Quick question regarding HOA wanting to check our garages...

NEW -> Contingent Buyer Assistance Program
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outlaws_IHB

New member
<blockquote>As all residents are aware, the availability of street parking is becoming increasingly hard to find. Per the CC&R?s

Article IX, Section 13, ?Each Owner shall keep his garage readily available for parking of permitted vehicles and

shall not store any goods or materials therein, not use any portion of the garage for a workshop or other use if such

storage or use would prevent the Owner from parking the number of vehicles therein for which said garage was

originally designed and constructed by Declarant. The Board shall have the right to conduct inspections of any

Owner?s garage to verify compliance with the parking restrictions.?

In order to address the overwhelming parking situation the Board of Directors will be scheduling garage inspections

for all homeowners to verify that residents are using their garages to park vehicles and not for storage or any other

purpose. This is the first step the Board of Directors will be taking to hopefully alleviate the difficulty most residents

face when trying to find a parking space on the street. Garage inspections will be performed by a representative from

the Board and homeowners will be required to return this form selecting a date for inspection. On the day of the

inspection, an Owner or Owner representative needs to be present to open the garage door and allow the Board

Member to verify that the garage is free and clear of clutter and has the ability to park vehicles in the garage.

</blockquote>


My house is a single detached home currently in Woodbury and this came to me in a form of email. Now I know I wasn't a good political science student back in school but if I recall correctly wasn't it unconstitutional for anyone to search your house without a warrant? Let alone a cop, this is HOA trying to check my garage. Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy? What does everything think?
 
no constitutional worries, as this is a private action, not the government.



you agreed to the inspection when you bought the house/signed the ccrs



welcome to HOA totalitarianism
 
Parking problem is the by product of density. No one can fix it. The only solution to density living is the elimination of cars not strict policing. take the lessons learned from living in the cities.



Density living does not mix well with suburbia entitlement. It is like mixing oil with water. You can shake both really well and hope they will blend but they will always remain separate.
 
What if I technically didn't get the email and stop responding to their door knocks on the door. What could happen? Are there any consequences? What kind of power does the HOA have if I did answer the door and not allow them to come into my house?
 
This is the reason why this type of doors do not exist in new villages and buyers would not want them anyway.



<img src="http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/5111188/OverheadGarageDoors-main_Full.jpg" alt="" />
 
When I open the garage door to get out to work one day, one of the HOA board members was waiting outside my garage with a camera. A few days later, I got a picture of inside of my garage, and a "courtesy" letter to tell me it need to be all clean up in two weeks, otherwise, I need to go to the board meeting and let me know what I am doing. If not making progress, they will slap me with a fine.



So don't open the garage door, and lock it up. And disconnect the garage door opener. Our life is miserable, isn't it?
 
This is the reason why the garage should be at the back of the house and not at the front. Serious design overhaul must be made to the parking and garage criteria. Builders made every effort to perfect the floor plan and its sacred sellable footage but have always neglected the garage. Unless the model tour includes the garage and there is a premium $$ associated with it otherwise garage and parking will always be an afterthought.
 
[quote author="bkshopr" date=1256977896]This is the reason why this type of doors do not exist in new villages and buyers would not want them anyway.



<img src="http://i.ehow.com/images/GlobalPhoto/Articles/5111188/OverheadGarageDoors-main_Full.jpg" alt="" /></blockquote>
I want this. I know a few buyers who want this too.



In fact, I am sure there are a large number of buyers who would buy new homes in Irvine if they had 3WCG.
 
[quote author="outlaws" date=1256974320]<blockquote>As all residents are aware, the availability of street parking is becoming increasingly hard to find. Per the CC&R?s

Article IX, Section 13, ?Each Owner shall keep his garage readily available for parking of permitted vehicles and

shall not store any goods or materials therein, not use any portion of the garage for a workshop or other use if such

storage or use would prevent the Owner from parking the number of vehicles therein for which said garage was

originally designed and constructed by Declarant. The Board shall have the right to conduct inspections of any

Owner?s garage to verify compliance with the parking restrictions.?

In order to address the overwhelming parking situation the Board of Directors will be scheduling garage inspections

for all homeowners to verify that residents are using their garages to park vehicles and not for storage or any other

purpose. This is the first step the Board of Directors will be taking to hopefully alleviate the difficulty most residents

face when trying to find a parking space on the street. Garage inspections will be performed by a representative from

the Board and homeowners will be required to return this form selecting a date for inspection. On the day of the

inspection, an Owner or Owner representative needs to be present to open the garage door and allow the Board

Member to verify that the garage is free and clear of clutter and has the ability to park vehicles in the garage.

</blockquote>


My house is a single detached home currently in Woodbury and this came to me in a form of email. Now I know I wasn't a good political science student back in school but if I recall correctly wasn't it unconstitutional for anyone to search your house without a warrant? Let alone a cop, this is HOA trying to check my garage. Am I the only one who thinks this is fishy? What does everything think?</blockquote>


About 10 years ago, I lived in a neighborhood that had similar provisions. I remember the board got a legal opinion that it was unenforceable. The logic was that it was OK to regulate parking, even parking in the driveway, but once you were inside the house that was beyond the reach of the HOA. For instance, what if you don't have a car? Instead, you walk everywhere. Why should you have to keep an empty garage? As you might imagine, that raised a lot of controversy in the neighborhood.
 
The whole situation is ludicrous. You moved to a neighborhood with strict CCRs, you signed them, and now you don't want to live by them! What the hell?



We bought a nice house in Irvine and our neighbors didn't park in their garage or driveway. They had four cars. They had the whole sofa, refrigerator, big screen TV thing going in their garage. Personally, I don't care if you want to install a stripper pole and 15 folding chairs in your garage - that's YOUR business. So they parked four cars on the street in front of our house for about three months. When people would come to visit them they could sometimes DOUBLE PARK on the street. Their garage and driveway were always open. Then one day it happened. One of their visitors parked in OUR driveway. Not in front of our house. Not in their driveway. In OUR driveway. That's what happens when you let this stuff go for four months. That was the last straw for us. We talked to them and got the old "You can't tell us what to do in our own house" and "We can park anywhere we want to - we've been doing it like this for four months" and "Get a life, haven't you got anything more important to do" etc etc etc. So this situation is VERY close to me.



Say you want to smoke in a bar here. You can't. It's a California law. You live in California. Tough. You can't. Really important to you? Move to Nevada. You can smoke in a Daycare Facility there.



So you move to Irvine, move into a nice, pretigious neighborhood, sign the CCRs, and then don't follow the rules. When you are asked to follow them you get all bent out of shape and start the Gestapo crap and invasion of privacy, etc. Trust me, it falls on deaf ears here.



You want to make your garage a woodsorking shop? Important to you? Move to West Irvine, Corona, Santa Ana, San Clemente, Tustin, etc. You can probably find places there with lax or no HOA rules. You can even look a little hard in Irvine and find something without an HOA here although it might be tough.



As soon as you do that though YOU'LL probably start complaining because your neighbors use their garage and driveway as a part-time mechanics lot and they work on cars until midnight every night.



Sheesh. Get over yourself and follow the rules you signed up for.
 
[quote author="IrvineCitizen" date=1257039083]The whole situation is ludicrous. You moved to a neighborhood with strict CCRs, you signed them, and now you don't want to live by them! What the hell?



We bought a nice house in Irvine and our neighbors didn't park in their garage or driveway. They had four cars. They had the whole sofa, refrigerator, big screen TV thing going in their garage. Personally, I don't care if you want to install a stripper pole and 15 folding chairs in your garage - that's YOUR business. So they parked four cars on the street in front of our house for about three months. When people would come to visit them they could sometimes DOUBLE PARK on the street. Their garage and driveway were always open. Then one day it happened. One of their visitors parked in OUR driveway. Not in front of our house. Not in their driveway. In OUR driveway. That's what happens when you let this stuff go for four months. That was the last straw for us. We talked to them and got the old "You can't tell us what to do in our own house" and "We can park anywhere we want to - we've been doing it like this for four months" and "Get a life, haven't you got anything more important to do" etc etc etc. So this situation is VERY close to me.



Say you want to smoke in a bar here. You can't. It's a California law. You live in California. Tough. You can't. Really important to you? Move to Nevada. You can smoke in a Daycare Facility there.



So you move to Irvine, move into a nice, pretigious neighborhood, sign the CCRs, and then don't follow the rules. When you are asked to follow them you get all bent out of shape and start the Gestapo crap and invasion of privacy, etc. Trust me, it falls on deaf ears here.



You want to make your garage a woodsorking shop? Important to you? Move to West Irvine, Corona, Santa Ana, San Clemente, Tustin, etc. You can probably find places there with lax or no HOA rules. You can even look a little hard in Irvine and find something without an HOA here although it might be tough.



As soon as you do that though YOU'LL probably start complaining because your neighbors use their garage and driveway as a part-time mechanics lot and they work on cars until midnight every night.



Sheesh. Get over yourself and follow the rules you signed up for.</blockquote>


Wait, so they said they can park anywhere they want to while they were parked on YOUR driveway? That's so obnoxious! People suck.
 
<strong>IrvineCitizen</strong> - I wouldn't have even bothered with talking to them. (It's fine that you did, good for you for pointing it out) Mostly because it's obvious they were never going to care or change. I'd report them directly to the HOA. I've learned that if you do the dirty work yourself and confront your neighbors, they will come back and blame you when the HOA/management get involved.



I hope it works out for you, because parking in your driveway takes some serious balls.
 
[quote author="Spinderella" date=1257211074]<strong>IrvineCitizen</strong> - I wouldn't have even bothered with talking to them. (It's fine that you did, good for you for pointing it out) Mostly because it's obvious they were never going to care or change. I'd report them directly to the HOA. I've learned that if you do the dirty work yourself and confront your neighbors, they will come back and blame you when the HOA/management get involved.



I hope it works out for you, because parking in your driveway takes some serious balls.</blockquote>


There's a simple solution to that particular problem-call a tow company. If you are the property owner, and you didn't authorize somebody to park on your property, almost any towing company will gladly tow away the car at no charge (they get paid by the car owner when they try to get their car back, or they get to auction off the car to pay for the storage and towing fees).



As for the HOA inspecting your garage, there's a simple solution to that as well-don't buy a house with a HOA.
 
Seriously? You had these kinds of neighbors in IRVINE? Where exactly was the neighborhood?

Did you exaggerate the story to prove a point?



I do agree that CCRs should be implemented by the HOA if already promised to, but remember the HOA probably has the power to change them too.



[quote author="IrvineCitizen" date=1257039083]The whole situation is ludicrous. You moved to a neighborhood with strict CCRs, you signed them, and now you don't want to live by them! What the hell?



We bought a nice house in Irvine and our neighbors didn't park in their garage or driveway. They had four cars. They had the whole sofa, refrigerator, big screen TV thing going in their garage. Personally, I don't care if you want to install a stripper pole and 15 folding chairs in your garage - that's YOUR business. So they parked four cars on the street in front of our house for about three months. When people would come to visit them they could sometimes DOUBLE PARK on the street. Their garage and driveway were always open. Then one day it happened. One of their visitors parked in OUR driveway. Not in front of our house. Not in their driveway. In OUR driveway. That's what happens when you let this stuff go for four months. That was the last straw for us. We talked to them and got the old "You can't tell us what to do in our own house" and "We can park anywhere we want to - we've been doing it like this for four months" and "Get a life, haven't you got anything more important to do" etc etc etc. So this situation is VERY close to me.



Say you want to smoke in a bar here. You can't. It's a California law. You live in California. Tough. You can't. Really important to you? Move to Nevada. You can smoke in a Daycare Facility there.



So you move to Irvine, move into a nice, pretigious neighborhood, sign the CCRs, and then don't follow the rules. When you are asked to follow them you get all bent out of shape and start the Gestapo crap and invasion of privacy, etc. Trust me, it falls on deaf ears here.



You want to make your garage a woodsorking shop? Important to you? Move to West Irvine, Corona, Santa Ana, San Clemente, Tustin, etc. You can probably find places there with lax or no HOA rules. You can even look a little hard in Irvine and find something without an HOA here although it might be tough.



As soon as you do that though YOU'LL probably start complaining because your neighbors use their garage and driveway as a part-time mechanics lot and they work on cars until midnight every night.



Sheesh. Get over yourself and follow the rules you signed up for.</blockquote>
 
[quote author="Geotpf" date=1257211795][quote author="Spinderella" date=1257211074]<strong>IrvineCitizen</strong> - I wouldn't have even bothered with talking to them. (It's fine that you did, good for you for pointing it out) Mostly because it's obvious they were never going to care or change. I'd report them directly to the HOA. I've learned that if you do the dirty work yourself and confront your neighbors, they will come back and blame you when the HOA/management get involved.



I hope it works out for you, because parking in your driveway takes some serious balls.</blockquote>


There's a simple solution to that particular problem-call a tow company. If you are the property owner, and you didn't authorize somebody to park on your property, almost any towing company will gladly tow away the car at no charge (they get paid by the car owner when they try to get their car back, or they get to auction off the car to pay for the storage and towing fees).



As for the HOA inspecting your garage, there's a simple solution to that as well-don't buy a house with a HOA.</blockquote>


Post of the week.
 
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