2. The Motor Courts and Meritage's Attempts to Re-Write the Rules
"There shall be no parking of any vehicle within the Motor Courts... temporarily or otherwise."
The issue of unpermitted parking in the motor courts of the Willow community has become a major source of contention for us in that it has led to unsubstantiated accusations of harassment and threatening behavior and threats of arrest and legal action by the developer, Meritage, and the HOA (which is controlled by Meritage), which have stripped us of all sense of peace since taking possession of our new home in late February 2025. (This is discussed in further detail in post no. 4.) As of early May 2025, I have been forced to walk around my new neighborhood with a bodycam to protect myself from Meritage's false accusations of threats and harassment. We were recently forced to purchase a second camera for my husband given an incident with an unknown neighbor (pictured below) who followed my husband around the neighborhood while falsely accusing and shouting in broad daylight that my husband is a pedophile (for reasons that remain unclear to us).
Per my first post, the homes in Meritage's Willow community revolve around shared driveways which the developer refers to as "motor courts". The Bergamot Community Association's CC&Rs unequivocally state that "there shall be no parking of any vehicle within the Motor Courts... temporarily or otherwise" (page 24).
Unfortunately, based on our documentation efforts, it is evident that this rule has not been communicated (despite a MULTITUDE OF WRITTEN REQUESTS) by the HOA to Meritage employees/ contractors/ vendors, homeowners, residents, guests, and prospective buyers since folks appear to be under the impression that 5 to 15 or even 30-min parking stints are permissible - as a homeowner and Meritage contractor, respectively, argue in the videos that follow.
Video: Conversation w/ Owner of 2099 Bergamot re Parking in Motor Court
(Property Manager, a real estate agent, is clearly not aware that even temporary parking is NOT permitted per the CC&Rs)
Video: Conversation w/ Meritage Vendor re Parking in Motor Court
(Meritage vendor falsely claims she is authorized to park in the motor court for up to 30 mins; Meritage Customer Service Rep informs her she is wrong)
As we understand it, however, the "temporarily" in "there shall be no parking of any vehicle within the Motor Courts... temporarily or otherwise" unambiguously addresses that 5, 10 and/ or 30-minute parking stints are not permitted. Having said that, we remain unclear as to whether homeowners are permitted to use the motor court for move-ins (which would take much longer than, say, loading and unloading of an Instacart grocery delivery). We are unable to obtain answers since we have been prohibited from directly corresponding with the community's property managers at Keystone (via a Cease & Desist letter and again during IDR) and have no details about nor contact information for our HOA Board members despite my request to Keystone in late April 2025. UPDATE 08/11/25: Ahead of IDR, our attorney was finally able to obtain the names of Board members (who are all Meritage employees) in early August 2025 (i.e., > 3 months after our initial request).
UPDATE 01/02/26: The HOA recently sent a communication regarding its intent to amend the Rules + Regulations to allow for 30-minute temporary motor court parking which, we believe, is being undertaken in response to the multitude of reports (+/- 100) of unpermitted motor court parking which we have submitted starting in April 2025 (and have not been investigated by the HOA). We believe that the developer-controlled HOA is attempting to change the rules to circumvent responsibility for its failure to investigate and enforce the rules against parking in the motor courts which, according to our records, has never been undertaken (hence our lawsuit against the HOA for breach of fiduciary duties, among other things).
We are looking forward to seeing how these unenforceable amendments will play out since the CC&Rs - which, to reiterate, unambiguously state that "There shall be no parking of any vehicle within the Motor Courts... TEMPORARILY or otherwise" - are not superseded by amendments to the Rules & Regulations. We suspect the HOA knows this, but is doing this as a stalling tactic to be able to pass the buck to the new homeowner board. In the interim, we maintain that this will lead to even more confusion regarding the rules which prohibit parking in the motor courts and that this mess will be inherited by the new homeowner board when this forms, possibly later in the Spring. And, guess who will pay for that mess, folks? (Hint: not Meritage!)
It's been incredibly frustrating to try to get the developer-controlled HOA to educate the community regarding the motor court parking rules (among other things!) and equally disappointing to see how ignorant homeowners are about the CC&Rs that govern life in our HOA. My theories as to why the developer-controlled HOA has refused to enforce the CC&Rs and Rules + Regulations is detailed in my next post.
Anyway, our After-Sales Customer Service Rep, Hector Estrada, is a nice person overall, but we lost confidence in him early on as as we found that he is rather ignorant of the community's rules and has a tendency to misspeak- e.g., he thought car-washing in the motor courts was permitted (it is not!) and that HOA enforcement would increase as more folks moved in (it will not - the HOA conducts enforcement 2x per month which will never increase to every 2 hours, as Mr. Estrada erroneously suggested). (I will not soon forget the look of horror on his face when I informed him of this fact!). Incidentally, Mr. Estrada became visibly upset as he shared that his own community in Murrieta is also managed by Keystone and that he, too, has issues with the company - in his case, issues related to Selective Enforcement and not- as in ours- a lack, thereof.
There's Nothing Common About Common Sense
We do not understand why others do not consider the consequences associated with parking in front of our respective garages in the motor courts. We thought this was common sense, but it's probably because we have prior experience with shared driveways and understand that strict adherence of CC&R parking rules is the only way to make these work... though, visible signage is also tremendously helpful. (I'll address signage in my next post.)
My approach to any action I take- particularly, in a communal setting- is "How would I feel if everyone else did the same? ... And, more importantly, what are the consequences of everyone doing the same thing?" So, for example, how would I feel if I parked in front of my garage in the motor court and then my neighbors did the same... and how would that play out in, say, an emergency situation in which there was a need for emergency vehicle access into the motor court?
I don't know whether the width of all motor courts in the community is the same, but am fairly certain that if all 6 sets of homeowners in our court used the space in front of our respective properties for parking, we would have a problem with egress/ ingress from/ to our respective garages and, most certainly, negatively impact an emergency vehicle's access into the motor court.
I'll share another emergency situation: I had to call 911 due to a fire in my neighbor's backyard on May 19, 2025. My neighbor left an unattended pot on her outdoor grill which turned into a fire before my eyes. The same thing happened in this case- i.e., the fire department had to contact me for detailed directions because they were unable to locate my neighbor's property given that, as stated earlier, house numbers in the Willow community are not visible from the street. I ask again, What if there had been parked vehicles in the motor court that were blocking the fire department's access to our neighbor's property? Incidentally, I did immediately report my neighbor's fire to the HOA, but never received acknowledgement. Judging by the 2nd grill that they set-up in their backyard, I very much doubt that my neighbors received so much as a Courtesy Violation Notice.
Link to Video: Fire in Neighbor's Backyard
I cannot believe that I find myself having to write about things I see as matters of common sense... and then I am reminded of George Carlin's stance on the intelligence of people: "Think of how stupid the average person is and realize that half of them are stupider than that!" If you haven't watched the late George Carlin's performance on stupid people, I highly recommend it:
Link to Video: George Carlin on Stupid People
Comments