Resolving mManagement Company Mistake

My neighbors just put up a fence 5 feet from my front door after receiving approval from my community’s management company to do so. There is a specific article in my hoa bylaws which states that prior to putting up a fence the plans must be reviewed by an architectural control committee to ensure harmony of the external design in location surrounding structures.
I know that the management company simply gave my neighbor a form to collect signatures from three homeowners in my community to serve as architectural committee approval.
Everyone in my neighborhood is in an uproar over this. We all want it down.

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Below is the email that I sent to my property manager and his superiors. I am not sure what to do at this point.
The Washington Times recently had an article boasting TWs as a one of the premiere luxury single family communities in XX County. The community feeds into blue ribbon schools, has one of the lowest crime rates in the county, yet given these factors my husband and I fear the value of the homes in this community will decline if SC Management does not improve the method in which they implement the bylaws of the association.
As the owners of the property located at 42 Harmony Lane in TWs Community, we are writing to express our total dissatisfaction in what we see as poor judgment by SC Management, Inc. in granting our direct neighbor at 4240 Sweet Leaf Lane permission to build a 6 foot, white plastic fence that sits approx five feet from our front door (see attached pictures).
We would like to know how the architectural control committee, if one exists, after thoroughly reviewing the plans submitted by our neighbor, reached a conclusion that building a 6 foot fence would not affect the harmony of the external design in location to our home, per Article 8 of the bylaws? Please consider this a formal request for the meeting minutes during which this conclusion was reached.
Furthermore, we would like to know who makes up the architectural control committee? The three random neighbors who have no direct impact as a result of the resurrected fence?
There are several residents in TWs Community that have wooden fences, did the architectural control committee put this into consideration prior to granting our neighbor permission to put up a stark white vinyl fence? Was uniformity not put into consideration?
The three neighbors that signed the form SC Mgmt provided the residence at 4240 did so under false pretenses put forth by our neighbor. Our neighbor told them that we had no qualms with them building the fence, which is a lie. Now knowing this they wish to rescind their consent. To be clear, we had no prior knowledge of our neighbors plans to put up this fence until we arrived home from work on Thursday evening.
If this fence remains standing, it will impact the value of our property in a negative way. We will never be able to sale our home. It is a total eyesore not only to us, but others in my neighborhood, including the parties that signed off on the form as the “architectural control committee”.
Everyone in our community, with the exception of residents residing at 40, are disgusted by this fence. We can guarantee this fence will impact the sales of the new builder in our community in a negative way therefore we have included them in this email as well. Our home sits next door to the model home that is currently under construction. How can you expect them to tout this as a luxury community with such an awful display of poor HOA management and plat design right next door?
We encourage the management team responsible for this community to come view how their decision has impacted our community. We feel that Management should reconsider their approval for this fence and suggest an alternative design or resolution regarding this situation.
Should a decision not be made swiftly, a petition will begin circulating amongst the homeowners and formally submitted.

"My neighbors just put up a fence 5 feet from my front door....."

Assuming this to be correct, the fence would clearly be ON YOUR PROPERTY, so, simply take the offending object down ...........

It is not your neighbor's problem that you purchased a 'caddy-corner' home with a corner 5' from the property line ... 'suck it up' or sell and move along.

This entire matter is a NON-ISSUE since beauty is in the eye of the beholder.

OMG! ... Someone erected a low maintenance fence WITH APPROVAL IN WRITING.

QUICK! ... Call the appearance police!

Dana,

What are the setback requirements for fencing from a property line? 5 feet from your front door seems odd. There MUST be set backs written. What are those? And from continual posts on this site, no arguement of "it is going to affect my property value" ever holds any water. There are beautiful fences on the market now and I would rather look at a nice fence than a yard full of kids toys , man toys and crap.(sorry for the "c" word)

Kinda sucks..... but its not your property. Something to think about next time you buy a house. Sounds like your stuck with it.

Dana,

After looking at the pictures, I agree that I would certainly not want to look out my front door and see that fence. While you might be powerless to change what has already been done, it certainly doesn’t hurt to look into things. Bottom line though; these people will be your neighbors for as long as you live in that house. Whatever you set out to do; do it politely, respectfully, and professionally as to not destroy any relationship that you might have with these neighbors (if having a good relationship with them is important to you).

In an effort to try and help you out in your situation, I recommend the following (some of the ideas have already been recommended by others):

- Completely review your HOA documents for mention of architectural review requirements and even architectural guidelines. This should explain the complete process for things like this to be approved. It might also explain what is or is not allowed as far as fencing is concerned.

- My HOA has an architectural guidebook (separate from the CC&Rs and by-laws). It explains in detail all different types of acceptable architectural changes. Does your HOA have this? If so, it would likely discuss fencing. Check to see if this type of privacy/stockade-style fencing is allowed. Our neighborhood does allow fencing, but does not allow privacy/stockade-style fencing for this exact reason.

- Request a copy of the architectural review form from the management company. The form that we use in out HOA requires the next-door neighbors to sign (acknowledging the exterior improvement). If you should have been a signature on the form, this might be grounds for a defendable complaint.

- I would obtain some sort of written statements from the 3 neighbors that actually signed the form, indicating that they were mislead (if that is actually the case) and what the differences are between what they were told and the installed fencing.

- Contact your local municipality or county to see what type of requirements there are for installation of fencing. As previously mentioned, there may be a setback requirement that indicates how close to their property line they are allowed to install fencing.

One last thing . . . I would take a look at your by-laws and CC&Rs in regard to your satellite dish. In my neighborhood, we strictly prohibit installation of dishes on the front façade because it just doesn’t look nice. You should look into that and make sure you are in compliance and if not, get it corrected so people don’t start complaining about your potential violation.

I hope all of this helps. Good luck and keep us posted.

Dana,

I'd also recommend contacting a county representative (the building codes person) regarding the situation. Given the setback requirements, and the "interesting" location of your lot with respect to your neighbor's lot, it would be good to get a professional opinion on what is or is not allowed.

I say that your lots are "interesting" because your neighbor's rear or side lot line is actually your front lot line. In reading the setback requirements, I'm not sure if that requires your neighbor's fence to be 10 or 50 feet off of this line.

You could even go as far as drawing your lot and your neighbors lot and having the codes person draw in where a fence would be allowed to be installed. This would give you some more hard evidence to support your argument.

Good luck. Looks like your heading down the right path.

Hi Dana:

Because you just closed on your house one other item you might check and make sure is … if your home was built meeting proper setbacks for the structure. It seems 6' from the property line is a little too close when the fencing setbacks are a larger distance as stated.

I know of someone who had a neighbor build too close to property line and the county inspector did not catch the mistake. Because you just recently purchased make sure the developer did not potentially make a mistake and which was not caught and rectified.

Another item you might check is could they possibly not have received your signature because all signatures they did receive were completed before you purchased on December 30th and prior to that date the home was vacant? It may be that they received the signatures mid December and turned in the paperwork on January 5th after the holidays.