August 19, 2025 | Mark Luis Foster

We scour the internet looking for HOA stories, and there’s a lot of them. This one caught our eye from Charlotte, NC, from WSOC-TV:

Headline: ‘I thought everything was a green light’: Homeowner, HOA fight over fence’

The terms “green light” and “fence” had me interested. But wow, buckle up.

Turns out that an HOA resident (Madison Locklear, a former board member of that HOA, to be specific) who was interested in building a fence around her HOA home, ostensibly due to a relative with dementia in order to increase the person’s safety, got a firm denial from the HOA Board on the request. If I’m reading this correctly, the resident then got a letter from the HOA’s management company saying that her neighbor approved the request.

Now, as many of you know, some HOAs request that neighbors sign off on any construction work (e.g. new decks, window projects, etc.) so that no one is surprised when work crews show up. But this is usually in line with approval from the board on the given project. Sounds to me like the paperwork got crossed up, with the neighbor’s OK going to the homeowner after the board had denied the request.

“I thought everything was a green light. It’s all good,” she said. So, her builder built the fence. “And it all went downhill from there,” she said.

That much is true. So we have a denial, then a go-ahead by the resident on the fence build, then more trouble begins. According to the report:

It (governing docs) says — under the neighborhood’s rules — the fence could only extend 11 feet. Locklear’s fence is 13 feet. The HOA says too big. Her attorney says there are utility lines under the 11-foot line, so her contractor extended the fence to be safe.

She says the HOA said she could keep it that size as long as she moved part of the fence farther from her neighbor’s HVAC unit. But she says her neighbor’s HVAC unit is actually encroaching on her property, which she’s been OK with. But now, she says if she moves the fence, it’ll be too close to her own unit, which she claims would be a code violation. According to a letter she showed Action 9, the HOA is fining her $100 per week. She says the total is more than $600, so far.

I guess one could defend the resident in that the letter from the property manager seemed like approval was given; but then again, how firm was the HOA Board to begin with, and couldn’t the resident have inferred the cross-up given the order of events?

The HOA’s lawyer emailed Action 9 attorney Jason Stoogenke, “Ms. Locklear was a former board member and is very familiar with the governing documents for the association, which includes the obligation to obtain architectural approval for any modification in advance, and in writing, from the association.”

And this from the HOA’s lawyer:

“. . . I do feel it is appropriate to state that whenever someone contacts news media about any story, they have their own particular position that is, automatically, one-sided.”

Again, this much is true.

Good times in HOA land. You can read the whole convoluted story here from WSOC-TV.