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HOA Karen Blocked My Driveway — Then Her Tow Truck Driver Read the Sign and Refused

HOA Karen Blocked My Driveway — Then Her Tow Truck Driver Read the Sign and Refused

Chapter 7

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One evening, a neighbor who attended another HOA discussion stopped me while I was checking the mail. He lowered his voice slightly before speaking."You might want to keep an eye on your driveway this week," he said."Why?"He hesitated before answering. "Elaine's talking about physically restricting access until the investigation finishes."For a moment, I didn't respond. Because the thing about a recorded easement is that it doesn't just protect property rights in theory—it exists specifically to guarantee access. Blocking it isn't just a disagreement; it can become a legal violation. And if Elaine was actually planning to restrict that driveway again after the tow truck incident and the warning signs already in place, then she was about to make a mistake far bigger than sending letters or stacking fines: she was about to cross a line that the county might not ignore.Standing there by my mailbox, listening to the evening traffic pass through the neighborhood, I realized something: Elaine believed she was still controlling the situation. But the moment she tried to physically block that driveway again, the conflict wouldn't just be between me and the HOA anymore; it would involve people with far more authority than a neighborhood board. And once that happened, the outcome might not go the way Elaine expected.Once the county opened its review, I stopped trying to win arguments. Instead, I focused on something far more useful: evidence.Up until that point, most of what I had collected were copies of HOA letters, emails, and the easement filing attached to my property record. It was enough to prove the driveway existed legally. But I wanted something stronger, something that showed the driveway had been recognized long before the HOA ever existed.So, one afternoon, I drove down to the county records office. Old property records are strange things: some are digitized, others still sit inside filing cabinets or archived boxes that haven't been opened in years. After explaining the situation, one of the clerks helped me search through older subdivision documents connected to my property.It took nearly an hour. Then she pulled out a large folded document that looked older than most of the houses in my neighborhood: an original subdivision map.The paper itself was yellowed at the edges, but the lines were still perfectly clear: the lots were numbered, property boundaries were marked, and right there near the edge of the map was my parcel. And running directly across the map toward my garage was a clearly marked path labeled: Private Access Easement.I leaned closer to read the filing date printed at the bottom: the easement had been recorded fifteen years before the HOA was ever created.That detail mattered more than anything else. HOAs have authority over community rules, but they cannot erase property rights that existed before they were formed. If the easement had been created afterward, Elaine might have been able to argue that HOA approval was required. But this driveway wasn't something added later; it was part of the property's legal structure long before the neighborhood even had a homeowners association.I requested certified copies of the map and added them to the growing folder on my desk. At that point, the situation was becoming bigger than a disagreement between neighbors. Because once my complaint reached the county planning office, officials started taking a closer look at what the HOA had been doing. They reviewed the easement record, examined the letters the HOA had sent, and began asking questions about whether the board had attempted to interfere with legally protected property access.
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HOA Karen Blocked My Driveway — Then Her Tow Truck Driver Read the Sign and Refused

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