Ruling casts doubt on Hilton Head Plantation gate toll - Beaufort News - IslandPacket.com: Hilton Head Plantation property owners behind on their association dues can't be charged a toll to enter the gated community, a Beaufort County judge has ruled.
Judge Marvin Dukes determined the association's policies and bylaws do not give it the authority to charge the toll, which took effect Monday, as a way of collecting long overdue assessments.
"After a review of the aforementioned covenants and restrictions, I find that there is no provision allowing the association to charge a toll on owners ...," Dukes wrote in the Sept. 26 temporary injunction. The ruling bars the association from charging Patrick or Janelle Dodd, who are named in the order, the $10 daily toll or the $50 fee for a guest pass until a final hearing on the matter.
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This is first: a selective tollgate in Privatopia.
2 comments:
HOAs in some areas have installed gates requiring passcards for the sole purpose of deactivating passcards to prevent homeowners from being able to get to their homes until such time as the homeowner pays whatever the management company and attorney claim are due. This is problematic given the easement all homeowners have over the roads. Maybe we'll start hearing about gates being deliberately destroyed.
"Judge Marvin Dukes determined the association's policies and bylaws do not give it the authority to charge the toll"
So all the HOA needs to do is change the policies and bylaws to give the HOA authority to do so? This ruling was more about about procedural justice than substantive justice. The judge, who is a Republican, did not determine that charging people a toll to get to their homes is unconscionable, only that the HOA's paperwork was not properly in order. And what's more Republican than helping corporations "avoid costly litigation"?
According to the story :
The ruling bars the association from charging Patrick or Janelle Dodd,
who are named in the order, the $10 daily toll or the $50 fee for a guest
pass until a final hearing on the matter.
"It does not specifically prohibit the toll for other delinquent property
owners.
Plantation general manager Peter Kristian said he was unaware of the court
order and was still charging the toll Tuesday.
This is like something out of The Onion, which once predicted that
"When every inch of space is privatized, it will cost money to walk from
your living room to the kitchen."
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