My Wife and I bought our home about 8 months ago, and I tried to read the rules but I don't speak legalese.

Two Things:

What are the rules about painting the outside of our home? We would love Red or Yellow. We bought the house from a previous owner with a bad taste of baby poo green.

We have an unfinished back yard (gravel and river stones), totally fenced off (ie no one can see in our out), what are the rules here and what do I have to do to get an ok?

Normally, I would just go ask them, but with all the horror stories here, I was looking for a best approach and make sure I had all my ducks ready for them..

Thanks!

#1. Change of color on the outside must be submitted to the architectural review committee. Do it before the new rule comes into effect this month that will charge a minimum of $75 for each review.

#2. Doesn't matter that your back yard is fenced, the yard must be finished according to landscape HOA rules. You have one year from purchase to bring the landscape into compliance. You should have received a review of compliance from the HOA when you purchased your home.

The advice that GirlInterrupted offered is right on the mark.

The only thing I had to add was concerning the color of the house and this is just my thinking. I think you will have an easier time getting the house color changed if it ties into the color scheme already being used on the street.

Well, there is just about every color in the rainbow in my neighborhood, included 4 shades of yellow, purple, and even a couple reds (though not many hence the wonder if there is a restriction there).

I guess I should have clarified, the backyard IS finished, the way the previous owners wanted, but we want to change it up, so was wondering what I have to do about that.

Thanks again for the responses so far.

If you are simply switching out different plants / shrubs or adding additional plants you can go ahead and do that. But if you are removing something such a flower bed and replacing it with grass then you should submit your changes to the HOA Landscape Approval committee.

The safest thing to do is just get your design approved so you don’t have to worry about redoing the yard because you didn’t have it approved to begin with. There are about a dozen or so people having to redo their landscaping because they didn’t have it approved and they did things that were against the standards.