RQ (Mississippi)
Posts: 6
Posts: 6
Posted:
First off, I’m sorry to have written a book. I live in a rural community that has an HOA that basically maintains the ditches, keeps the roads paved, maintain community swimming areas, piers, etc…. Our community has around 130 homes and roughly the same number of people who own lots (for hunting and fishing privileges) but do not have a home. We are a close-knit community but we are facing problems that do not have easy or clear solutions.
For many years the BOD was mostly comprised of homeowners who unscrupulously two sought to profit from their position on the board by “selling” the HOA services from the businesses that they owned. In the last three years the BOD has turned over 5 of the 7 BOD positions and the HOA has stopped hemorrhaging money into the coffers of the directors. Of the two remaining directors, “Dan” never shows up for meetings and the other director has no power to write himself checks from the like he did previously.
Over the past year the HOA board has made great strides in improving transparency, catching up on maintenance items that languished over the previous decade, addressing homeowners’ suggestions for future enhancements as well as prioritizing those enhancements and budgeting for them in the coming years.
One of the biggest problems we face comes from the HOA board member Dan. Nearly every single hoodlum that comes into our community and vandalizes signs, destroys property, and generally terrorizes our community starts coming here as a friend of Dan, but usually as a friend of Dan’s daughter’s live-in sociopath boyfriend “Ted” first.
Dan owns four lots and has 14 or more cars. At least a third of them are non running. His house is decently maintained but he has an outbuilding whose roof is collapsing and has a 4’ by 4’ bin full of beer cans in front if it that is overflowing. Ted throws parties nearly every weekend and the residents have to call the cops, who rarely respond. Ted’s friends also come to our community with loud trucks speed up and down our streets. It’s a complete nightmare.
What’s worse, our security building at the community entrance was recently the victim of arson. Most everyone suspects Ted, and Ted has bragged to several in our community that he was the one who torched it. Our local sheriff’s department—the same one that doesn’t respond to complaints filed on Dan—conducted an “investigation” but nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. Just weeks after threatening on social media to throw bricks through residents’ windshields who drive too past his house, he buys a race car and drag races it down the street multiple times a week for months on end. The police would do nothing, even with video recordings of this very illegal and very dangerous activity.
Ted has also been witnessed selling drugs multiple times in the main common area of our community.
It goes without saying that this one household is the root of 90% of our community’s most pressing problems. The sheriff’s department has been no help, even after contacting state representatives. We are at our wit’s end.
That said, our CC&Rs are past due for revision since our bylaws state that they are to be updated every 20 years and they have not been updated since the early 1970s. Our bylaws state that the CC&Rs don’t have to be voted on. We are bringing the CC&Rs up to current
We are setting up a fine schedule to tackle some of the more egregious offenses that are practically unenforceable currently. I feel like our only option is to run Dan (and thus Ted) out of the community by levying fines against him for his transgressions. It’s dirty, I know, but everyone is scared of Ted, since he has a propensity for violent behavior and doesn’t care one bit to torch anyone’s house. (the security building is not the first structure he has bragged about burning). He’ll do it, too. Who can blame him for feeling like the Teflon Don… he’s terrorized this community since the early 2000s with absolutely zero repercussions.
Voting Dan off the board will be easy as pie…he doesn’t attend any of the meetings, but gets voted back in every election cycle because of a small collection of dedicated groupies who think he hung the moon. Getting Dan to clean up his property and oust Ted will be the huge hurdles.
If levying fines is not the way to go, how does this HOA move to end this decade long nightmare if law enforcement isn’t any help?
For many years the BOD was mostly comprised of homeowners who unscrupulously two sought to profit from their position on the board by “selling” the HOA services from the businesses that they owned. In the last three years the BOD has turned over 5 of the 7 BOD positions and the HOA has stopped hemorrhaging money into the coffers of the directors. Of the two remaining directors, “Dan” never shows up for meetings and the other director has no power to write himself checks from the like he did previously.
Over the past year the HOA board has made great strides in improving transparency, catching up on maintenance items that languished over the previous decade, addressing homeowners’ suggestions for future enhancements as well as prioritizing those enhancements and budgeting for them in the coming years.
One of the biggest problems we face comes from the HOA board member Dan. Nearly every single hoodlum that comes into our community and vandalizes signs, destroys property, and generally terrorizes our community starts coming here as a friend of Dan, but usually as a friend of Dan’s daughter’s live-in sociopath boyfriend “Ted” first.
Dan owns four lots and has 14 or more cars. At least a third of them are non running. His house is decently maintained but he has an outbuilding whose roof is collapsing and has a 4’ by 4’ bin full of beer cans in front if it that is overflowing. Ted throws parties nearly every weekend and the residents have to call the cops, who rarely respond. Ted’s friends also come to our community with loud trucks speed up and down our streets. It’s a complete nightmare.
What’s worse, our security building at the community entrance was recently the victim of arson. Most everyone suspects Ted, and Ted has bragged to several in our community that he was the one who torched it. Our local sheriff’s department—the same one that doesn’t respond to complaints filed on Dan—conducted an “investigation” but nothing happened. Nothing ever happens. Just weeks after threatening on social media to throw bricks through residents’ windshields who drive too past his house, he buys a race car and drag races it down the street multiple times a week for months on end. The police would do nothing, even with video recordings of this very illegal and very dangerous activity.
Ted has also been witnessed selling drugs multiple times in the main common area of our community.
It goes without saying that this one household is the root of 90% of our community’s most pressing problems. The sheriff’s department has been no help, even after contacting state representatives. We are at our wit’s end.
That said, our CC&Rs are past due for revision since our bylaws state that they are to be updated every 20 years and they have not been updated since the early 1970s. Our bylaws state that the CC&Rs don’t have to be voted on. We are bringing the CC&Rs up to current
We are setting up a fine schedule to tackle some of the more egregious offenses that are practically unenforceable currently. I feel like our only option is to run Dan (and thus Ted) out of the community by levying fines against him for his transgressions. It’s dirty, I know, but everyone is scared of Ted, since he has a propensity for violent behavior and doesn’t care one bit to torch anyone’s house. (the security building is not the first structure he has bragged about burning). He’ll do it, too. Who can blame him for feeling like the Teflon Don… he’s terrorized this community since the early 2000s with absolutely zero repercussions.
Voting Dan off the board will be easy as pie…he doesn’t attend any of the meetings, but gets voted back in every election cycle because of a small collection of dedicated groupies who think he hung the moon. Getting Dan to clean up his property and oust Ted will be the huge hurdles.
If levying fines is not the way to go, how does this HOA move to end this decade long nightmare if law enforcement isn’t any help?
