I attached my photos, my survey, and a copy of the CCNR section on architectural review. I kept it factual and short, no emotion, no drama, just this structure was built without approval, and it encroaches on my property. I also called the county building department. The woman who answered was helpful. She pulled up Ronald’s address and confirmed what I already suspected. There was no building permit on file for a second story balcony or any deck addition. She said she would send an inspector out to check on it.
2 days later, I got a call back from the county. The inspector had visited the site and confirmed the structure was unpermitted. He also noted the encroachment onto my property. Ronald was issued a stopwork order and a notice of violation. The inspector told me that Ronald would either need to get a retroactive permit, which would require proving the structure code and was within his property, or he would have to remove it. The Hway moved a little slower, but they moved.
I got an email from the management company saying my complaint had been received and forwarded to the architectural review committee and they actually confirmed that there was no application on file from Ronald for the balcony. A formal violation notice was being sent to him and about a week after all this started, Ronald showed up at my door. He didn’t look happy. He was holding the county violation notice in one hand and his phone in the other. You called the county on me?
I also filed with the HOA like you told me to do. His face got red. I’m on the board. You think this is going to go anywhere? I think the board has roots and I think you did not follow them. This is going to cost me thousands of dollars over a couple of feet of overhang. You’re being ridiculous. Well, Ronald, you poured concrete in my yard. You destroyed my garden and you did it while I was out of state.
He leaned in a little. You’re going to regret this. I know every person on that board personally. And I’ve got a real estate attorney who does this job for breakfast. Well, good for you. You’re going to need him. He turned around and walked off my porch without another word. Now, I want to be honest here. When he said that stuff about knowing the board and having a lawyer, I did feel a little nervous for about 5 minutes and then I remembered something.
Rules are rules. Either the structure is permitted or it isn’t. Either it is on my property or it isn’t. A surveyor’s tape measure doesn’t care who you know. Over the next few weeks, things escalated. Ronald started campaigning among the neighbors, telling anyone who would listen that I was being a difficult neighbor, that I was wasting a resources, and that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, that I was blowing out of proportion. A couple people bought it, but most didn’t.
My good neighbor, on the other side, told me that Ronald had come over and tried to get him to sign some kind of informal statement supporting the balcony. My neighbor told him to get lost. The HOA scheduled a hearing. This is standard procedure for violations. and the homeowner gets a chance to present their case to the architectural review committee. Ronald being on the board technically should have recused himself from anything involving his own property, but he didn’t recuse himself.
In fact, at the first hearing, he tried to act as both the accused homeowner and a voting board member. The A2A’s property manager, to her credit, shut that down immediately. She told Ronald that he had a conflict of interest here and couldn’t vote or deliberate on his own violation. He argued against that and she read him the section of the bylaws that covered conflicts of interest and he argued some more. She told him that he could either sit on one side of the table as a homeowner or leave.
But he was not sitting on the board for this hearing. He chose to sit as a homeowner and spent the rest of the meeting looking like he was going to chew through the table. I presented my survey, my photos, the timeline. I showed the committee that no architectural review had been filed. I showed that the structure encroached on my lot. And the committee asked Ronald if he had submitted plans before building. He said that he didn’t think it was necessary because of the nature of the project and they asked him if he was aware that the structure crossed the property line and he said his contractor had assured him it didn’t.
They asked him for documentation from his contractor showing the measurements but he didn’t have any. The committee voted unanimously that the balcony was an unapproved structure and that it encroached on a neighboring property. They issued a formal demand that Ronald bring the structure into compliance within 60 days, which meant either getting it approved with proof it didn’t violate any property boundaries or removing it all together. Since it was physically sitting inside my property, option one was basically impossible.
