Need Your Help Please ...

Okay, very complicated question, and I want to start out by wishing you the best during your recovery from surgery.

I can appreciate how disconcerting it is to receive a letter telling you that you need to take down your shed or send in the forms.

That is a fairly standard letter when people proceed (and often complete) projects that have not been vetted/reviewed and approved by the ACC.

The reason the letter is stated in such a manner (remove the construction or. .. ) is that sometimes the resident will ignore the request for the proper paperwork/approval process after the project is completed. So generally the wording is fairly strong in order to convey the importance of the pre-approval requirement.

Technically, as it was not an approved project, the association is not only within its rights to request the project be removed (the property set back to the condition it was before the unapproved project was completed), but often the covenants will also allow for the association to come onto the property and put the property back into the "before" condition, and then bill the homeowner for the cost of doing that.

So, it appears they were willing to give you the opportunity to become "legal" by submitting the required paperwork for review/approval.

I'm surprised that the ACC did not then approve the project (in 99.9% of the cases where we do this very same thing, the project would have likely received approval, we just need to have the paperwork on file and formalized, otherwise, with no paper trail, a board at a later date could demand the removal of the project. Not really likely, but it COULD happen, and our goal is to protect the homeowner from additional costs and challenges.)

Now, it really doesn't matter who likes your yard or how many people like your shed. They aren't on the ACC, and I would venture to guess that there are very few associations that seek letters of reference as part of the criteria for approving projects.

In most associations that allow sheds, there is often a fairly extensive "spec sheet" delineating exactly what the minimum standards and materials are for such a structure.

I can assure you, ours contains much more detail than simply "under 8 feet and close in color to the main house."

Our sheds require concrete footers, a certain pitch to the roof, certain specific materials that are disallowed, specs on shingles, gutters, doors, windows, electric, placement on the lot, just to name a few.

So it may well be that while your shed "qualifies" in those general areas, there are other specs which it violates.

This is why we try so hard to impress on residents the importance of getting approval before construction ever begins. It's not just for the association's benefit, but it's for the benefit of the homeowner, too.

Without hashing out what portions of the design comply to specs, the homeowner could end up spending a great deal of money after the fact trying to correct the project to bring it into compliance.

I think you are on the right track in putting in the appeal (for the record, our covenants don't allow for an appeal after a rejection and our state law doesn't require it).

This should give you the opportunity to sit down with the ACC and find out if the entire shed is in violation, or if certain changes simply need to be made, like moving it, or adding concrete footers, or renovating the roof pitch.

It may even be something as simple as the type of shingles.

Hope it all works out for you and I feel bad that this is happening as you are trying to recover!

You deserve more explanation than "aethetics standards" one. Ask them to be specific.

But, you really should not have built this without going thru all the procedural requirements.

Thank you very much MicheleD and SusanW1

In my appeal letter, I did ask for a detailed list of the shed violation as well as what does "aesthetic interests of neighbors" mean. Also in the letter is a listing of addresses, architectural improvement and the violation against the HOA handbook. The list consists of 19 addresses which includes one of the guys who signed the denial. He has a screened-in porch/deck but it clearly states in the handbook, "it will not be permitted".

My shed is a very simple Arrow Building (9x10) purchased from Sears. I had concrete poured for the footage and it is also bolted and sealed into the concrete.

While I understand the purpose of HOA, I hate the fact they can push us around eventhough we're not doing anything offensive or wrong but rather to make things looks better in our property. Not to mention the fact that we (the homeowners) are the ones who's fully responsible for our mortgage payments and not them. I just don't understand why they are giving me a hard time.

Hi Michele,

After looking at the HOA handbook again, the following is the only statement about sheds ...

"Sheds must be designed to respect the "visual rights" and aesthetic interests of neighbors and must not exceed (8) eight feet in height."

Opps.

"There is no way. . . (not 'now' way). . . "

Hi Michelle,

While it is infact a shed from sears and metal in construction...let me give you some idea of something else in our neighborhood. When we moved in we were all on propane tanks due to natural gas not being run into the neighborhood since it was new construction. After about a year we were all converted to natural gas. What does this have to do with my shed? Well in order to hide the unsightly (and they were) tanks as we all had 3 very large tanks; they built little cubbies on the side of our houses with an L shaped privacy type fencing material...no big deal right? Several neighbors have made this into make-shift storages including cheap and unlevel roofing type material to keep weather out. My shed is not only sitting on a very nice and level concrete pad but also includes a pathway to it also poured sidewalk style in concrete. Now understand I am not arguing a point here, I am just saying that mine from visual street appeal looks much better and inline with the home (even if it is the metal Sears shed) than some makeshift structure that other people have which of course would not have to go through the HOA.

What I mean by I agree with the purpose of the HOA is that; I agree with the fact that they can help the neighborhood stay neat and tidy by requiring lawns to be cut; broken windows etc to be fixed as this DOES impact the visual and monetary value of our property. My recent improvements actually ADD value to my home and add a visual street appeal as my back yard is very neatly maincured and landscaped which helps in overall appearance. The pushing around part is that before I could even think of construction on my property which again adds value I have to wait for THEM to decide to respond to me to make sure it is ok. Now keep in mind most of my construction required permits issued by the county to ensure things were built and in line with county code. We pay fees basically for them to tell us what we can and can't do and for them to push snow into our driveways in the winter in a sad attempt to plow the neighborhood.

Thanks again for reading my posts.

Hi MicheleD,

We had this exact issue come up recently. We are a fairly new neighborhood and are still developing our design guidelines. For now our CC&R's only say that sheds are allowed as long as they are "architecturally pleasing as determined by the Board". That doesn't give the Board or our ACC very much to go on, but we have to use our best judgement.

All I can say is that the group (Board and ACC)must go by what the CC&R's state, which is essentially in your case "under 8 ft and does it look nice in this neighborhood". If the ACC gives an honest response when asked if it is architecturally pleasing and that response is no, then what else do they have to go by? Many times a homeowner does not hear all the complaints from other homeowners about these types of structures, so they think they are fine, when in fact many other people in the neighborhood do not like them. Our Board tries to take into consideration all feedback that we receive at meetings, from homeowners, etc when making a decision.

Just try to put yourself in the ACC's position. They are VOLUNTEERING (unpaid) to do a service for your neihborhood, they have nothing to gain and probably do not know you personally. They may have received a complaint about the shed which triggered the request for an application, or they just happened to notice it. Whatever the reason, they are now asked to determine whether the shed "looks nice and is under 8 ft". If you asked each ACC member to be honest and each said it isn't appropriate in our neighborhood, then what are they to do? What would you do?

They should not take any personal issues into consideration. Each application should be decided based on the CC&R's and not whether the individual homeowner is nice, or has medical problems, etc.

-- Opps, "distance from the curb." (not 'curve')

Michele,

You are so right. It is amazing how differently old and new boards interpret the covenants. If only it wouldn't be so difficult and expensive to amend the covenants I'm sure most hoas would. Our hoa is about 18 years old so we, as I'm sure a lot are, are dealing with vague, outdated covenants. In fact, some may by now be declared illegal. Especially in these difficult economic times I doubt that many hoas would even consider it. Most owners are not even interested in reading them let alone suggest changes. That, coupled with apathetic owners makes it almost impossible to amend the hoas docs. I wish this weren't the case but it is reality.