QuestionThe story: I live in a Gated Community with a Homeowners Association. I live at my girlfriends parents house with my girlfriend, her 2 parents, and my baby girl. There are 4 cars there, Mom/girlfriends are in the driveway, Dads is in the garage, and then there's mine.
The Homeowners Association has a rule of "No parking on the side of the road between 10pm-7am" so I would be forced to park my car down in the "Special" parking lot, which is about 1/8th a mile down the road.
I disregard this rule often, and all the old people that live there scowl at me, but what am I to do? Freezing weather and ice on the windshield aside, I work 6am-3pm, it's pitch black and windy in the morning, who wants to make a "trek" down to their car, either sc!@!* off the ice or drive blind back to my house to get warm water for the windshield, EVERY morning.
On days off if I need to go anywhere with my child? Make a trek with a 3month old baby in 29degree weather?
---- anyway, the question/problem need advice section --- Today my car was towed, I have been warned about this [2 notes on my car about 3months ago] and I have been left no contact information as to how to get my car back. Is there anything I can do to fight this? Or am I subject to just park my car down in the "special" lot forever?
This is in Gulf Breeze, Florida.
tl;dr: Homeowners Association had my car towed, anything I can do to fight this - and their rule of no parking on the side of the road?
AnswerI hate to start out wrong, but ", it's pitch black and windy in the morning, who wants to make a "trek" down to their car, either sc!@!* off the ice or drive blind back to my house to get warm water for the windshield, EVERY morning. "
Its 720 AM and it is 67 degrees there. I really hope that you do not have ice on the windows today. I am 140 or so miles from you in Dothan Alabama... They do also make a product called "windshield deicer"which is a spray can of ice remover.
Now that being said, Gated Communities and Home Owner Associations have unique laws and regulations which do tend to create problems when dealing with parking of vehicles. First of all, they do make the rules and as such if they say no parking on the street, that is it. Nothing you can do really will solve that issue and for them to change the rules is going to happen without a huge fight...
The fact that you have 4 vehicles there is most likely another issue as some HOA's have rules about how many vehicles can be parked there on a long term basis, yes they allow short term visits but you might find out that rules say only 3 vehicles... After all they do build and design the units and driveways for only so many vehicles.
As to the prior notices, you mentioned that you "regularly disregard the rules" and as such you do tend to face getting towed. I guess they decided that enough was enough and "taught you a lesson" (sorry for that part, but that tends to be the mind set of a lot of HOA's when dealing with parked vehicles. I am sure you have found out where your car is and how much it costs to get it back out of the tow yard... Yeah it's kind of tough to do that, but it also goes back to the saying "hit them in the pocketbook" and they might learn a lesson attitude (that is what the HOA did I guess)
My best advise is to park in the special area, and if you have to pick up your child then either leave the baby at the house with someone till you get the car back or carry then down the street... Remember spring, summer, winter and hurricane seasons are all coming and as such it will be much warmer when you go to the vehicle.
Fighting this, well it most likely will be a huge uphill battle even in small claims court and it might be one of those life lessons which we tend to learn at times.
Hope this helped a bit.
