Formal letterhead, the kind of envelope that doesn’t have a coupon inside. I opened it standing right there at the curb. Violation notice, printed, numbered, official. There was a violation code. a date, a reference section, and a fine amount, $225. The violation read, “Obstruction of shared access easement, community standards policy, section 4.2.
” At the bottom, under complaint filed by, it said, “Brenda Holloway, lot 9.” I read it again. Then I read it one more time because I thought maybe I was misunderstanding something. Shared access easement. I didn’t even fully know what that meant yet, but I knew one thing. I’d been parked on my own driveway.
my property, my truck, my concrete, and someone had filed a formal complaint with a dollar amount attached to it because she didn’t like where I parked. I pulled out my phone right there, still standing at the mailbox, called the HOA management office. The number was printed at the top of the letter. A woman answered, polite, professional, completely unhelpful.
Sir, the complaint was filed and processed through our standard review. If you’d like to dispute it, you’ll need to submit that in writing. I asked her what the shared access easement was, what part of my property it referred to, where it was documented. I don’t have those details in front of me. You’d need to reference your community standards document, section 4.2.
I hung up, standing in the same spot I’d been in for the last 10 minutes. I didn’t feel angry yet. I just felt like I’d walked into a conversation that had started without me. Shared access easement. I kept coming back to those three words because as far as I knew and I was about to go make sure there was no shared anything on my property.
