I was sued for three reasons:
- Operating a home business out of my home.
- Having a work truck in my driveway
- Having decals/advertising on the work truck
Background:
I live in the State of Indiana and have lived in my subdivision since 2006. During that time I have always worked from home and had a small home based biz for hosting events. During the years of 2008-2010 I had an SUV with decals advertising the biz name and social media. I never received any type of letter or notice to remove the decals/wrap.
In 2017 I started a new business, Vino Mobile Bar. It is the very first wine truck in the USA. I have parked my wine truck 10 times in my driveway over the past 18 months to clean or load wine. We have another piece of property in which we park it at.
We received a letter stating that we had to remove the wine truck due to the advertising. I was caught off guard and thought they are joking. So I did not respond b/c there are three other work trucks literally 4 doors down that have ads all over them.
Well, needless to say I and my company got sued. We hired any attorney but that was about useless. The end result was I lost and have to pay the HOA $15,000.00 and $8,000.00 to my attorney. That will end up bankrupting my business.
I asked one of the neighbors with a work truck if he has ever received a letter telling him to remove his truck or park in the garage. He stated that he had not. I then stated taking pictures of his truck and sent them into the HOA as it violated the covenants. I have heard nothing for the past 60 days until this week. The owner of the work truck that I spoke to sent me a DM via social media that made threats and negative undertones. I immediately blocked him. I found out via social media that he posted on the community FB page that the 'HOA provided him with the name of the person that took the pics and turned him in for having ads on his truck'. That 'he could share the name of the community member but he is not going to.'
Question: How can the HOA provide my emails and contact information to this homeowner? I thought the whole point was that a homeowner could submit a violation in a confidential manner?
Question: Does this not fall under the Selective Enforcement? This homeowner met with the HOA on Tuesday (1/23/18) and his truck is still siting out in his driveway.
Question: What recourse do I have, if any, on this? They are clearly a 'good ole' boys club' and I am not included.
I have written two letters this week to Kirkpatrick Management Company asking for a meeting. I have not heard anything at this time.
Thank you for your time and comments.
Jenn Kampmeier-Aaron