An Arizona man has been racking up homeowners association fines for over a year — but instead of paying them, he chose to fight his HOA, 12News KPNX reports.
David Martin started offering neighbors and passersby free bottles of water in May 2020, by way of a cooler with a sign in his driveway.
His HOA didn't take issue with the practice until 2022, 12News reported, when Martin received a "warning" from the association. He called them to contest it and received an apology in response.
"At that point, I thought it was over and done and we wouldn't have any problems ever again. Until May of [2024]," Martin told the outlet. That's when he was first fined by his HOA for giving bottles of water to his neighbors.
Martin's battle with his HOA is not uncommon, although resident generosity is perhaps a rarer cause of conflict between them and their homeowners association.
The association's stated issue with Martin's cooler was precisely the sort of nitpicking and selective enforcement that have given HOAs such a bad reputation.
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"The Association does not object to a resident providing free water bottles to the community; however, the community's rules do not allow a resident to advertise water bottle distribution from a portable ice chest, located next to their garage that is visible from neighboring property," Martin's HOA management group said in a statement to 12News.
In other situations, HOA conflicts have arisen when homeowners decide to rewild their yards, plant gardens, grow food, or save money by installing solar panels.
In addition to levying fines and generally disrupting unsanctioned acts of landscaping, HOAs have been known to escalate and take fairly drastic action without giving prior notice to homeowners, devastating residents who have put significant time or money into a benign project.
Social media discourse about HOA overreach is omnipresent, as is the idea that homeowners associations can't be challenged. It is possible to fight your HOA, which is precisely what Martin is doing.
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Yes 👍 12News didn't say exactly how much in fines that his HOA's management group had levied over Martin's insistence on ensuring the neighborhood was properly hydrated, and he didn't intend to pony up.
"I stand firm on the fact that I'm not paying the fines," Martin vowed, per 12News. "The cooler is not going anywhere, and I'll fight it."
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