Records/Minutes/Books Requested -No response

I requested to meet with the HOA president on June 15, 2012. I specifically gave him a list of the documents I wanted to review. He had hardly any of them and the books and checking account of the HOA were a mess. It has been 7 weeks since I requested additional documents to view at that meeting. I sent an email on 7.31.12 asking for the documents. He has not responded to me.

As I've posted before - he has written checks to his company for his personal use and refuses to show me the confirmations deposits where he says he and another member advanced the HOA funds. He is the only one with access to the bank books and other documents for the HOA.

There are only 8 units and 6 owners.

What is my recourse?

Marcia,

As this is similar to your other posts, Subject: Misused HOA funds and Subject: Investor - Possible Fraud re: HOA, the options are the same:

1) Volunteer to serve on the Board (based on past posts, it sounds unlikely the board will accept but you don't know until you try).
2) gather support from other members and kick the people off the board (difficult with only 8 units in the HOA)
3) Try to involve the AZ Attorney General - (small case - hard to tell if they will investigate or not)
4) Sell and move
5) Live with it but keep a watchful eye on future expenses

Hope this helps,

Tim

Thanks, Tim. The whole situation is difficult as all other homeowners have their mortgages held by one of the corrupt members. None of them will go against either one of these guys.

I am trying to sell. One of my concerns is that since I've discovered this and confronted the president - that he will try to block my sale of my unit by saying we owe this or that in assessments. He has already threatened this.

We've offered for him to help us sell and to buy the unit. He has no money and he has a tax lien on his property. He hasn't paid his taxes in 2 years. Hence, the monies of the HOA being used improperly.

I am a pain in his tushy. Not trying to be - I would just like him to be honest with ALL of the homeowner's monies.

Hi, Larry - I believe I've been told that he makes the property unwarrantable by doing this and that a lender would be almost impossible to procure. Is there a way I can check to see if he has someone accepting the payments on his units? I know deeds were recorded with the county. I can see those.

As to the corruption - the lender/seller sent us a "release" supposedly from his attorney wanting us to sign that we would not sue him for anything in the past or in the future. The release also said that we would not sue the president (one of the bad guys) who the seller/lender holds his note on for anything related to the HOA.

We refused to sign and were sent a nasty email from the president that says we slandered him and threatened him. We have not. It is the other way around. We keep getting demands to sign off on a release or else the "deal is off!" The deal in their minds is that we owe back HOA dues. We do not.

All in all we have been very patient trying to sell our unit and do the right thing by law and by our neighbors.

Marcia,

I just spent a few minutes searching the records for your condo. I found that your developer financed the sales of units 1, 3, and 6. He still owns units 2, 4, and 5. Unit 7 was financed through a well-known local credit union.

Of the three units that he financed, each one has what appears to be a valid deed of trust and each deed of trust has a different trustee. So if the developer wishes to play extortionate games with those deeds of trust he not only has to enlist the aid of the trustee, he has to get three different trustees to assist him.

Has anyone ever heard of or elected/appointed a 3rd party to be president of an HOA board who does not own a property in the complex? I want to explore this avenue as with only 8 units there is not one person who trusts the other and I think it would be best to have a "disinterested" interested party as our president.

Marcia,

Most CC&R's are written so that the developer controls the association as long as he owns a certain number or percentage of units. Quite often, as long as the developer owns just one unit he has total control. Last I looked, your developer still owned three of the eight units. The developer can appoint whomever he wishes to the board and the board can appoint whomever they wish to be the officers of the association. Realistically, there is nothing you can do about the developer's control of the association.

This is not to say that they can do whatever they wish. For example, I recall one of your previous posts where they insist on being given prior notice if your attorney attends a meeting so that they can have their attorney attend at your expense. This is blatant nonsense as state law allows you to appoint anyone to represent you at a meeting without prior notice.