Spring homeowner battles HOA over pool safety fence
SPRING, Texas – A family in Montgomery County is at a standstill with their neighborhood homeowner’s association. The Bender’s Landing HOA Board doesn’t like the very thing Susan Durgapersad says is keeping her family safe.
She called consumer expert Amy Davis for help when her HOA told her she needed to remove the safety fence around her swimming pool.
The fence was installed the same year the home and pool were built in 2014. Their homeowner’s insurance company told Durgapersad they are required to have a fence around their pool. But in 2016, the HOA told the family to take it down, claiming the fence is “not compliant with association guidelines.”
“It provides safety for the entire community and our family,” Durgapersad told Davis. She lives on a corner lot in the subdivision with no perimeter fence around her big yard. Without the safety gate around her pool, anyone could wander into her yard and fall in.
“The pool fence is not an eyesore. It blends into the home. It matches the home.. and there’s probably 50 fences of this same type installed in this neighborhood,” Durgapersad explained.
We sent Channel 2’s chopper Sky 2 over the subdivision to confirm that. In a matter of minutes, we spotted 7 pool fences just like Durgapersad’s.
By email, Bender’s Landing HOA president Bruce Johnson contends that corner lots like Durgapersad’s can only have a non-privacy fence constructed of iron no more than 4 feet tall.
“A privacy fence goes around the perimeter of your yard. A pool fence is totally different,” argued attorney David Kahne. Davis asked him to read Bender’s Landing’s deed restrictions and weigh in. Kahne pointed out that the subdivision’s deed restrictions make no mention at all of pool fences. Read more: