Easements (again) - Virginia HOA

Donna,

Are your homes what are sometimes called "zero-lot-line?" Meaning that the home is built with one wall on the property line. In that case, you would have eaves that overhang onto the neighboring yard and a need to occasionally enter the neighbor's yard to paint your wall or do other maintenance.

This kind of development is not common in my area although my wife and I did look at one such home several years ago.

Donna

Typically in a townhouse arrangement the HOA does all outside maintenance thus no need for one to be on the roof, a ladder against the wall, etc. That said, I would say one would be allowed to encroach (as in an easement) to do maintenance if it is required of them. I would also say they would be responsible for any damage they do.

That is not the case here. Homeowners are responsible for maintaining their private property, including outside.

We are a HOA. Backyards are the property of the homeowner. In most places there is an alley or strip of common property behind the backyards, but in a few places there is not.

Some situations that I have seen:

Before I was on the board, I was living in a next-to-last townhouse and one day noticed my neighbor in the end unit in his back yard going over plans with a builder. Just to be on the safe side, I went out and asked him what was being planned and asked if he was going to extend his fence. Yes, he said, he was. I asked him to please leave a way for me to access the back of my house, and added that I thought it was required by the HOA. He was not pleased because he had his heart set on what he had planned, but he inquired with the HOA and found that I was right. So he left access to cross his property. (There actually is common property behind our property lines, but it slopes down steeply and can't be used.) That ended without hard feelings, as he was a reasonable man.

I was told informally that a homeowner in the neighborhood was having work done on his roof a couple months ago, and the workmen stood on the neighboring roof at some point. The owner of that home went ballistic and caused all kinds of grief which I won't go into, but it was a police matter. The workmen did not cause any damage to the neighbor's house.

A dispute arose between two neighbors because (almost the same situation as the first one above) a homeowner in an end unit asked their neighbor to stop walking through their back yard. But there was no other way for the neighbor to access her own back yard, as there was no common area behind their property lines. The board's part in this quarrel was simply to tell the end unit owner that she had to let the neighbor cross her property because everyone was entitled to access the back of their property. A little awareness ahead of time probably could have averted a very unpleasant quarrel between these two neighbors.

There was another he-touched-my-roof issue in which a new roof was being installed, the homeowners having the work done asked permission of the neighbor, who said "Sure"--and then the wife came home, blew up, and ordered the workers off her roof.

Oh the humanity.

So I've been looking at what's explicit in the Declaration, and it seems insufficient.

Yes, thanks.

Yes, my reading is the same, although I think most homeowners reading the document would not be able to make heads or tails of it.