…”it doesn’t own. For twenty years, homeowners have paid road fees to the HOA. Not one dollar has ever gone to the person who owns the road.”
The HOA president, Brenda Collins, went from smiling to pale in about three seconds. The rest of the board leaned forward to look at the documents.
My attorney, Mr. Grant, explained it simply. In 1971, my grandfather sold part of his farm to the developer who built the neighborhood. He kept the strip of land the entrance road was built on and gave the developer a temporary permission to use it. The permission expired in 1991. Nobody renewed it. The HOA simply kept using the road and kept collecting a “road maintenance” fee from every household, which last year alone came to more than $60,000.
“Legally,” Mr. Grant said, “my client could close the road tomorrow.”
One of the board members, an older man named Ray, put his head in his hands. “Brenda, you tore down her fence.”
Brenda tried to say the contractors had misunderstood her instructions. Mr. Grant slid a printed email across the table, the one she’d sent the contractors with my address in the subject line.
I didn’t close the road. I’ve known half the families who use it for twenty years, and their kids ride bikes on it every afternoon. But I did make some requests.
The HOA signed a proper written agreement to use the road, at a fair yearly fee paid to me. They paid for a new fence, built by a contractor I chose. They withdrew the $2,000 fine and sent me a written apology. And because the HOA board had been collecting fees for a road they didn’t own, they agreed to an independent audit of their finances.
The audit found that Brenda had been using HOA money to pay for “consulting services” from her brother-in-law’s company. She resigned before the next meeting.
My dogs love the new fence. It’s taller than the old one, and it’s painted white, like the one my grandfather built around the farm in 1960. I put a small sign on the gate that says “Private Property Since 1952.” My neighbors think it’s funny. Ray even stopped by with a pie to say it was the best thing that had happened to the neighborhood in years.
