A homeowner’s association in Franklin, Tennessee has agreed to pay $156,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a family who said the HOA unfairly barred them from building a therapeutic sunroom where their two children, both of whom have Down syndrome, could play and receive in-home physical therapy.
To put it another way: The 168 Franklin homeowners living under the aegis of the Chestnut Bend Homeowners Association should budget for an increase in their HOA dues, because the settlement costs which their HOA board paid on their behalf (without admitting to any actual wrongdoing) average out to $928.58 per household.
The Tennessean reported today that former Chestnut Bend residents Charles and Melanie Hollis filed a federal lawsuit in 2012 alleging that, when the Hollises wanted to build a therapeutic sunroom onto their house, “the Chestnut Bend Homeowners Association denied their request to construct it based on concerns about the way the addition would look.”
The family first requested permission to build the sunroom in 2011, according to the lawsuit. Over the next year, the family went back and forth with the HOA’s architectural review committee, which quibbled over the planned materials and design. Read more: