If you choose to let things slide, that's your problem not his or anybody else's. He's fully within his rights to report HOA violations just as you are allowed to reclaim your property. (if you continue to ignore the property issue btw, eventually he can claim that land as his.) Also, you're either backtracking or lying one the revving issue: At the end of the day, no harm was done to anybody. As petty as it was, you did break the rules. The neighbor could have handled it differently, but it is what it is. Life's too short to hate your neighbors.