Of all the silly and subtly hostile homeowners associations out there, one HOA in Sarasota, Florida might take the crown for the most absurd. Even after Florida passed a law prohibiting HOAs from telling truck owners that they can’t park at home, the Meadows Community Association insists that it has the right to prevent residents from parking in their driveways.
Beleaguered truck owner Ryan McIntire told ABC Action News Tampa Bay that he’s been unable to park his pickup at home overnight since moving to the Meadows in 2019. When Florida signed House Bill 1203 into law this year, McIntire hoped he’d finally be allowed to park his 2014 Chevy Silverado in his driveway.
But days before the law went into effect, the Meadows Community Association (MCA) sent notice that its rules would not change and that people still couldn’t park their trucks or commercial vehicles in their driveways overnight, regardless of what the new state law said.
The MCA is citing a precedent set by a case from 1977, which says that state amendments don’t apply to HOAs if their contracts lack “Kaufman language.” This boils down to the phrase “as amended from time to time,” and the MCA claims it doesn’t have to abide by the new law because it doesn’t have any such language in its contract, which dates back to 1976.
Because of this loophole, truck owners like McIntire can’t park their trucks and commercial vehicles in their driveways from 11:00 p.m. to 5:00 a.m. McIntire is free to park his Silverado inside his garage of course, but he says the full-size Chevy doesn’t fit. That’s a bummer, but it’s also beside the point.
McIntire told ABC that he and his wife have to drive to a fenced-in lot just under a mile away from their house to park their truck. The couple makes the 1.6-mile round-trip twice per day. McIntire has to pay for the privilege of parking at the Meadows’ lot to the tune of $500 per year. Something tells me this annual fee per vehicle might have a lot to do with the HOA’s refusal to change its rules.
McIntire added that he’s not alone, as other owners of pickups and work vans living in the Meadows all have to use the lot to park overnight. He said he and his truck-owning neighbors “all know each other.”
But there’s little use in fighting back, according to McIntire, who said the HOA threatened him with a $5,000 lien on his property after he racked up 50 parking citations—each one incurring a $100 fine. Other consequences of breaking the “no truck” parking rule include being towed out of your own driveway.
In the email, the HOA also claimed it is the “Master Association” above all other associations in the Meadows. I guess that means it’s above Florida, which is less an “association” and more the actual state upon which the neighborhood was built. It’s just absurd. Is the Meadows saying it’s a sovereign citizen? An autonomous region? The wild west of the Florida peninsula?
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