Kamel Zaki lives in the 254 home community called "The Hamptons" in Sarasota, Florida. Unhappy about some of the policies of the Homeowners Association, Zaki created a website to call attention to different issues in the community. For example, Zaki's website draws attention to the continued use of gas lampposts for every home, that burn night & day. He wants to be able to change them to a more eco-friendly solar powered lamppost.

The HOA has told him that he has till the end of this month to remove the website, or face fines of $100 a day, and then a lien on his home.

Zaki, a retired Chase bank executive who left his native Egypt more than 30 years ago because of "the politics," is outraged by what he sees as an assault on his freedom of speech. "Where are we?" he asked. "This is America, still, is it not?" As it pertains to homeowners associations in Florida's deed-restricted communities, however, the answer appears to be only a qualified yes. In the absence of any specific regulatory oversight by the state, legal disputes involving homeowners associations tend to end up in civil court, where the sanctity of the deed restriction is typically upheld. Zaki is willing to gamble as much as $10,000 on hiring legal representation to contest the fine and the Web site ban, but his wife, Eugenia, is nervous, because, as she says, "this is Florida," and "you never know."

So why is the Homeowners Association pissed about this website? How does it supposedly break the HOA covenant?

[HOA] president John Bennett characterizes as necessary to put a stop to Zaki's "troublemaking" and maintain the integrity of what he called "our covenants." By these, Bennett means the basic rules of order that serve as a kind of constitution for The Hamptons homeowners association, including a ban on any commercial use of the property name. Zaki's Web site violates this covenant by "trying to sell an idea," says Bennett -- the idea being that association management is performing inadequately and behaving badly.

This interpretation of the covenant & commercial use is most interesting. Click on the link to this guy's website. There are no ads, and the site itself doesn't sell anything. Under the HOA's interpretation of the covenant, a letter to the editor of a newspaper complaining about "The Hamptons" could theoretically be a violation.

How about having a clothesline?

It's claimed clothes dryers amount to about 6% of the electricity consumed by households in the United States. In order to be more efficient, some have tried returning to using the Sun, wind & a piece of rope tied between two points to dry their clothes on their own property. And yet again, the lawn nazis have problems.

One neighbor asked if it was temporary. Next came a phone call -- and then a series of letters -- from Brooks Resources. The first letter, dated June 12, warned that "laundry lines are not permitted in the Awbrey Butte Subdivision," adding that "many owners in Awbrey Butte take great pride in their home and surrounding areas." Ms. Taylor responded two days later with a letter asserting that the rule is "outdated." She requested a change in the rules to "reflect our urgent need and responsibility to help global warming by encouraging energy conservation." The Awbrey Butte Architectural Review Committee "appreciates your desire to make a difference for the cause of global warming," responded Brooks Resources Owner-Relations Manager Carol Haworth. But she pointed out that homeowners agree to the rules before they buy their homes, "and therefore the ARC is required to uphold those guidelines as they now exist." The letter more sternly asked "that you discontinue this practice by July 9, 2007, to avoid legal action which will be taken after that date." Ms. Taylor responded by pointing out that the subdivision is "blatantly full of noncompliant owners" who display everything from plastic play equipment to exterior paint colors that don't meet the requirement of "medium to dark tones." She added: "Who am I hurting by hanging clothes out to dry?" Brooks Resources repeated its threat of legal action, and then advised Ms. Taylor to "develop a plan to screen your outdoor laundry and submit the plan to the ARC for review." It also suggested the possibility of formal proceedings to get the rules amended, which would require 51% of homeowners' support in writing. The following month, Ms. Taylor constructed a fabric screen to conceal her clothesline. The committee, which included Brooks Resources Chairman Michael P. Hollern, gave it a thumbs down. "It doesn't blend with the home or the native surroundings," says Ms. Haworth. Mr. Hollern says, "Personally, I think people probably ought to screen their laundry from other people's view. If you feel differently, you should probably be living somewhere else."

I understand that in theory a Homeowners Association is there to protect property values, but how many stories about busy bodies worrying about stupid shit does it take, until having your house as part of a Homeowners Association becomes a detriment to value?

Stories like these.....

A superior court judge in Arizona vetoed an HOA's plan to use Association dues to pay for an $8.5 million luxury community center, that would have required all homeowners to pay a one-time $6,020 payment .

. Despite record drought & water restrictions, a Homeowners Association in North Carolina told its residents the grass must be green.

Revoked the 2nd Amendment in Tennessee.

Nevada just recently passed an HOA reform bill, that among other things banned HOAs from issuing speeding tickets or from banning the installation of window shutters. The legislation was in response to incidents like these.....

First: A 30-year-old woman with a seven-year-old daughter develops a degenerative bone disease, and is therefore forced to have a complete hysterectomy. Because of this, her cad of a husband abandons her and their daughter. She can move about her unit only with the use of a walker. The attorney of record for the association she lives in is John Leach. The poor girl receives fines, sometimes weekly, sometimes daily. The offense – her walker makes too much noise. Second: A 75-year-old woman who is almost legally blind. Her unit is in a very modest community. Due to some trauma in her past, she suffers from what we now call "post-traumatic stress syndrome." Her only comfort is her dog. Attorney John Leach writes to this woman on behalf of the association making a demand that this woman's dog be taken to a veterinarian and weighed. The association's documents specify that no dog can weigh more than 35 pounds. The dog weighs in at 42 pounds. The woman is instructed to reduce the weight of the dog or remove it from the property.

The co-captain of a Georgia HOA went into a neighbor's yard & ripped the flowers out. The problem? The flowers were artificial.

"I just don't think it's fair that I can't come home to my yard and decorate it the way I want as long as I follow the covenant. This is the covenant, I went throught it and I couldn't find it," says Freeman. "I'm not absolutely sure what the restrictions are," says resident Bakia Weaver. Freeman says she never got a warning about her flowers. She's even more upset that some of her neighbors still have their silk flowers in their front yards. "I'm taking it extremely personal because their silk flowers are still there and mine are not there," Freeman says. The president of the community management company tells Channel 2 that although nothing about silk flowers is written in the covenant, the homeowners association has aesthetic rights which are implied rights to maintain their property value.

Too many roses in California.