Selective application of HOA rules

[Peter Schiff]

We are in a dispute with HOA about changes to a property located in Tennessee. After purchasing the property, we have installed privacy walls on a deck, something that about 50% of properties in the association has. We also made necessary repairs which somewhat changed appearance of the foundation (there are now bars which hold the foundation together and prevent further deterioration). Due to general unresponsiveness of the HOA we did not seek any permissions.

However, soon we received a letter from the HOA attorney with request to remove the privacy walls and the foundation support bars with fines for every day not complying.

We have learned that effectively nobody has permit for privacy walls and that several properties have other non-compliant alterations, yet they do not have any problem with the HOA. Also, if we now remove the foundation support bars, the property can potentially collapse.

We have responded to the HOA attorney but after 3 month there is no response. So, we have consulted this with an attorney who says that HOA is free to apply its rules selectively as they like, and we can't do anything about it. There may be some other ways of defense and we are proceeding with the attorney's help.

However, I find it hard to believe that the HOA is entirely free to selectively apply rules. Does anybody have any experience with this kind of problem or idea how to approach it?