THE ASSOCIATION "COLOR POLICE"

An Opinion By Jan Bergemann
President, Cyber Citizens For Justice, Inc.

Published March 16, 2007

Proponents of homeowners' associations always claim that these associations protect property values -- and always come up with the example of a neighbor painting his home hot pink -- or violet -- with polka dots.

Actually, having a homeowner paint a wall of his home in outrageous colors only happened twice in the last seven years in Florida, as far as the media reported. In one case a member of a fraternity painted his home in the fraternity colors -- according to neighbors, very offensive colors. This was not within a homeowners' association and the county code enforcement took care of it!

And a homeowner on Marco Island had the wall of his home painted in Pepto-Bismol pink with green and blue polka dots -- protesting against city officials who demanded that the owner

The scary thought: Your neighbor's home painted hot-pink with polka dots!

Turf war ruffles wealthy Marco Islanders

remove $19,000 worth of artificial turf in his garden. Please read the whole story: Turf war ruffles wealthy Marco Islanders. It seems the city had rules against artificial turf -- that actually looked perfect -- but had no rules restricting homes painted with weird colors!

Most wars over colors are fought in homeowners' associations over the taste of colors. Often enough communities don't have straight color guidelines, but boards make decisions, often depending on their own personal tastes.

And the "approved" colors seem to change depending on the taste of the president's wife – or the female president of the board!

Very often these color wars are getting out of hand -- as a family in Port Orange found out. They had lost their home’s roof to a hurricane. After a month of waiting to replace the roof, they finally replace it with beige tiles. Then the association sued them because black tiles were the approved color for tiles. The regular black tiles were not available at the time -- and the next hurricane season was looming on the horizon. Finally, a kind roofing company replaced the beige tiles with black ones -- for free -- in order to avoid another color war!

Realtors will tell you that the potential buyer’s first "view" is very important -- and the home’s exterior is a big deal-maker! So, if a buyer falls in love with a pink home, the new homeowner surely thinks it's his good right to repaint it in the same color as the original home. Not so, said the board of a homeowners' association in Palm Beach County, and sued a homeowner who repainted her home in the original colors. The following lawsuit was a lot more expensive than painting and repainting together. But the dispute surely made the attorneys happy!

Just recently the Villas Del Mar Property Owners' Association in Boca Raton barely escaped a very expensive legal confrontation. A homeowner, who asked for permission to repaint his home in the original colors, was threatened -- verbally and in writing -- that the paint color wasn't approved, because in the opinion of the board the paint used wasn't the original shade!

This is the home in question! Would you consider this home a threat for the neighbors' property values.

Nasty letters were exchanged, attorneys were used to even further escalate the dispute and even the community newsletter was used to smear the homeowner, who had nothing else in mind than beautifying his home. And instead of being congratulated for beautifying his home, he got

The home with in question, with "unapproved" colors!

personally insulted, slandered and threatened with fines and lawsuits.

Here a little paragraph from the December 2006 issue of The Villas Voice:

The same names and properties come up over and over and over again. In some cases, other neighbors (not related to the board) have served on fining committees and worked with the individual homeowner to correct a problem, only for the same individual to allow the same problem to occur again and again. No one likes to be told that his or her property is unsightly and overgrown, or that his or her roof stacks need to be painted, or that his or her roof is dirty and needs to be cleaned or that mildew is growing visibly around the exterior of the house and must be treated, or that he or she has painted his or her house an unapproved color without permission. Sure, board members could “get a life” and ignore these issues and allow everyone to ignore their responsibility to the rest of us ....

During meetings it escalated into personal attacks that ended in some owners withdrawing their candidacy for upcoming board elections. One "would-be" candidate stated: "Who wants to serve on the same board with such individuals?"

The big damage was finally prevented when a poll among homeowners created an obvious result -- according to The Villas Voice (Edition February 2007):

Wayne Moses Unapproved House Paint Colors: The Board conducted a telephone poll of all homeowners to explain the Board’s position against Mr. Moses painting his house with unapproved colors. According to the poll, the majority of the community homeowners have agreed to let Mr. Moses go and allow him to keep his chosen paint colors on his house by a vote of nine (9) to twenty-eight (28). Not counting Board members, nine non-board homeowners voted to enforce our painting rules by taking Mr. Moses to court if necessary to enforce our rules. Not counting Board members, twenty-eight (28) non-board homeowners voted to allow Mr. Moses to keep his house the colors he has already painted. However, of the twenty-eight, fifteen stated that although they were tired of Mr. Moses’ threats and his complaints to get his way, he just wasn’t worth spending their money on to file a lawsuit for colors that were close enough to what could be approved.

I guess the board member writing this article couldn't help but add some nastiness to a result that obviously showed that common sense isn't quite dead - yet -- and proved some board members wrong!

It seems that many folks forget that we live here in Florida, The Sunshine State. Not only the sun, but as well our salty air (If you live near the ocean) bleaches out the colors and creates -- after some years -- the impression that a certain color has a much lighter shade! So, if you use the original paint -- exactly the same shade and manufacturer -- the color of the home will automatically look much darker when it is first painted.

Colors fade -- but frustration and hostility often linger! Which leaves the question:

Is it worth all the anger and frustration? Definitely not!

Let's equip THE COLOR POLICE with some common sense!