Need Board Advice: Intimidating Homeowner

When they are intoxicated in public, call the police.

If you feel threatened, call the police and request a restraining order.

There is no reason you should have to face anything that you believe is a threat. Therefore, insist that all communications be in writing sent by US mail or email. If need be, have the attorney write the letter (so they know the Association means business).

I agree with Tim. Call the Police. I just left the PWC Court House this morning, over my upstairs neighbor. I had him arrested, for basically, what you have stated. Call your District Attorneys Office and ask them if you can send a letter of "No Trespass" OR "Restraining Order", as a private citizen, to this person.

If they say yes, do it by regular as well as certified mail. If he approaches you again, whip out the phone and snap his picture. Call the police and show them your letter as well as the pic, and off he goes. Start with your DA's Office, they should have no problem directing you, on how your situation needs to be handled.

If you are allowed to do this in your state, have your letters written and show this person, that the next time this happens, you will put everything into motion. If he does it again, you will have done everything in your power, and he will only have himself to blame.

If you have not already, document every communication from him, and continue to do so. Any time it appears he is about to become violent or uses threatening language may qualify as an "assault" (but not battery), which is likely criminal under your state law. Report these instances to the police. Get this documented in a statement to the police. The police should have a form for you to fill out.

If this resident is contacting you or any board member, such that he is not responding to a communication from the HOA, then this may be criminal harassment in Georgia. See http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-46/chapter-5/article-2/part-1/46-5-21 and http://law.justia.com/codes/georgia/2010/title-16/chapter-11/article-2/16-11-39-1 . If this resident appears to be violating these two criminal statutes, note it in your police report.

The HOA should first write a cease and desist letter. If your board is not capable of coming up with the correct language for this (google!), then ask the HOA attorney to do it. No change in behavior of this resident? Then have the HOA attorney to write a letter on her or his letter head to the guy.

Should all this fail, then seek a civil restraining order. You will probably have to do it with yourself alone as the "plaintiff," but you can document harassment of the other directors there, too. Have the HOA pay for this restraining order. The instant you serve papers on this resident, I would expect a change in behavior.

What you describe with the repeated abusive language, threatening body language, and the car is almost exactly what happened at my former HOA. The resident similarly seemed to target the more vulnerable appearing (the women). The police initially insisted this was a civil matter and not their business. The HOA became insistent with the police, citing the criminal harassment law where I live. Police ramped up their visits to the resident. Between the police and the restraining order (quickly won by one of the directors, with the order stating that the resident had also harassed the Association's staff and other directors), the resident was shut down. We did not use an attorney in this instance.

I am sorry for your suffering (and, as at my former HOA, sorry that a resident is so angry, unable to cope, and so on). Use the law.

CarolynM3 GA : if you were an employer tolerating the toxicity of the as-described scenario being directed at your employees, you would possibly face government sanctions in some jurisdictions. Absolutely toxic for a community to watch especially if children are exposed.

If your sense of the volatility & direction is correct, interactions should be left to your attorney & police.

In my probably overly liberal jurisdiction, a civil court in 2010 ordered the sale of an abusive drunk's condo unit. It also hit her for $35 K in legal costs. Alongside trash talking & boozy-threats established by affidavits, there was evidence of a very minor assault. There was concern about her Doberman. This case was important in persuading my legislature to enact an upcoming judicial power to order condo unit sales. If I had to endure the toxicity I might not have any civil rights fear about where that power could go astray . . .

Certify a letter requesting that he attend a hearing and it might be wise to have a "special meeting" before this escalates. Have an attorney attend the meeting and conduct the hearing. Follow Roberts Rules of Order.

All the other suggestions made by Tim are warranted. Any correspondence should be sent by the PMA.

Document, document, document.

Thanks everyone for your support and wise advice.

We did contact our attorney to have a letter drawn up that would tell him to "cease and desist". Now, because his wife is dying of pancreatic cancer, other board members want to hold off and defer sending it until it happens again.

The sad part is that his wife instigates much of what he does. He is always referring to "something she said" when he goes into these rants. This behavior pre-dates his wife getting sick. He started on the attack long before she was diagnosed.

I am still struggling with whether to at least do as the property manager suggested: notify the police so that there is a record of his behavior. That I should go to the precinct and ask them for their advice on how to proceed.

It is a struggle...to do the right thing, even for someone so horribly nasty, potentially dangerous, and overbearing.

I appreciate each of you...

Carolyn

Communications should be directed to the homeowner IF they are NOT the owners. They are NOT members of your HOA. So it's best to start communicating to the owner who is a member of the HOA. They will have to deal with the violations as they reflect on their ownership. Violations are to be held against the owner to clean up or pay up.

Plus call the police when it becomes abusive or violates the law. It's assault if he punches someone. Public drunkiness is against the law. Call the police. The HOA is NOT the police. They just process the HOA rules/regulations. It's time to get the owner involved. They ultimately will have to do the evicting, pay any fines, or do any clean ups.

No confusion, Carolyn. Your opening sentence say "homeowner."

There was a bit of confusion because it seemed that there was a tenant/homeowner relationship involved in later posts. Now that is cleared up we can proceed in again saying this is a police matter when it crosses the line of being cordial. The HOA is not the police. It's an expensive option, but having a lawyer written approach may be the only way to communicate. Since it will ultimately escalate to that point eventually.