Apartment wants Dish down, or else they will evict!

[Needa916]

Sister had 2 dishes, for international programming. Both below 1 meter. Still, these old fashioned silly "aesthetic" rules crack me up. I am imagining a bunch of 90 year old guys sitting in a stuffy room, in their stuffy suits talking about how ugly new technology is

 

[charper1]

HOA's are very good to have, especially when you have a neighbor parking junk cars in the yard, or wont mow or paints his house purple. Every now and them some rules over-reach because they are not made aware of how they violate a superceding law, but 99% of the time they are better than no HOA.

 

[JosephB]

HOA's are very good to have, especially when you have a neighbor parking junk cars in the yard, or wont mow or paints his house purple. Every now and them some rules over-reach because they are not made aware of how they violate a superceding law, but 99% of the time they are better than no HOA.

I don't want to get too far off topic, but if I paid for the house, what gives you the right to tell me what color I can paint it?

 

[charper1]

Protection of resale value of the 99.999% of the other owners. A home is lets say a $250,000 investment, why would you want to drive the neighborhood's value down?

 

[Derwin0]

If the color is what the owner really wants, them let them paint it whatever color they want. My dad painted his house green. I personally didn't care for it, but it's what he likes. If the neighbors didn't like it, woe is them, they didn't pay for it, it's not theirs.

 

[JosephB]

Protection of resale value of the 99.999% of the other owners. A home is lets say a $250,000 investment, why would you want to drive the neighborhood's value down?

I wouldn't, and I wouldn't suggest that painting my house lowers your resale value. A house shouldn't be an investment, many many "financial planners" have said on various shows and websites, etc etc that you should buy a house to live in, not to invest in. This is the United States, not the USSR, I should be able to do anything I please with my own property, and the government and especially my neighbor shouldn't have anything to say about it.

 

[colofan]

But if when you ruchased said house signed a document saying you would comply with the HOA covenants then you haveing a binding agreement on what that document says.

If no document then well the HOA is out of luck.

 

[cdru]

As far as your sister's HOA, she got screwed and must have caved to their threat, because last I read as long as the dish is under a certain size (and all DBS dishes are) they can't say anything. If its over that size, the most they can legally do is say "you can't install it above the roof line.

Actually, the FCC has said that a HOA can request that the dish be located in an non conspicuous (or lesser conspicuous) space as long as the location does not create significant additional expenses and reception is not degraded.

For instance, they can say that the dish can't go in the middle of the front yard when next to the house in the back yard would work just as well. If both locations have nearly the same amount of labor to install them, then the lesser conspicuous of the two can be required.

However, if the HOA wanted you to install the dish clear on the back edge of the property and have you trench the cable across your lawn instead of just installing it on your roof or next to the house where it is visible from the street, then that isn't allowed. The extra expense of trenching the cable puts you at a financial burden and is prohibited (unless the HOA is going to pay [and they won't] or you pay [which you likely won't]).

 

[cdru]

But if when you ruchased said house signed a document saying you would comply with the HOA covenants then you haveing a binding agreement on what that document says.

What the government giveth, a private entity can not taketh away, even if you sign it away voluntarily. The document could just as easily have said that minorities or people with certain religious beliefs were prohibited from living in the community.

Just because you signed and agreed to a document that said you wouldn't (or can't) install a dish doesn't make that provision legally binding. A similar situation occurred recently at a university dorm room. One of the regulations for the dorm room that all students had to agree to to reside there was that wireless access points, whether connected to their network or not, were prohibited. Basically they were banning use of 2.4 (and 5.8) GHz network devices due to interference problems. The university ended up getting their fingers slapped when it was pointed out to them that the 2.4GHz was part of the unregulated spectrum that was essentially free for use. The university wasn't required to let students hook up routers/ap to their network, just that it couldn't prohibit the use of them flat out. In this case federal law (or probably more accurately federal regulation) trumped the university requirement. A similar situation also occurred in an airport where the airport authority was trying to prohibit an airline from setting up their own wireless network in lieu of using the airport-controlled (read $$$) network.

This very reason is why many contracts have some type of statement that says something like "If any provision in this document is deemed unenforceable, then the remaining document shall still remain in full effect" or however it gets worded.

 

[Needa916]

Actually, the FCC has said that a HOA can request that the dish be located in an non conspicuous (or lesser conspicuous) space as long as the location does not create significant additional expenses and reception is not degraded.

Good point. That was my whole problem, if they require the dish to be hidden away, it will degrade reception. Everytime they ask me to move dish, there is a $100 charge. So, both issues addressed here. Luckily, it only took 1 additional trip from installer ($50) and dish is hidden and I get a great signal. I guess I am lucky.

 

[PILMAN]

Geese a few years back we couldn't afford a house, we rented a house and I remember our landlord was pretty strict with certain rules. He wouldn't let us get satellite because he didn't want any "damage" to the house but we were able to get digital cable at the time. We own a house now, already paid off but my mother her self didn't want a dish on the roof because she said it would look ugly and she was afraid if a hurricane came it would knock it off, not sure if it gives better reception but we have our satellite mounted on a pole in the backyard, picture seems good so I'm not complaining, the satellites pretty big it's one of those superdishes.

As for property and resell value of a house, back when we lived in Chicago they had strict rules like how long your grass could be, what color your garage was and what color your house was painted, our old house was all brick but we did get in trouble over having a balcony installed in our backyard. It is your property so I don't think that the neighborhood has any right what your house looks like.

 

[JosephB]

I once thought that as soon as I was old enough and had the money I'd buy a house in a ritzy suburb in the middle of everything close to everything. Forget it, I'm staying out here in the unincorporated areas where I can do what I want with my own property.

 

[charper1]

... and not that this has anything to do with the topic, but send me your address so me and my buddies can buy the lot on both sides of yours and keep 5 or 6 junkers in the yard while we work on them after a pave my entire front yard.

 

[JosephB]

Well, where I live it wouldn't make much difference (live on about 12 acres) and if its your land and its what you want to do, then do it!

 

[Sparkman]

Found this article awhile ago. Author has a good grasp on what can & can't be done.

http://www.nmhc.org/Content/ServeFile.cfm?FileID=2824