So much for a “free” country
Alright, here’s my latest rant/bitch/whatever.
I’m in the process of buying a new home (well me and my wife), and it is a new construction in a new developement area. In our offer letter we asked to pick the colors. They accepted, and gave us a color deck. I asked if any colors were off limits, my agent said no, but some colors costed more cause they require 2 coats. No problem. We picked our colors, a Harbor Blue for the body, and Stonewall (gray). The blue is pretty bright but would be offset nicely by the gray. Well we submitted our colors, and the contractor bought them and started painting. Now admittidly, it is a bit bright, but it’s not outrageous in my opinion. 
Here is an example.
So all is going well until yesterday when I get a phone call from my real estate agent. By the way, none of my frustration is directed at him, he’s been doing a great job and none of this is his fault. But he calls and says that there is a problem. So many of the neighbors have called to complain about the color that the Architectural Control Committee has gotten involved and said we cannot use those colors. And beyond that, WE are expected to pay the $1000 to repaint it!!! I was irate, enraged, and generally pissed. Now this committee comes from the fact that in most if not all new developments nowadays, there is a committee that “governs” the area based on a covenant. We got a copy of the covenant when we made our offer and I had looked it over real quick and it didn’t look too bad. Basically no garbage in the yard, no parking an RV or camper out front for weeks and months, etc. Just stuff trying to “keep up” the neighborhood so to speak. Nothing I couldn’t live with. Well after this phone call I went back to it and read it in detail. There is one section that reads as follows:
“No building shall be erected, placed, or altered on any lot until the constrution plans and specifications and a plan showing the location of the structure have been approved by the Architectural Control Committee as to quality or workmanship and materials, harmony of external design with existing structures…”
Now the bold is basically what this deals with. Because the boring asses that live around me didn’t like the color, they called in and since the color is not “in harmony of external design with existing structures” we can’t have it. I was pissed all night about this, still am. So I told my agent that first off we didn’t want to change colors, and IF we did, there was NO WAY IN HELL we were paying for it. After much discussion with my wife on our options (laywers, walking away from the deal, just saying no and tying up the property), we decide that we would pick different colors, but since the original colors were not submitted and approved prior to application, we are not responsible for paying for the re-paint. The problem for us, is we actually love the area and location, and we have already enrolled our neice in school and daycare in the area, and the property values on the homes have literally gone up $15,000 in the time since we made the offer. So we really want the house. As a result we are going to work with this fucking committee to find an acceptable set of colors we can use. I’ll be interested in seeing who actually pays for it though, cause it won’t be us.
So apparently it’s a free country, as long as you make the people around you happy. What bullshit. At first I thought they were trying to get us out of the deal so they could jack the price and re-sell it. But our agent talked to the contractor and he doesn’t want to hold up working on the rest of the property as he wants to get this done. I drove by last night and instead of painting they had started working on the landscape, so I feel better about that. I also read the covenant in detail and I don’t THINK we’ll be blindsided on anything else. It’s just really unfortunate because now there are going to be bad feelings between us and the neighbors before we’ve even moved in. If your wondering what the other houses looked like, 
here is a picture of the house across the street from us. They all have that same paint scheme. A light creme, beige, bland, boring body color, and white trim. As far as the eye can see. Now on it’s own it’s okay, but for the WHOLE neighborhood to have to conform to this is totally rediculous and unreasonable. The new colors we picked are still a dark body color and grey trim, but it’s not as bright as the blue so hopefully there will be no issue. Our first choice is a strong Hunter Green body color with a Taupe trim color. I think it will still look nice and is different enough from everyone else.
Anyway, that’s the update for now. I’ll post more pics when it’s done, hopefully no more bullshit problems like this will come up.