New Pond Contruction

[tammea]

We are buying another home and of course, wanting to build a new pond to move our Koi of many years, however, the HOA never mentions you can or cannot build a koi pond, only that you need permissions for building structures. I'm thinking as long as I'm not on the easement and its not a building, I should be good. The current home owner believes the same, hes an attorney and lived there a long time. It's on a greenbelt/golf course. The pond would need to be up next to house, anyone with more exp than us see a problem with that idea?

 

[addy1]

Well you can bite the bullet and ask the HOA or sneak it in and maybe be made to refill it, or find out it is ok if you ask.

We have HOA's in Florida, we were putting new windows in, had the dealer write up the papers, each window was labeled as a HR i.e. horizontal roller, i.e. slider, all 18 board members signed it, for two houses we had. We started putting them in the one house and next thing we knew the pres was in our driveway telling us to cease work, they were going to sue us to remove the windows, they did not allow HR windows. Not cheap windows all hurricane rated.

We won that battle, pulled out the papers and said you signed the approval. They posted a huge sign WE DO NOT ALLOW SLIDERS! after we had them installed. Well you approved them for us, technically anybody else that wants them can get them now, no discrimination allowed.

I HATE HOA'S, talk about dictators!

 

[poconojoe]

I hate HOA's. I'm glad we didn't buy in one. There are lots of them here in the Poconos. Our daughter lives in one. She had the invisible fence for her lab and they fined her for the dog not being on a leash. The dog was very energetic and loved the freedom of running around the property. She was the queen of her property, chasing all kinds of animals and even an occasional bear. She had to keep the dog in the house after that. I really believe the confinement shorten her life.

 

[j.w]

@tammea
Good luck on the HOA thing. We are supposed to have one here w/our 5 houses in a rural cluster but we never organized it so we all do our own thing now but if someone ever moves in here and wants to abide by the rules of paperwork we were given when we bought we are gonna all be in a heap of doo.doo! Never will we buy into this kind of deal again!

 

[addy1]

We still have one hoa, in florida, hubby's parents house. That is the only time a hoa is worth anything, the place is not gated, but enough people peek out of windows if anything happens we get notified. OW we could never leave a house empty for as long as we leave the place.

 

[tammea]

I've talked with other owners in the area, I've read the HOA agreement and feeling pretty confident at this point we can move forward; the HOA only mentions "outbuildings" and nothing on 10ft easement, nothing about landscaping or digging holes! So we're going to bite the bullet and purchase, build it and see what happens! It will be small anyway as the area is not huge to begin with, just enough for me to enjoy and it will be right under the dining room window also, so can enjoy inside and outside! Perfect for me.
Thanks for everyones input!

 

[Mmathis]

Personally, I would check with the HOA and your city’s codes. There might be provisions, and I would hate to build a beautiful pond only to be in a legal battle later (whew! Say “legal battle later” 5 times, fast — almost couldn’t type it!). We don’t have a golf course in our neighborhood, but my BIL and SIL live in a large gated community about a mile away. I know that one of their HOA rules is that if your house backs up to the golf course, you can’t have a fence that encloses your backyard (total lack of privacy, there!). I don’t think there is an HOA rule about ponds or pools, but I’m almost certain that there is a requirement (HOA and/or city) that covers fencing around such areas, for safety reasons. I don’t have any idea how that is enforced, unless you put a perimeter fence just around the pool/pond. If all it means is putting up a nice little wrought iron fence (just around the pond) on the owner’s part....better to know that going into it so you can budget that extra cost. In our neighborhood and where my in-laws live, it’s the norm for kids to ride around in golf carts or atv’s, and if they are using the golf course paths, a pretty pond might be very tempting for some youngsters.

 

[tammea]

Personally, I would check with the HOA and your city’s codes. There might be provisions, and I would hate to build a beautiful pond only to be in a legal battle later (whew! Say “legal battle later” 5 times, fast — almost couldn’t type it!). We don’t have a golf course in our neighborhood, but my BIL and SIL live in a large gated community about a mile away. I know that one of their HOA rules is that if your house backs up to the golf course, you can’t have a fence that encloses your backyard (total lack of privacy, there!). I don’t think there is an HOA rule about ponds or pools, but I’m almost certain that there is a requirement (HOA and/or city) that covers fencing around such areas, for safety reasons. I don’t have any idea how that is enforced, unless you put a perimeter fence just around the pool/pond. If all it means is putting up a nice little wrought iron fence (just around the pond) on the owner’s part....better to know that going into it so you can budget that extra cost. In our neighborhood and where my in-laws live, it’s the norm for kids to ride around in golf carts or atv’s, and if they are using the golf course paths, a pretty pond might be very tempting for some youngsters.

Apparantly, you can't actually talk with the HOA "people" unless you live there already; you can just review their HOA rules provided by the owner of the house currently. The houses around this one have fences, but not the 6ft type, but enough to keep a dog inside your perimeter. So that is definetly okay to do. So at this point I'll have to wait and take my chances of buying then checking with HOA afterwards. I've lived on an 1.5 acres for 30 years with only sparse neighbors and no HOA, so this will take some getting use to for sure. However, we just can't keep up our acreage anymore physically, too much!