A HOMEOWNER was forced to drive almost an hour away to retrieve her car after she temporarily parked on the street.
She was trying to provide space to those working in her home.
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Autumn Rhodes, a social media influencer in Miami, Florida, was punished by her HOA after she tried to provide space to those working on her home.
She lives within a gated community with an HOA, and they have proven to be very tow-happy.
“HOAs have to be the stupidest thing ever,” she wrote as an X status.
“My car was parked in front of our house as we’ve had workers over all day, and I went to go pull it into our driveway and it was TOWED.”
She’d learned the hard way that her HOA didn’t allow for street parking.
To make matters more frustrating, she had to travel fairly far to get her car back.
“I was towed 40 minutes away because street parking isn’t allowed in our gated community,” she wrote.
The post has nearly 24,000 views at the time of publication, with 25 replies and over 200 likes.
Unfortunately for Rhodes, an HOA has the legal right to ban parking and enforce it how they see fit.
A warning isn’t legally required for those about to be towed.
If she were outside of the subdivision’s limits, she likely would have gotten off with a warning on her windshield.
Many of her followers responded with their negative feelings about HOAs.
One person wrote they’d make the rest of their stay within the subdivision a spooky one.
“That is outrageous. I’d lose it,” they wrote.
“I’d be haunting every HOA meeting moving forward.”
Someone else indicated they were in the process of selling their home due to their frustration with their HOA.
What is an HOA?
One in five Americans live in an area with a Homeowners’ Association – or HOA. But what exactly is it that they do?
- An HOA is a homeowner’s association – an organization that aims to maintain a clean and cohesive place to live for its residents.
- Entire neighborhoods, subdivisions, condominiums, family homes, or townhouses within “a planned development” will often make up an HOA.
- They also act as a governing body for tenants, who run and fund the HOA through monthly fees.
- Their principal aims are to keep the community functioning and visually appealing and to maintain property values.
- They primarily focus on common areas of a neighborhood, such as roads, parks, and pools – but may also stipulate what residents can do with their properties, such as yards and driveways.
- Often these restrictions enforce uniformity on properties, for example, ensuring most houses look the same and all driveways are clear of weeds.
- An HOA rulebook of covenants, conditions, and restrictions (CC&R) is distributed to all residents, and an elected volunteer board of directors enforces these regulations.
- Breaking these rules can result in penalties such as fines and even litigation – as most HOAs are incorporated and subject to state law.
- HOAs are often the subject of controversy, with some members feeling that the rules are too punitive and restricting, or that the leadership has too much power.
- But others like that HOAs give communities the power of self-governance, and can ensure a degree of harmony between residents.
“I’ll never buy a home in an HOA again after I sell the house I’m currently in,” they said.
“They serve very little point and create more headaches than they help. It’s usually just a bunch of old people with nothing better to do.”
Another HOA homeowner in the comments wrote they were fined for parking under a tree.
“We moved our car under the tree on our property because of a softball-sized hail alert, and [the HOA] took a photo of it 8 minutes after we moved it there, even though he moved it back in the morning,” they wrote.
“They are power-hungry people making money off of it.”