HOA making me repaint my entire house during Christmas week because the paint has slightly faded
Wednesday, 12 Mar 2025
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I’m a professional photographer. The image on the left is much warmer colour balance. The sky is much warmer and the whole image looks too yellow. The images were also taken at different times of the day.
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I would argue that it’s not that different and less of an issue.
Here’s the ‘before’ image with the colour balance changed so the sky is closer to the new image.
I will never understand these kind of things. I can’t say I have ever driven past a home and judged one to another based on the faded color of fascia. Surely there are more important things in the world that this.
To me, it just looks like different lighting / different camera. Reduce the saturation of the picture on the right and it’s an exact match
I don’t see a deadline here. Do it after Christmas. Let them seethe.
IMO they need to provide a photo where the sky is the same color. Different shutter speeds, ISOs and aperture settings (even on full auto) between the photos will make the house look different colors.
Do you also have to repaint the sky?
I would get a color swatch of the original paint color, hold it up next to your current house, and take a pic to send back. Chances are that there is very very minimal change over years. As others have said, the lighting, camera quality, time of day, overall weather conditions are too wildly different for them to force you to repaint your whole house because someone WANTS there to be an issue.
As a foreigner I can’t for the life of me understand why HOAs should even exist. I’d make them pay for it if they want a repaint that hard.
Did the sun “fade” the roof tiles to be more saturated with color and more pink as well? Look at the right-hand garage door, did the sun fade the yellow-white shadows on the left and make them blue-white shadows on the right? Take a new pic to include the palm tree and alter the colors until the palm trees match to show how much both prior photos were manipulated/effected by the lighting/camera color balancing effects. The house in both photos is the same, the settings on the app in the camera were different. Fight this, don’t paint.
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Update:
I emailed the HOA rep. Explained to them there a lot at play here with shadows, lighting, exposure etc.. I also asked if we were able to submit the “new” color as an approved color as well.
They basically said come in January 2nd for a meeting. Based on a couple quotes i got over the phone it’s at minimum a 5 grand job. Realistically closer to 7-10 I would say.
To address some comments, specifically you get what you get deserve etc.. I’m not from this state, so I didn’t know all the ins and outs of places without HOA like I would in my home state. Regardless, it seems to be in LV, 99 percent of the homes have HOA. Most places without it are very expensive and old areas where the owners don’t sell.
This house also happened to have the perfect setup for us since we have big dogs. Like an extremely well made gated yard that has a good dog run and across the street from a dog park. We also bought at a time where houses were selling within a day of listing. We saw this house the day it was listed and there were already 4 offers before we even parked to see the house.
To some other comments, I’m not some rich old dude either. I happened to save most of my money when I was in the military when I got out. I also used my veteran benefits to purchase the home. I’ve been extremely lucky financially but I also work a lot and have been working since I was 16.
Ask them specifically what color it’s supposed to be with a paint code.
Go get that exact paint code…
Show them it’s their camera and lighting conditions by taking a picture with your phone with the new paint swatch.
I’ve got a strong feeling it’s not even faded.
I would argue the original photo wasn’t taken with the same lighting, exposure, etc…
HOAs are like 2nd in line after Healthcare companies to face Luigi’s wrath.
They wouldn’t like this place much
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Aberaeron, Wales. The 19th century houses are all painted different colours. Whatever you like.
Just don’t do it. My HOA sent me 8 emails and 5 physical letters telling me I have to repaint my house. I told them if they want it repainted they need to pay for it. They stopped bothering me.
why do americans choose to live this way?
This is why I will never buy in an HOA. I’d rather risk the small chance of having a trash hoarding neighbor than be guaranteed an asshole HOA.
In Australia they’d get told to fuck off. Why does HOA even exist? Stupid.
From someone outside the US – how do these groups work in practice? What would happen if you just told them no?
Also, American culture is famous for having a strong attitude of individualism when it comes to property. i.e. “This is my property, I own it, and I’ll do whatever I want with it”. Maybe it’s just a cliche, but I’m thinking of all the tropes people associate with the US. ‘I got my car, and it’s *my* car’, or ‘You can’t take my gun’, or the farmer saying ‘GET OFF MY PROPERTY!’ It has always seemed like America placed a great deal of value on the idea that your property is yours to use as you wish, and any landed property you own is like your own private domain.
That’s precisely why this HOA stuff is so weird. Isn’t the United States the last country on Earth one would expect to find associations like this? This is a local collective of home-owners who can make you repaint your own house, or otherwise obey their rules. Doesn’t that very strongly go against American cultural values?
Okay but if you don’t… What happens? They try and sue? That’s a good way to drain the HOA’s coffers quick.
HOAs should be outlawed.
Have they never heard of white balance for photos?
I wish I had the free time to complain about my neighbors like hoa assholes do. Jfc.
Looks like the same picture with different lighting to me.
How is this shit even legal. I’d be so filled with rage over this nonsense.
When you paint such a house, put the HOA’s sample color page out in the sun.
Unless it’s trash indoor paint the paint wouldn’t fade that fast. I bet it’s the way the lighting was and camera settings.
Find out what level of deviance from the approved color is considered out of tolerance. It needs to be something written down and quantifiable.
You can get a color swatch of the color they want and photograph it next to the painted house and a white/grey calibration card and use that to measure the deviance. If they want to force the issue go around to all the houses and give them a list of everyone else and ask if they are enforcing these rules on them or singling you out.
The ULPT is to take a picture and Photoshop it to where your house is acceptable and send it to them and say that you don’t see anything wrong and that it’s within specs.
There are 2 things in life you should never get involved with.
1. HOAs.
2. Meth
Don’t live in an HOA. I understand the point but they’ve basically become dictatorships run by people with nothing going on in their personal lives. The one time I lived in an HOA I got a violation for not returning garbage cans immediately after the truck came by. It didn’t matter that I was at work…those trash cans are making the neighborhood look trashy. 🙄
Just another reason to never buy in an hoa
If the HOA is gonna charge all that money for dues they should take care of those things out of their budget
Id use all approved colors randomly.
I’m a lawyer who used to work for HOAs. Just keep writing them and asking for more time. It doesn’t matter the reason, just give them a reason. The worst thing you can do is ignore them. They will start fining you, then they’ll bring in legal.
This is when you run for HOA president and dismantle it from the inside.
If they are going to be arguing over minimal deviations in paint color, they better have a standard color and tolerances defined.
I’d be a pain in the ass about it and ask what the Delta E deviation is and what is the requirement. There is an official way to measure color deviations and the equipment is expensive. If they make the requirement too tight and actually follow through with it, they’ll all fail too.
15 days is also completely unreasonable timeframe to get a house painted.
You cant judge paint by photos.
I will never live in a house where I cant drive my car up on the lawn, change the oil, and leave it there until next Spring.
Ugh so glad I did not buy in to a HOA neighborhood. This is BS.
lol. damn. its a violation to have a fading paint. i hope they send the authority to arrest you for your crime. /s
If they have a problem with it, they should paint it themselves
Your HOA should have a process for requesting a different paint color. You submit it to the board and they either approve or deny. I would submit whatever color you have now as a “new” color. They should approve it because it’s very close to the old. Then you’re done.
Are you in AZ? Those are very AZ looking houses.
You should do this exact same thing to every member of the HOA board. Just go take pictures of all of their houses in the morning, and then another picture in the evening, and tell them they all need to get their houses painted too. It’s literally just a lighting difference.
Go give them a taste of their own bullshit.
Dispute it. Fight them in the grounds that the lighting conditions in the photos aren’t the same and that you dispute their assertion that it’s faded. At the very least you’ll be able to tie them up in red tape until the next board meeting.
What happens if you just tell an HOA to kick rocks
They will need to show you are out of compliance with something other than 2 random photos. As many others have stated, time of day, lighting, different cameras, etc will all affect colors in a picture. If you used the approved paint when it was painted last time, then they need to show that the color was either intentionally changed (ie repainted) or they need to compare with a swatch. It will still differ slightly due to materials and age.
Also make sure you go to a swatch comparison on other homes.
Might want to appeal the timeline. Our HOA had a rather lengthy process to just paint. I don’t recall getting any notices but our was usually pretty lenient with homeowners. More strongly with landlords.