i'm in the same boat, but we're waiting on hoa approval. signed on 5/12/11. called hoa company and the girl assigned to my neighborhood took the day off today...great.

The HOA girl that approved ours is my sisters neighbor. I think we got lucky on that one. What state do you live in?

My contract was signed on 8/18/10 and I had my permit issued on 9/1/10. At each stage they have to get county approval (gas, electrical, bonding etc...) and once they call for the inspections it takes my county here in MD one day to get out and check it.

i'm in texas. so i have to wait for permits after the hoa approval, or can the pool builder start getting the permits while waiting on the lazy hoa for approval?

So many people hate there HOA; very few people have anything good to say about them. Why do so many choose to live in neighborhoods with HOA's??????

It took about two weeks two get our city permits. We had a delay on getting the electric company to sign off because of buried lines. Otherwise city permit probably would have only taken a few days.

I think each HOA is different. I know ours has a clause that "allows" them up to 60 days to approve. Can't see why it would take that long, especially if your project/drawings are below the fence line and within the easements.

Our time line was:
5/7 - Signed Contract
5/10 - Closed Loan (Ap was underway about two weeks prior)
5/16 - HOA approval and loan funded
5/19 - Building permit approved and pool laid out
5/20 - Excavation and steel
5/21 - Plumbing
That's about all that is concrete for us right now. Hope to have gunite on the 25th/26th.

Side note - One of my poker buddies is on our HOA board, so that helped our process out immensely. PB told me they normally take about two weeks out here. Also, you can request that your HOA send you a simple email listing the project as approved. That way you don't have to wait for the formal document. Your PB should be able to get going off that.

Good luck to you!

Wow! That is really all good information. Thank you so much! I think I need to contact our PB and see what is going on. It has been about a week since he submitted the permits. Thank you again!