beautiful concrete finish on my drive, and your salt ate it away and pitted it. You used the wrong salt/mix and it eroded my drive. your salt mix ate holes in my concrete. You owe me the cost of refinishing the entire driveway again.

I had a beautiful concrete driveway, and was going to shovel the snow. But you poured icemelt all over it, and now, look.. the driveway has white stains all over from where it leached, and it's ruined. You are paying to clean and refinish my beautiful drive.

tell your contractor to do his job, and stop padding the bill by expanding onto private property.

MarkR9 (New Jersey)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Brian,
Great points. Someone I spoke to locally came up with damage to the pads of pet's feet as grounds for suit.

BrianB (California)
Posts: 2,820

Posted:

dang, i forgot that one. My cat walked there, and licked her paws, and now she is all finicky and uppity. she used to be loving and nice. I am suing you for loss of her affection, caused by the toxins you poisoned her with when you illegally salted my driveway with hazardous chemicals.

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