MONTGOMERY COUNTY, Md. (7News) — ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and one Germantown, Md., family has one final wish before Santa comes down the chimney: for their homeowners association (HOA) to rescind their fines for their Christmas lights and decorations.
7News On Your Side has extensively reported on the feud between the Salgado family and the Middlebrook Manor South Homeowners Association.
Pahan Salgado said the family found themselves on the HOA’s naughty list when the HOA sent them a letter on December 8 stating their Christmas decorations violated community nuisance rules, and they owed $650 in fines.
The family is being fined $50 per day. The HOA sent the letter 16 days ago, meaning the Salgado family is likely facing around $1,450 in fines as of the time of publication.
“That’s a crazy amount of money, especially for our family, to afford something like that. It’s crazy,” Salgado said. “That’s what I’m hoping for this Christmas. They might change their hearts and change their minds.”
With fines likely still stacking up, unless the HOA reversed course and has not informed them yet, the Salgado family is now fighting back.
“We just wanted to stop with these fines. We’ve had the frustration with everything – the constant mail and the HOA being a nuisance to us,” Salgado said. “It’s Christmas. We don’t want to take it to court. We don’t want to make it such a big deal.”
The Salgado family jingled all the way to David Gardner’s law office.
“I was very intrigued by the case because it’s an example of overreaching by a homeowners association,” Gardner said. “Christmas decorations should not be regulated by a homeowners association.”
When we first reported on this story, 7News On Your Side reached out to the lawyer for the HOA and asked the following questions:
We also knocked on the doors of some of the listed HOA board members.
Nobody answered, but minutes after the first round of door-knocking, the lawyer finally responded to our initial email, providing the following statement:
Thank you for your inquiry. The Association’s goal is to support a safe, respectful, and well-maintained community while ensuring the Association’s governing documents are enforced uniformly and in accordance with Maryland law. The Association does not comment on specific homeowners or individual enforcement actions.
Please direct all further communication regarding the Association to this office, rather than to individual Board members.
7News followed up to ask what exactly constitutes a “nuisance,” but nobody has answered that question.
“The nuisance or annoyance rule is intended to be what is a nuisance or annoyance to a normal, ordinary, reasonable person. A normal, ordinary, reasonable person in America, in this area, does not get annoyed by beautiful Christmas ornaments,” Gardner said. “An association is there to help the community maintain its standards, its aesthetics. It’s not there to make their lives miserable.”
We obtained the rules for the HOA. Under the section “Prohibited Uses and Nuisances,” there are no rules banning Christmas lights or decorations.
One ban includes decorative lawn ornaments.
“It’s really a seasonal decoration. It’s not an ornament that’s left outside on a regular basis,” Gardner said.
The HOA rules also prohibit lighting “directed outside the boundaries” of the homeowner’s property.
“If you have a spotlight on your garage, and you’re aiming it at a neighbor’s property, I think you can understand a homeowners association has a role to play there,” Gardner said. “The Christmas lights, in this case, don’t even spill over into the neighbor’s property.”
Throughout the process of reporting this story, 7News spoke with multiple neighbors who also have Christmas lights and decorations.
They said they have not received any violation notices or fines.
“A homeowners association cannot selectively enforce its covenants, and that’s what they’ve done here,” Gardner said. “There is a doctrine in the law that you have to evenly apply the rules, and they’re not doing so.”
The Salgado family’s devout religious beliefs could also play a role in the ongoing feud.
“Any court of law would be disturbed, if you will, by what the association is attempting to do here, which is infringing on the religious freedoms of my client,” Gardner said.
The Salgado family could take their fight either to a courtroom or to the Montgomery County agency overseeing homeowners associations to get the fines invalidated.
However, Gardner said he’s hoping to get this resolved before it gets to that point.
“Hopefully, we won’t have to go either route. Hopefully, the first thing we get is a hearing before the association and they will reverse their action,” Gardner said.
In this season of giving, the Salgado family is hoping the HOA gives them the gift of a change of heart.
“These Christmas lights have been with us since as far as we can remember, since our childhood and family, and faith, revolves around our Christmas lights. We’ve had these for as long as our childhood, and it just feels like it’s part of us. If you let that go, it feels like part of us is gone. Ever since our grandmothers passed away, it has felt empty for us. That’s why we added the two angels,” Salgado said. “That’s why we’re asking to HOA to stop this craziness because the only thing we have is the two angels and the manger scene.”
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