Private Roads and Trespassing Garbage Trucks

Tom,

If your roads are private, unauthorized use of the road may be considered trespassing. I would also check with your local municipality on their definition and codes regarding private roads.

I might suggest that if your Board is going to go down this road (pun intended), that some sort of authorized/unauthorized list of vehicles/visitors gets created and distributed. It could be seen as selective enforcement if this homeowners trash company is not allowed to drive on the roadways, but someone else's HVAC repair company is allowed.

The response of the trash company to your management company was an appropriate one. Although a valiant effort to circumvent an established contract, in my opinion, the management company was in no position to try and step in the middle. The contract is between the homeowner and the trash company.

Is it safe to assume that your Board had the power (per the documents) to create a consolidated trash contract, increase dues, and then fund the contract from the HOA operating account and collected assessments? If not or if it's a gray area, this homeowner (although the only one taking a stand), may be justified in doing what they are doing.

I agree, would be best to stay out of it, but it's too late for that. Would have been best to thoroughly research and get all parties in agreement before moving forward with the concept in the first place. That's where I was going with ensuring the Board actually had authority to do what was done.

Authorization would come from the owner of the road. Association owns the road, not the homeowner. The Board would make the call on behalf of the Association.

Authorization would not have to be by company name. Blanket sort of authorizations should be given. A few rough examples:

"No trash company trucks are authorized, except for those that are contracted by the HOA or those which may be used non-routinely by owners (e.g., dumpster for remodel)."
"Any and all contractor and sub-contractor vehicles are authorized while performing temporary work on a home within the HOA."

Our roads are marked as private. They were created by the developer who originally put in the sub and they are marked private in the county records. They are owned by the HOA; its our responsibility to maintain them including snow plowing/salting and any other maintenance. There are no easements other than for underground utilities.

So, according to user "ND", the authorization would come from the owner of the road, which is the HOA. We aren't looking to control another owner's invitee...I guess we look at it like we want to request that the trash company to not trespass on our private roads.

The frustrating thing is we talked to our current trash company to see if they have had any requests like this and they have. In fact, they said they have had the exact same scenario from other associations (where they have adopted a single trash carrier and contacted this company requesting they no longer come on their roads because there was one or two homeowners who have not switched). And they said they were happy to comply. Why won't this other company do the same thing? Grrrr.

Because they choose to service their client.

Tom,

I really do not think you have a good handle on this situation at all.

It is not at all clear what you mean by, "Our roads are marked as private" and, "they are marked private in the county records." Are you saying that there is a sign and that the sign somehow takes precedence over the legal dedications of the easements? The county typically has many records. The one that counts here is the one that dedicates the road, most likely recorded by the developer before he ever sold the first lot.

It is unusual for a developer to set aside a deeded right-of-way for a private road in a small subdivision. More common is an easement that follows property lines and takes a part of each adjoining lot for use as a road. Without seeing the plat and/or deeds, it is difficult to determine what was done but if there was an actual right-of-way the county assessor would normally assign a separate parcel number to it and there should be a recorded deed for that property. Keep in mind that responsibility for maintaining a road is not the same thing as owning the road. (My own association has the non-exclusive responsibility to maintain our roads but it does not own any of them.)

Even if you are correct that there is a deeded right-of-way owned by the HOA, each owner would still have some right of access. It is extremely improbable that your HOA has the right to dictate whom each owner may or may not invite onto his property by way of the access road.

My best advice is to consult with an attorney before you proceed any farther with what appears to be foolishness in the extreme.

Go one more step: Members vote for Pizza Hut as their only pizza delivery. One member, though, calls Domino's. Is the Domino's driver trespassing if he makes a delivery?

Headline: "Alert homeowners wrestle pizza driver to ground. Owner: He was trespassing and his pizza tasted like the box it was in."

And the next step is that the association can decide which of your friends can visit you.

I notice that some manufacturers have stopped publishing the weight of their vehicles - especially vans and light trucks. The reason they give is that weight varies with the options chosen, but I think it is a way to intentionally get around weight restrictions.

The tare varies with the options, but the GVW is present and easy to find for almost every vehicle.

I bet people are glad they have the freedom of choice

Because they want to create a way? Except now the "preferred" garbage service is going to hell in a hand basket and loosing customers.

It may be all well and good to have 'freedom of choice' for their garbage service.....but I guess that also means they are choosing to have to pay sooner rather than later to get the roads replaced. I think what a lot of folks here are missing is the fact that we own the roads and are 100% responsible for them. This includes maintenance/repair as well as replacement. Having 6, 7, 8 garbage trucks tramping down our roads every week, especially during those winter/spring months where the roads are more susceptible to breakdown, undoubtedly causes the roads to wear out faster. The whole point of trying to get everyone on the same service is to help minimize the number of these heavy trucks pounding on our streets every week to help extend their life. This is much different than trying to be control freaks and restricting who can and cannot come on our roads, as others have alluded to (ie, only Pizza Hut can deliver, which friends can visit, etc). I don't know about you, but I don't feel like coughing up $10,000 tomorrow for an assessment to get the roads replaced. But its all good because at least they had 'freedom of choice'.

I think KellyM3 had the best response:

I guess all we can do at this point is urge/request everyone to use the same service and if they want custom service, they will have to pay extra for it. And in the meantime, we just enforce the HOA collection policies. Speaking of which, the one homeowner in question here has yet to pay ANY of their HOA dues....so yes we have been following our collection policy and it is at the point where they have been subpoenaed for court.

Six extra trucks per week should not matter to a road built to any reasonable standard. Six hundred per week, yes.