Bully in Neighborhood

I am a board member of a small HOA. One resident was sued by the previous HOA and is now failing to comply with the court order. On top of that, he is sending us a list of EVERYONE in the neighborhood who he feels is in violation of the deed restrictions and saying if we do not do something he will sue us and our spouses. BTW-his wife is a lawyer!

Things to think about:
1. If court order is to pay a sum of money, you can get a lien and foreclose.
2. If court order is to do something or not do something, you can go back to the original court on the failure to follow the court's instructions.
3. You can wait and see if he actually does sue. Most don't.
4. You may have a claim of retaliation or harassment.
5. You should have good enforcement policies in place. Do what you would normally do if he wasn't threatening you.
6. You should check your Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance to make sure that spouses are covered.

And what is he accusing other members of?

More things to think about:
1. May want to have your HOA lawyer write a letter reminding bully that he hasn't complied with court order and fines of $X will be applied beginning date Y.
2. Using the HOA lawyer changes it into a lawyer v lawyer contest - which is probably where you want it to be. Letter can also state that threats will not be tolerated.
3. Your docs probably allow you to recover legal fees relating to the non-compliance. The letter could state this as well.
4. His being mad should never be the basis for making a HOA decision.

You should file a motion for contempt. Have the sheriff come out and publicly auction those extra lots off in front of all his neighbors.



Your D&O insurance will cover that. The board - not the angry resident - gets to decide which battles to fight and which to ignore.



Inform him that since he appears to be represented by counsel you may communicate only with his wife. BTW, his wife has a professional reputation to protect and is unlikely to jeopardize that by filing frivolous lawsuits.

When I read your post Tim, I immediately thought of an ex-board member who knows better than anyone else how things should run and how we should spend our time and resources. It's not uncommon for him to send a 1-, 2-, 3-, or 4-page email identifying all the recent deficiencies in his immediate neighbors and in our contractors' on-site personnel. Most of our current board members don't read past his first paragraph.

We have put him on notice that we will not consider anything he writes if he doesn't stop his vicious personal attacks.

I was never on the board with him. But folks who were said that board meetings (not open in PA) turned into screaming matches that could last for an hour or more.

He bullied prior boards into wasting money with our attorney to chase down issues that no one but he cared about.

Now that I'm on the board, he started calling me personally every time a homeowner's contractor or the HOA's contractors start before 8am. His attitude is that if he is disturbed, he's going to make damn sure that I am too.

My position when I first encountered his rants against the world was simple - We'll listen to him (if he's respectful), but we are not going to let him set the agenda for the board. Nor are we going to reply to everything he writes or complains about. We have other things to deal with.

I agree that every complaint needs to be evaluated if it comes from a homeowner who makes one or two complaints against one or two individuals. But if a person is going to throw a laundry list of complaints and attacks all at once, I'm not sure that the same standards should apply.

We have almost identical language. But it was written 30 years ago before people could start an internet business and run it from anywhere. We don't believe in selectively intruding into what's going on inside people's homes - which we would have to do if we tried to enforce the absolutely "no business" rule. Instead, we have informally adopted our township's code which identifies a special category of "no-impact home-based" businesses. If we ever get around to changing our docs, we'll revise that section of our CC&Rs - but til then we have no intention of slicing and dicing the differences between a "business" and a "hobby." Many in-home activities could qualify as either one.

We like the "no impact" approach because it deals with our biggest concern - added traffic and parking.

Below is specific description from our township code:

NO-IMPACT HOME-BASED BUSINESS
A business or commercial activity administered or conducted as an accessory use which is clearly secondary to the use as a residential dwelling and which involves no customer, client or patient traffic (whether vehicular or pedestrian) pickup, delivery or removal functions to or from the premises, in excess of those normally associated with residential use. The business or commercial activity must comply with the standards in § 240-32U of this chapter.