Actually where iam from Maine you would be held accountable as well as
you gave him help or advice in doing something you know is against the
home owners rules. for where he lives. they could take him and you to
court or he could just take it down and they do nothing


--
AL'S COMPUTERS
"KC4UAI" wrote in message
...
On Feb 17, 6:53 am, Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
On Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:11:21 EST, KC4UAI wrote:

Personally, I'd not recommend willingly violating *any* contract terms
without legal advice about the risks you are taking.
[snip]
If a ham wants to
take the legal risk and put up stealth antennas to get on the air, I’m
not going to complain. I may even come over and help you with the
setup… I just don’t recommend taking legal risks…

If you help him put up an antenna which is contrary to his CCRs,
wouldn't that make you an accomplice? And maybe equally liable to be
sued? You'd best check this out with your lawyer beforehand.

I'm pretty sure that helping somebody assemble an antenna doesn't
present much of a legal risk for me. There is no criminal issue so I
don't think I would have to worry about my DA charging me with being
an "accomplice" to a crime because the contract violation is a civil
matter and not a crime.

If you wanted me to help you assemble a small tower in your backyard,
contrary to your CC&R's, the HOA is going to deal with you, the
property owner not me. The HOA has no reason to fine me or legal
standing to place leans on my property for a CC&R violation on your
property. I suppose you could try and sue me, but I seriously doubt
any jury in the world would hold me responsible for just helping you
assemble something. I you could try and sue me for that.

Of course, my point really is that you should fully understand the
risks you are taking when you start violating contracts you have
signed. Sometimes the possible consequences make it not worth taking
the risk.


-=ob =

On Feb 18, 7:09 am, Art Clemons wrote:

4th, the ideal solution would be for Congress to direct the FCC to exempt
amateur installations from most such contractual obligations, and then ha
ve
the FCC do so, as it did for TV antennas and dishes less than one meter i
n
diameter. I don't see that happening in the near future, but we as hams
can
always hope.

Which is pretty much the intent of HR 2160, albeit in a round about
sort of way.

http://www.arrl.org/?artid”29

I'm guessing that this bill will never make it out of committee, and
even if it did, there is no real hope of it directly helping this
situation unless the report it commissions spurs congress to act.

We've had some efforts at the Texas state level to make a state law
that applies the PRB-1 language to private contracts and CC&R's but
these usually never make it very far. Other states may have had more
luck with this, I don't know. In Texas they where strongly opposed by
the HOA management company lobby and I suspect that the same folks
would come out of the wood work to oppose any efforts at the federal
level.

Best we can do at this point is to try and lobby our congressmen to
support HR 2160 and senators to support SB 1755. See the ARRL’s
information http://www.arrl.org/govrelations/ page for details on how
best to help.

Even if you don’t have CC&R problems now I would recommend any ham (or
other interested party) urge your elected officials to support this.
I would love to have a better legal position when trying to talk the
HOA into letting me put up some antennas. Right now I have to pretty
much beg and take what they give me.

-= Bob =-

On Thu, 18 Feb 2010 12:32:02 EST, KC4UAI wrote:

We've had some efforts at the Texas state level to make a state law
that applies the PRB-1 language to private contracts and CC&R's but
these usually never make it very far.

A couple of years ago in Nevada, a bill was proposed to incorporate
PRB-1 into state law, and also to extend it to CCRs. There was much
opposition to the CCR part by builders, HOAs, etc. Finally, the
sponsors deleted the CCR part, so that they could get the PRB-1 part
into state law. The bill finally passed with the PRB-1 only. The
thinking was, let's get PRB-1 passed, and fight for the CCR part
another year. We're still waiting.

"Art Clemons" wrote in message
...
Dick Grady AC7EL wrote:
If you help him put up an antenna which is contrary to his CCRs,
wouldn't that make you an accomplice? And maybe equally liable to be
sued? You'd best check this out with your lawyer beforehand.

"Accomplice" is a meaningless word with regard to civil contracts.

First let's note that CC&Rs are theoretically contractual obligations.
....

4th, the ideal solution would be for Congress to direct the FCC to exempt
amateur installations from most such contractual obligations, and then
have
the FCC do so, as it did for TV antennas and dishes less than one meter
in
diameter. I don't see that happening in the near future, but we as hams
can
always hope.

Don't forget state law. For example, here in California, we had a statute
protecting satellite dishes a year before the FCC imposed their federal
position.

Andy wrote:

Actually where iam from Maine you would be held accountable as well as
you gave him help or advice in doing something you know is against the
home owners rules. for where he lives. they could take him and you to
court or he could just take it down and they do nothing

I'm offering no legal advice, but I strongly suggest you see a competent
lawyer admitted to the bar in Maine about this. It's hard to see just how a
3rd party not contractually bound to the terms of a CC&R can be reached
legally. There's no cause of action available with the possible exception
of an attorney who completely mis-understood and gave really poor advice
about Maine law, advice so poor that it constitutes malpractice.

The property owner of property subject to a Covenant, Condition or
Restriction can be reached legally under contract law, but not others.
CC&Rs are treated as contractual obligations even if truthfully, most people
don't realize they're entering into such a contract.

I'll be honest, I don't see how a 3rd party can be sued under existing US
law over a contractual obligation of another. If Maine has such a legal
system, I'ld be really shocked.

Dick Grady AC7EL writes:


A couple of years ago in Nevada, a bill was proposed to incorporate
PRB-1 into state law, and also to extend it to CCRs. There was much
opposition to the CCR part by builders, HOAs, etc. Finally, the
sponsors deleted the CCR part, so that they could get the PRB-1 part
into state law. The bill finally passed with the PRB-1 only. The
thinking was, let's get PRB-1 passed, and fight for the CCR part
another year. We're still waiting.

No surprise. In general, the Hill's response to an effective bill
that upsets powerful folks [And make no mistake, the homebuilders
are a powerful lobby group..] is to pass a watered-down bill that
accomplishes little.

That way, when Your Gal/Guy is stumping for reelection,
[s]he can hold the bill up as a legislative accomplishment.

There's every reason to believe that state legislatures
work in a similar manner.
--
A host is a host from coast to
& no one will talk to a host that's close........[v].(301) 56-LINUX
Unless the host (that isn't close).........................pob 1433
is busy, hung or dead....................................20915-1433

On Feb 20, 9:15�am, Art Clemons wrote:

I don't see how a 3rd party can be sued under existing US
law over a contractual obligation of another.

I'm not a lawyer either.

But it *might* be possible to go after the thrid party legally if and
only if it could be shown that the third party knew of the existence of
the contractual obligation from the beginning, and willfully conspired
with the property owner to violate it.

But that's a very hard thing to prove in many cases.

For example, suppose A hires the B Fence Company to put up a fence on
A's property, in an area where fences don't require building permits or
inspections. A tells B where to build the fence.

But it turns out that A misunderstood where the property line is, and
the fence is built on C's property. (C was away from home and doesn't
see the fence until the job is done).

I don't think C can sue B over the fence; instead, C has to go after A.
C can also remove and sell the fence - it is now C's fence because it
was built on his property. A still has to pay the B Fence Company
because the contract is between the two of them, and as long as B built
the fence where instructed by A, that part of the contract
wasfulfilled.

Not an exact analogy but you get the idea.

While I'm not a lawyer, things like this prove the need for thorough
research before signing anything. Being told at closing that there are
CC&Rs is way too late, IMHO

73 de Jim, N2EY

wrote:
While I'm not a lawyer, things like this prove the need for
thorough research before signing anything. Being told at
closing that there are CC&Rs is way too late, IMHO

Which goes back to my original point behind all this.
We as Amateur Radio operators must take the time to
fully research a piece of property before we buy it.

And we've got to understand that having a license does
not give us a free pass on violating signed contracts.

Sadly, I see way too many "Look how I got around the CC&R
I signed with my stealth antenna installation."

Seeing these repeatedly published in a national magazine
makes me wonder if there's actually some tacit approval of
this.

Jeff-1.0
wa6fwi


--
“Egotism is the anesthetic that dulls the pain of stupidity.â€

Frank Leahy, Head coach, Notre Dame 1941-1954

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