Okay, so who's responsible for this particular letter?

Homeowners associations were introduced many years ago presumably so residents would work together. Mini governments were created so that neighborhoods could watch over one another.

The idea was good, but the end result has been one of endless battles. I mean, Iraq hasn’t got as many war zones as those that have been created by homeowners associations and their property management teams not to mention the attorneys that prey on them.

So, curiosity immediately got the best of me as I quickly opened the letter from our property management firm which oversees our community in Duck Creek, Utah. I knew that my homeowners association bill had been paid, so I wondered if recent queries about a myriad of issues had prompted a response.

Upon opening the envelope, I found a letter advising me that a sign belonging to my builder Greg DeMille had to be removed from the property. If I didn’t remove the sign, I was facing a $100 fine for refusing to follow the rules.

The only problem was that the sign had been removed in July following an HOA meeting when it was deemed necessary that signs such as these were not allowable following the completion of a cabin. It all sounded good to me, and the free advertising I had allowed on a tree was removed following our meeting.

To me, all was handled until the third week of November when I received a letter telling me to either remove the sign by Jan. 1, 2009 or face the consequences for violating the order. We had just returned from three wonderful days in Duck Creek, where a sign on our mantle says “The only bad thing about Duck Creek is the drive home.”

Mind you, I received no phone calls asking me if the sign was still up and apparently nobody bothered checking my property to see that the sign had actually been removed. The simplest way to handle such a dispute (if there had been one in the first place) was to give me a call, and I would have either ordered the sign to be removed or taken it down myself.
The first thing I did was call my builder.

“Hey, have you been putting your sign up in front of our cabin after we leave and then taking it down before we return,” I asked in jest to our dedicated builder.

DeMille was about as dumbfounded by the question as I was by the letter I had just received.

I then called the property management firm near Salt Lake City only to be told that the homeowners association had ordered distribution of the letter four months ago although it wasn’t sent out until November.

Uh okay. But the problem is the sign was gone only a matter of days after our meeting. And while we’re at it, did anyone bother checking to see if there was still a violation before spending money to write the letter and send it in the mail?
I kept thinking to myself that we have two lots in Duck Creek amounting to annual fees of $400 – and this is what I get for paying my bills time?

The next call I made was to long-time friend and Nevada State Sen. Mike Schneider, whose long battles with homeowner associations has led to major revisions of homeowner rights thanks to his work in Carson City. His efforts have been lauded all over the country and other states have even ratified laws enacted through Schneider’s help.

I told Sen. Schneider that we might want to expand his authority into southern Utah, where a very basic sign belonging to my builder had turned into the threat of a $100 fine even though it hadn’t been on the tree in front of our cabin for months.
Considering that Schneider has testified all over the country for homeowners rights, he listened to my plight. Knowing that HOAs and their management firms have started long battles over things as silly as a basketball hoop being left in the driveway, I wanted this misunderstanding cleared up with the same vengeance that president-elect Barack Obama has tackled the economy.

Not a problem, Sen. Schneider assured me. This issue will get cleared up before the Utah State Legislature meets again. We’re not going to have to worry about our escape in Duck Creek turning into a chapter of the Stepford Wives.
Whew. Thank goodness.

I had been in fear that my next letter would center on the fact that needles were falling from the trees and I needed to clean them up before the first snow storm.

And to think all of this could have been handled with a phone call.

Mike Henle is a Las Vegas-based freelance writer and the author of “Through the Darkness: One Man’s Fight to Overcome Epilepsy.” He can be contacted by email at mhenle@aol.com or through his web site www.mikehenle.com.