Squatters - HOA members need to know?

Recently a HOA near me had a situation with some illegal squatters. At first, it was discovered there were some squatters living in a foreclosed home in the HOA. All the stuff was put out in the yard and they were evicted (NOT by the HOA). However, a few weeks later it was investigated the squatters had possible terrorist ties. They had fake ID making materials and money coming from foreign countries. 2 of the 3 were arrested but bonded out. Now the FBI is searching for them.

Keep in mind the HOA did NOT own the home. The home was in bank foreclosure. The neighbors around the home had seen some suspicious activity and may have reported it to the HOA. The HOA said it was not going to go "door to door" to inform all the neighbors of the situation. There are 400 homes in the HOA. Plus the HOA is limited on what it can actually do with Squatters. They can ONLY inform the owner of the situation. Which can take several months to work through evicting.

Now my question is: Did the HOA have to inform their membership of the home being in bank foreclosure? Did the HOA need to tell everyone the people there may be squatters? It's not like you can easily identify squatters. The owners of the home is ultimately responsible for that.

Some of the HOA members went to the news media about this. They demanded that the HOA had sent them notices. What for? What could they do? Except wag their tongues on the situation? Plus nothing was "hidden" from them. The house has a PUBLIC address and foreclosure are PUBLIC information. Why should the HOA spend $.50 a mailed letter to 400 members to tell them what is PUBLIC information that HOA nor member can take no legal actions?

Bad mouthing your HOA in the media in such a situation doesn't bold well on your HOA... Especially when the HOA has no means of legal actions...

But I thought you were an attorney who had all the answers?

We've also had issues with squatters in our community and I've read a few articles on the web on how to address them - as you can imagine, it's not easy at all. We discussed the matter with our security officers and ran an article in our newsletter reminding people to call the non-emergency number of the police department or our security officers if they say ANY suspicious activity around any part of the community, whether the house was occupied or not, and the residents were pretty good at doing that.

We usually knew which house was vacant and in foreclosure because either the mortgage company or the association was doing it, so the security officer would stop by the house and ask questions if people suddenly showed up there. Then our attorney would contact the bank or the company managing the property (some posted a sign in the window) OR the homeowner (if we had an address) and ask what was up because if someone's living there, the association wants its money. If the people were squatters, it was up to the homeowners (or bank) to deal with the situation because the association didn't own the house, and they would be reminded they would be held responsible for any damage these people did to the common area. Sometimes it took a few weeks, but in the cases I saw before leaving the board, the people eventually left after someone made a report and the house was secured more effectively.

In this case, you don't have to tell which house is in foreclosure - as you say, that's public information, so if a homeowner really wants to know if a neighbor is delinquent, he/she can check the legal notices in the paper or call the appropriate city or county agency. We're not going to do that work for them. When I was treasurer, I used to say if people were that curious, cut a check to the association for the amount of money owed and after the check cleared, I'd tell them all about the details (and the delinquent homeowner would be told who paid off the account! Good luck on getting your money back!) Never had anyone take me up on that offer.

Respectfully, no obligation at all. . . . And even if there WAS such obligation, within their skillsets & knowledge base what would most condo/HOA governancers actually have to say about whatever alleged misdeeds ?

Here in Las Vegas, the police can't do anything about squatters in homes, especially bank owned abandoned and foreclosed homes BECAUSE
the police NEED to speak to the complaining OWNER. Our legislation has passed some laws that give the police and HOA's some lateral ground to put the heat on squatters.

In Nevada squatting is now a criminal offense, before it was a civil matter that was costly and time-consuming to evict squatters.

If the aforementioned incident was indeed a bank foreclosure and the bank was dragging their feet. WHY WASN'T the HOA BEATING THE BANK TO THE PUNCH
and foreclosing FIRST?

That your efficient BOD for you. FAIL .