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Info on condo associations in Pennsylvania

Glen

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Gold Member
Jul 2, 2001
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need some help from the board about how to deal with a condo association. I live in a condo community with a private road that is maintained by the association. They provide snow removal service and require vehicles to be moved to accommodate the snow plow or be fined. My issue is a fine for non-removal when there was less than an inch of snow. I have challenged the fine, but request denied. My problem is the need to move the vehicle is not defined by what is a snow event, the dept that would require the removal or by an advance notice sent over the e-mail distribution list the community uses for many notices.
I have talked with attorneys who agree I have a reasonable arguement, but advise the cost to contest vs reward of the dismissal of the fine is unwise. I need some advise about possible avenues in Pennsylvania to contest the action of the Board running the association. Are there places that I could make an appeal?
 
I'm not a lawyer, but we also have a condo association, so I'm somewhat familiar with issues like this. I think your lawyer gave you good advice- unless there is an additional appeal procedure outlined in the condo regulations, you either go to court or pay up.

For future instances, you could introduce a modified policy at the next annual meeting and see if you can get enough support from the other owners to get it passed. We've made a number of changes to the original rules over the last few years.
 
need some help from the board about how to deal with a condo association. I live in a condo community with a private road that is maintained by the association. They provide snow removal service and require vehicles to be moved to accommodate the snow plow or be fined. My issue is a fine for non-removal when there was less than an inch of snow. I have challenged the fine, but request denied. My problem is the need to move the vehicle is not defined by what is a snow event, the dept that would require the removal or by an advance notice sent over the e-mail distribution list the community uses for many notices.
I have talked with attorneys who agree I have a reasonable arguement, but advise the cost to contest vs reward of the dismissal of the fine is unwise. I need some advise about possible avenues in Pennsylvania to contest the action of the Board running the association. Are there places that I could make an appeal?
Did they plow the road with less than one inch of snow on it? I understand them wanting to move the cars if they were going to plow, but I wouldn’t plow under an inch. In my community anything under 2 inches is left alone.
 
They provide snow removal service and require vehicles to be moved to accommodate the snow plow or be fined. My issue is a fine for non-removal when there was less than an inch of snow. I have challenged the fine, but request denied. My problem is the need to move the vehicle is not defined by what is a snow event, the dept that would require the removal or by an advance notice sent over the e-mail distribution list the community uses for many notices.
How is the association rule worded? I'll play devil's advocate and say the amount of snow is irrelevant. The bolded sentence says vehicles must be moved to "accommodate the snow plow". It could be the purpose of the rule is to eliminate the possibility of a plow striking a parked vehicle or trying to avoid a parked vehicle and striking oncoming traffic. Society being what it is today, the aggrieved party would then sue the condo association and the plow operator.
 
I'll leave this here.



There are some great stories on this reddit thread. Here are few good ones:

1. "Apparently when I was really young we lived in an HOA neighborhood. I don't know what they did or why we moved, all I know is that every few months my dad drives over to the president's house in the middle of the night and shits in their lawn."

2. "We had this one strange guy in our neighborhood who liked to build strange things in his house. Well I guess one day he decided to take his hobby outside and build a tree house in his backyard. Our HOA president was a city councilman at the time, and he was not happy in the slightest. This literally turned into a two year dispute where the HOA would keep asking him to add safety measures to the structure in hopes that he would eventually give up, and dismantle the tree house.

Eventually, the HOA told him that he would have to have the plans signed and stamped by a qualified engineer saying that the structure was safe.

At the next meeting, he handed in the blueprints signed and stamped by no other than himself. That was a great meeting.

It turns out that he had a PhD in civil engineering, and there was only one guy in the room that didn't find it funny."
 
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need some help from the board about how to deal with a condo association. I live in a condo community with a private road that is maintained by the association. They provide snow removal service and require vehicles to be moved to accommodate the snow plow or be fined. My issue is a fine for non-removal when there was less than an inch of snow. I have challenged the fine, but request denied. My problem is the need to move the vehicle is not defined by what is a snow event, the dept that would require the removal or by an advance notice sent over the e-mail distribution list the community uses for many notices.
I have talked with attorneys who agree I have a reasonable arguement, but advise the cost to contest vs reward of the dismissal of the fine is unwise. I need some advise about possible avenues in Pennsylvania to contest the action of the Board running the association. Are there places that I could make an appeal?

I feel your pain, but I agree with your lawyer on the condition that said lawyer has a specialty in PA Property law. Otherwise I would find an attorney who specialize in Real Estate/HOA/Condo law.
 
Did they plow the road with less than one inch of snow on it? I understand them wanting to move the cars if they were going to plow, but I wouldn’t plow under an inch. In my community anything under 2 inches is left alone.
+1. And depending on the # and size of your condo, I’d consider a standard for when they plow and when they don’t. Depending.... you could be spending or saving a lot of money.

Probably not a huge fine, but it may be worth more to you to raise the issue of standards for when to plow with a silly ticket instead of spending the political capital to make it go away. Just a thought.
 
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Thanks for the responses. Just to further elaborate, the Association claims cars need to be moved to allow salting. Temps that morning were single digits and salt does nothing at those temps. They didn't like that I pointed that out and the real administration manager now claims that the salt Helps traction (I have never heard that as a reason to salt) and thus was proper.
I did take the lawyers advise to pay the $100 fine and they then waived the 3 months of late fees that accumulated while they considered my appeal.
This winter has been very different from other seasons with multiple snow events with light snow and little accumulation. My beef has been that the snow event to generate plowing has not been defined and they have not used the existing notification system to advise plowing might be done. They did use it to advise garbage pickup would be delayed due to snow events.
They are not going to change the procedure and really took exception to my statement that they are materially benefitting by not changing the rule and thus collecting the fines.
I still want to push the issue. Just not sure that Pennsylvania has oversight of condo associations.
 
Thanks for the responses. Just to further elaborate, the Association claims cars need to be moved to allow salting. Temps that morning were single digits and salt does nothing at those temps. They didn't like that I pointed that out and the real administration manager now claims that the salt Helps traction (I have never heard that as a reason to salt) and thus was proper.
I did take the lawyers advise to pay the $100 fine and they then waived the 3 months of late fees that accumulated while they considered my appeal.
This winter has been very different from other seasons with multiple snow events with light snow and little accumulation. My beef has been that the snow event to generate plowing has not been defined and they have not used the existing notification system to advise plowing might be done. They did use it to advise garbage pickup would be delayed due to snow events.
They are not going to change the procedure and really took exception to my statement that they are materially benefitting by not changing the rule and thus collecting the fines.
I still want to push the issue. Just not sure that Pennsylvania has oversight of condo associations.
Glen.... understand your frustration with your HOA fine but careful with request for process to be ‘clear’. Our HOA with narrow private entrance drive criteria is clear. They place a seasonal ban against on street parking from Oct 15 to April1 to accommodate snow handling. Could you accept such a perfectly clear criteria?
 
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