Homeowner seeks advice after noticing damage from HOA-mandated landscaping: 'Attend board meetings, and raise your point'

Living under a homeowners association can make things difficult. Whether it's seeking permission to install solar panels on your property or trying to cultivate a native plant garden instead of the typical monoculture lawn, it's not uncommon to experience pushback from these community organizations. 

Accountability is another problem. When the HOA hires a company to do work around your property, who should you contact in the event of damage?

That's the conundrum one homeowner faced, and they took to the r/HOA subreddit to ask for advice. 

"I live in a place where we have HOA & in my monthly HOA fees landscaping services are included," the Redditor began. "Landscapers have damaged backflow of my sprinkler system."

"I have been trying to get my HOA to follow up with landscaping company for about 3 weeks now. No one from landscaping has reached out to me yet. How do I go about the situation?"

The Redditor said they had gotten in touch with the landscaping company but that they passed the burden of responsibility on to the HOA, saying it doesn't deal with individual claims under an HOA-assigned project. 

It's quite the conundrum to be in. Having to repair something that has been broken through no fault of your own is infuriating, but not knowing who can solve the issue can make you feel lost. 

"Because you don't have evidence, it's gonna be hard to create a case that the landscapers damaged the irrigation," one Redditor replied. "As you were doing, make the point known to the HOA. Attend board meetings, and raise your point." 

Indeed, while HOAs have a reputation for ruling with an iron fist, it's not impossible to reason with them. You just might have to put in a bit of work to make your case watertight.

The other solution is to bite the bullet and deal with the issue yourself. When the original poster noted the damage was to a plastic pipe, one user pointed out that the cost of dealing with the issue yourself might outweigh the work you'd need to do to resolve the problem with the HOA or the landscaping company.

"All in, just DIY it," was the advice from one commenter. "Not [worth] your time to chase a $15 fix."

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