Imagine having a neighbor so entitled he secretly builds a giant balcony across your property line the second you leave the state. When I caught him, he just smirked, cracked open a beer, and told me that he owned the airspace. He thought his spot on the Hway board made him untouchable. The first one is titled Strongarmming Me into a viewing. Fine, but you won’t get inside the apartment.
So for context, I’m renting an apartment from a company whose renting agents are somehow all unprofessional, late, and kind of slow. Had a plethora of issues with them throughout 10 months, but that is a story for another time. As I’ve told my landlord I’ll be moving out, they instructed their agents to find a new tenant for the apartment. The way it worked, the agent would email me with a proposed date and time, and I would confirm that I’ll be in at that time.
I’ve got a cat, so I insisted on being present during the viewings. The agents never had keys. I think that’s because the landlord’s office is at the other end of the city, and they cannot be bothered to drive an extra hour each time there’s a viewing to pick the keys up and then drop them off. So, they relied on me to let them in each time. Apart from a couple of unannounced showups, followed by passive aggressive emails about the messy property.
All was well until a week ago. The agent emails me saying they’ve got a viewing on the 13th. I respond by saying that I’ve got work that day and won’t be able to do 13th. She simply replies, “If you won’t be able to accommodate this request, I’ll ask the landlord for a 24-hour notice of entry, which is legally enforceable. ” Okay, do that. The day comes, I get a call. We are downstairs. Congratulations, but I’m not home.
I hope you brought keys this time. Man, I wish I could see her face then. We went back and forth a bit, and she tried to threaten me with legal action, to which I just replied that I don’t object to them entering. They are unable to enter through their own negligence and I have nothing to do with it. Naturally got an email from the landlord asking me to be more cooperative next time which was promptly ignored.
So, I bought my house about 6 years ago in a suburb outside of Charlotte, North Carolina. It is a decent neighborhood with mostly newer construction. We have an HOA, but before you grown, this one is actually not terrible. The dues are reasonable. They maintain the common areas. The pool is clean, and the board members are mostly normal people who just want to keep the neighborhood looking good.
I’ve had zero issues with the HOA in all the years I’ve lived here. That is important for later. The reason I bought this particular house was the backyard. It is not huge, but it backs up to a tree line and has this privacy that’s hard to find in a subdivision. Normally, no houses directly behind me, just a green buffer of trees, and then eventually the next street over. On one side is my neighbor, who I will call my good neighbor because he’s been great since day one.
On the other side is where the problem lives. The house next to mine sat empty for about a year after the previous owners moved out. And then it sold and in move the guy I’m going to call Ronald. Ronald and his wife showed up with a moving truck and what I can only describe as big energy. Within the first week, Ronald introduced himself to pretty much everyone on the street and made sure that we all knew three things.
He worked in commercial real estate. He had connections with the city and he had just been elected to the HOA board. That last one surprised me because typically you have to live in the neighborhood for a while before you get on the board, but apparently there was an open seat and nobody else wanted it. So Ronald slit right in. Fine, whatever. I did not think too much of it. For the first year or so, Ronald was just annoying but manageable.
He had opinions about everything. He would walk around the neighborhood on weekend mornings doing rounds and commenting on people’s yards, their paint colors, whether their trash cans were visible from the street. He would bring up these observations at HOA meetings like they were emergencies. Most of the board tolerated him because he was willing to do the work nobody else wanted to do, like organizing the neighborhood yard sale and dealing with the landscaping company. The first real problem started when Ronald decided to renovate his house.
Not a small renovation either. He basically gutted the back half and started rebuilding it. He added a second story addition over his garage and expanded the kitchen and construction crews were there for months. noise at 7:00 a.m. every Saturday, trucks blocking the sidewalk, dust everywhere. I dealt with it because renovations end, and I’m not the kind of guy who picks fights over temporary inconvenience. Then the renovation wrapped up, or so I thought. Last spring, I took time off work to visit my parents out in Arizona, and my dad had a knee replacement, and my mom needed help around the house.
I came back on a Sunday afternoon. I walked through the front door, dropped my bag, let the dog out into the backyard, and that’s when I saw it. There was a brand new wooden balcony extending off the second story of Ronald’s house. Not just any balcony. This thing was massive. It stuck out probably 8 ft from the back of his house, and a solid good chunk of it, I’m talking at least 3 and 1/2 ft, was hanging directly over my yard.
I could even see it casting a shadow over my patio furniture. One of the two support posts was planted on my side of the fence right next to it where I had a raised garden bed that I’d spent an entire weekend building last spring. The garden bed was smashed, dirt everywhere. My plants were just gone. I stood there staring at it for a good 30 seconds. The dog was sniffing around the post like it was a fire hydrant.
I looked up at the balcony, then down at the post, and then back up. I actually said out loud to nobody, “No way.” I walked over to the fence. I looked at Ronald’s yard. Nobody home. or at least nobody outside. The balcony had nice wood railing, what looked like a composite decking, string lights already hung up. This was not some rushed weekend project. This had been professionally built while I was gone. Somebody had hired a crew, poured concrete footing inside my property, set a post, and built a structure that literally hung over my backyard, and nobody thought to mention it.
That evening, I was sitting on my patio trying to process what had happened here when Ronald came outside onto the balcony. He was holding a beer and he looked down at me with this big grin. Hey man, welcome back. What do you think? I looked at him. What do I think about what the deck just got finished Thursday? Turned out great, right? I pointed at the support post. Ronald, that post is in my yard. He leaned over the railing.
Oh yeah, the contractor said it was the only way to get the right load bearing for the span. Don’t worry about it. It’s just a post. It’s a post in my yard on my property. He waved his hand. Come on, man. It’s like 3 ft. You won’t even notice it after a while. Well, I’m noticing it right now. And you crushed my garden bed. He made a face like I told him that I was upset about a dandelion.
I will have someone come fix it. No big deal. Ronald, you built a part of your house over my property. And then he said the thing that turned this from an annoyance into a straightup war. He straightened up, took a sip of his beer, and said, “Look, I checked the setbacks before we started. The airspace above a certain height is fair game. My contractor confirmed it. If you have a problem with that, take it up with the HOA.
I’m on the board, by the way. Or go hire a lawyer and fight mine. But I think you will find that you’re making a mountain out of a molehill here, buddy. He said, “Buddy, the way people say it when they actually mean something very different. ” Then he went back inside and slid the door shut. I sat there for a minute. Then I pulled out my phone and started taking pictures. Every angle, the post, the footing, the overhang, the crushed garden bed, the shadow, the balcony cast over my patio.
I took about 40 photos before the sun went down. And the next morning, I pulled my property survey out of the filing cabinet. I had kept a copy from when I bought the house, and I’d actually had a fresh survey done two years ago. When I was thinking about extending my fence, the property line thing was crystal clear. I walked outside with a tape measure and confirmed what I already knew. The support post was about 26 in inside my property line.
The edge of the balcony extended roughly 42 in past the boundary. This was not a gray area or something. This was not even a close call. This was Ronald’s structure sitting in my yard like it belonged there. I also looked up the HOA rules that night and our CCNRs have a whole section on structural modifications. Any exterior construction additions, fences, decks, anything visible from outside the home required HOA architectural review and approval before work can start. You have to submit plans, get board approval, and then you can build.
I searched through the HOA records online and there was no approved architectural review for Ronald’s balcony. None. He either skipped the process entirely or assumed that being on the board meant he didn’t have to follow the rules. Now, here’s where his dare came back to bite him. He told me to take it up with the HOA. So, that is exactly what I did. Monday morning, I emailed the HOA management company and requested a formal complaint process for an unauthorized structure.
I attached my photos, my survey, and a copy of the CCNR section on architectural review. I kept it factual and short, no emotion, no drama, just this structure was built without approval, and it encroaches on my property. I also called the county building department. The woman who answered was helpful. She pulled up Ronald’s address and confirmed what I already suspected. There was no building permit on file for a second story balcony or any deck addition. She said she would send an inspector out to check on it.
2 days later, I got a call back from the county. The inspector had visited the site and confirmed the structure was unpermitted. He also noted the encroachment onto my property. Ronald was issued a stopwork order and a notice of violation. The inspector told me that Ronald would either need to get a retroactive permit, which would require proving the structure code and was within his property, or he would have to remove it. The Hway moved a little slower, but they moved.
I got an email from the management company saying my complaint had been received and forwarded to the architectural review committee and they actually confirmed that there was no application on file from Ronald for the balcony. A formal violation notice was being sent to him and about a week after all this started, Ronald showed up at my door. He didn’t look happy. He was holding the county violation notice in one hand and his phone in the other. You called the county on me?
I also filed with the HOA like you told me to do. His face got red. I’m on the board. You think this is going to go anywhere? I think the board has roots and I think you did not follow them. This is going to cost me thousands of dollars over a couple of feet of overhang. You’re being ridiculous. Well, Ronald, you poured concrete in my yard. You destroyed my garden and you did it while I was out of state.
He leaned in a little. You’re going to regret this. I know every person on that board personally. And I’ve got a real estate attorney who does this job for breakfast. Well, good for you. You’re going to need him. He turned around and walked off my porch without another word. Now, I want to be honest here. When he said that stuff about knowing the board and having a lawyer, I did feel a little nervous for about 5 minutes and then I remembered something.
Rules are rules. Either the structure is permitted or it isn’t. Either it is on my property or it isn’t. A surveyor’s tape measure doesn’t care who you know. Over the next few weeks, things escalated. Ronald started campaigning among the neighbors, telling anyone who would listen that I was being a difficult neighbor, that I was wasting a resources, and that the whole thing was just a misunderstanding, that I was blowing out of proportion. A couple people bought it, but most didn’t.
My good neighbor, on the other side, told me that Ronald had come over and tried to get him to sign some kind of informal statement supporting the balcony. My neighbor told him to get lost. The HOA scheduled a hearing. This is standard procedure for violations. and the homeowner gets a chance to present their case to the architectural review committee. Ronald being on the board technically should have recused himself from anything involving his own property, but he didn’t recuse himself.
In fact, at the first hearing, he tried to act as both the accused homeowner and a voting board member. The A2A’s property manager, to her credit, shut that down immediately. She told Ronald that he had a conflict of interest here and couldn’t vote or deliberate on his own violation. He argued against that and she read him the section of the bylaws that covered conflicts of interest and he argued some more. She told him that he could either sit on one side of the table as a homeowner or leave.
But he was not sitting on the board for this hearing. He chose to sit as a homeowner and spent the rest of the meeting looking like he was going to chew through the table. I presented my survey, my photos, the timeline. I showed the committee that no architectural review had been filed. I showed that the structure encroached on my lot. And the committee asked Ronald if he had submitted plans before building. He said that he didn’t think it was necessary because of the nature of the project and they asked him if he was aware that the structure crossed the property line and he said his contractor had assured him it didn’t.
They asked him for documentation from his contractor showing the measurements but he didn’t have any. The committee voted unanimously that the balcony was an unapproved structure and that it encroached on a neighboring property. They issued a formal demand that Ronald bring the structure into compliance within 60 days, which meant either getting it approved with proof it didn’t violate any property boundaries or removing it all together. Since it was physically sitting inside my property, option one was basically impossible.
Ronald was furious. He started sending emails to the other board members calling the decision a witch hunt. He accused the property manager of being biased and he accused me of conspiring with the committee. He demanded a full board vote to overwrite the committee’s decision and the board met the following month. I was not there but I heard about it from my good neighbor who attended as a homeowner. And apparently Ronald stood up and gave this long speech about how the HOA was supposed to protect homeowners and not attack them.
And he said the balcony added value to the neighborhood. And he said that I was the problem, not him. He demanded the board overrule the committee. The board president, who from everything I’ve heard is a reasonable guy who just wants to run a clean neighborhood, told Ronald that the committee followed the process correctly, that the violation was clear, and that the board was not going to override it. He also told Ronald that several homeowners had complained about Ronald using his board position to try to influence the outcome of his own violation and that the board was going to discuss whether Ronald should continue serving.
Ronald apparently lost it. He started yelling about how he had built this neighborhood up, how nobody appreciated what he did, and how he was going to sue the HOA if they forced him to tear down his balcony. The board president asked him to sit down, but he didn’t. Two other board members told him he was out of line, but he kept going. The board voted to remove Ronald from his position because the bylaws allow removal of a board member for conduct detrimental to the association.
And apparently trying to use your board seat to dodge consequences for building an illegal structure over your neighbor’s yard qualifies for exactly that. Ronald stormed out of the meeting. That should have been the end of it. But Ronald was not yet done. He hired a lawyer just like he had promised. About 2 weeks after being removed from the board, I got a letter from an attorney’s office. The letter basically said that Ronald disputed the property line, disputed the HOA’s authority to order removal, and was asserting that the balcony was within his legal rights to build.
And the letter also said that if I continue to harass Ronald or interfere with his property, they would pursue legal action against me. I read the letter twice, laughed once, and then called my own attorney. My guy is a property lawyer at used when I bought the house, and he called me back the next day. This is not a complicated case, he said. The survey is clear. The county already cited him and the HOA already ruled against him.
If he wants to fight this in court, he’s going to lose and he’s going to pay for it. Well, Ronald filed a lawsuit. He actually did it. He sued me for torvious interference with property rights. And he sued the HOA for overreach and selective enforcement. And by the way, guys, is that the first story in the history of my channel where an HOA gets sued and we are actually on the side of the HOA? I guess there’s a first for everything.
Either way, his argument was that the airspace above my property at the height of his balcony was not legally part of my property and that the HOA had unfairly targeted him because of personal bias. My attorney filed a counter claim for trespass property damage for the garden bed and the tree trimming Ronald had done to make room for the structure and requested a court order for removal of the encroaching structure. Their HOA’s attorney filed a motion to dismiss Ronald’s claim against them, citing the clear CCNR violation and the documented process they followed.
The whole thing took about 4 months to work through the court system. During that time, the balcony stayed up because Ronald argued he shouldn’t have to remove it while the case was pending. The county disagreed and fined him for every week the unpermitted structure remained. But Ronald paid the fines because I think he genuinely believed he was going to win. But he didn’t win. The judge reviewed the survey, the county records, the Hway documentation, and the photos.
And Ronald’s attorney tried to argue the airspace theory once again that a structure at second story height doesn’t constitute a property encroachment. And the judge asked about the support post that was physically in the ground on my property. And Ronald’s attorney said it was incidental contact with my lot. The judge actually paused and asked him to repeat that incidental contact, a concrete footing and a structural post supporting a deck. Incidental. My attorney presented a survey, the county inspector’s findings, photos of the destroyed garden bed, and the timeline showing that construction happened while I was out of state, with no notice or consent.
He also presented the HOS violation history, showing that Ronald had never submitted an architectural review, which was required of all homeowners, regardless of board membership, and the judge ruled in my favor on every account. The balcony constituted a trespass on my property. The construction caused actual property damage, and the HOA had followed proper procedure. Ronald’s claims against me and the HOA were dismissed, and the judge ordered removal of any structure encroaching on my property within 30 days and awarded me damages for the garden bed, the damaged fence section, and my legal fees.
Ronald’s attorney tried to negotiate. He asked if Ronald could redesign the balcony to avoid the encroachment. But my attorney said the court order was for removal, and any future construction would need to go through proper channels, including HOA approval and county permits, neither of which Ronald currently had. The 30-day clock started and Ronald did nothing for the first 3 weeks. I think part of him still believed he could find some way out. Maybe he thought I would get tired and settle.
Maybe he thought the HOA would change its mind. I don’t know what was going through his head. On day 25, my attorney sent his attorney a reminder that failure to comply with a court order would result in contempt proceedings. On day 27, a construction crew showed up at Ronald’s house. I was working from home that day and I heard the trucks early in the morning and looked out the window. Three guys with tools climbing up to the balcony.
They started taking it apart. It took two full days. The decking came off first, then the railing, then the structural beams. The support post on my property was the last thing to go. They had to dig out the concrete footing with a small excavator. And when they pulled it out, there was this hole in my yard about 2 ft wide and a foot and a half deep. The crew filled it with dirt and then tamped it down.
When the last beam came off the side of Ronald’s house, there was this ugly rectangular scar on the siding where the balcony had been attached. Bold holes, discolored wood flashing that no longer covered anything. It looked terrible. Ronald was going to need to resite that whole section of his house. I was sitting on my patio when the foreman came over. He asked if I wanted them to do anything about the hole in my yard. Maybe resought the area.
I told him that was between his client and me. He shrucked and went back to cleaning up the total cost of the demolition. as I learn I learned through the court filings was somewhere around $14,000 that was just a removal. The legal fees were about $8,000 plus the HO’s legal fees which I heard were similar at in the county fines the cost of building the balcony in the first place and the repairs he now needed to do on his own house where the balcony had been attached before.
He was looking at close to $50,000 or $60,000 total for a balcony he got to enjoy for about 6 months. The aftermath was quieter than I expected. Ronald and his wife don’t talk to me anymore, which honestly is fine. They put their house on the market about 2 months after the balcony came down. It sold quickly because it’s a nice house in a good neighborhood, but I heard the sale price was a bit below what they were hoping for because the property now had a disclosed legal dispute in its history.
And the next one is a malicious compliance story which is titled working hours. So, I once had a job where I did network support for a corporation in a city that supported a manufacturing plant in another state. That plant started operations at 7 every morning and the software and data connections had to be up and running when the plant started or they couldn’t do their business. So then I made it my job to make sure I was there at 7 every morning.
Because of this, I would leave around 400 p.m. in the afternoon. One day, somebody had some network problem at 4:30 and I was not there to answer questions. I’m not talking about problems at the plant. I’m talking about one person in the office had trouble with their terminal. The next day I was given a lecture that I had to stay until 5 every day. I tried to point out the reason for the early arrival and departure, but the manager, of course, couldn’t understand this logic.
She wanted me there until 5:00 because her friend had issues getting her terminal to work at 4:30 one day. So, maybe you can guess what happened next. I started working 8 to 5:00. It was not 2 weeks before there was a problem at the planned communications at 7:00 a.m. I got the call around 7:00 and all I could do was say, “I’ll be there as soon as I can, but I just got out of bed, so it’s going to be about an hour.” And well, let me tell you, not a single person ever said anything about me leaving at 4 again.
And yeah, guys, thanks for listening.
