We own a pond!

Hi all. I appreciate any insight anyone might have. We just purchased our house in November 2017. We knew that the HOA was involved in legal action related to a small pond adjacent to our property. Apparently the nearby military installation was causing some sort of runoff with excessive siltation. Apparently this pond used to be very nice, with a fountain and everything. Now its a swamp. We recently received a large envelope from the lawyer hired by the HOA. The cover letter basically said “hey bylaws say this is not the HOAs problem since its not a common area but here is what we uncovered....good luck”. He also provided some documentation indicating that we and 6 other property owners are all conjoint owners of the pond. We are not sure what to do about all this. We do have title insurance and have contacted our closing attorney but i was hoping to get some experience/perspective here. Thanks!

"Good luck" is right. Even if you could show the military base had been using the pond as a toxic waste dump for 30 years it would possibly take another 30 years to get the government to clean it up. If it's not a matter of toxic poison, good luck twice because they'll say it's not a priority.

Way outside my experience, but if your closing attorney can't help you 7, I'd say all chip in to hire a different attorney to learn exactly what your obligations and rights are.

It'd be interesting to find out just who built a fountain and maintained the pond in the past. The 7 owners? The HOA?

Sorry - typos the rule tonight 😀

Once you understand waaaay mood re, contact local newspaper ...contact EPA ...contact Army Corps of Engineers.

The HOA was involved in exploring legal options against the base before they handed it off, so to speak, to us. We knew that the HOA was having issues when we bought the house but didn’t know that we owned a stake in the pond. It was not on PLAT when we closed on the house. The fact that we own a stake in the pond is news to us. The local installation had some negative press recently when several people died downstream of a dam that broke due to not being updated by the installation. I have no interest in going to the media, just don’t want to get stuck with expensive repairs for a problem that isn’t our fault for a pond we never wanted to own.

I wanted to note... The HOA may have approached the army in the wrong way. It sounds more like they were a bit aggressive and possibly threatening to sue? Don't know the details on how they approached. However, having dealt with the Army and even the Corps, you find there is usually a department available to discuss issues. No need in going in hot headed and guns a blazing.

Once you get with your other 6 owners, maybe discuss the appropriate end result you all want. Do not look at the problem. The end result is it to return the fountain? Is it to find out if it needs dredged? (Which is not all that expensive necessarily). Would you all like to make it available for recreation or wildlife preservation?

Set forth in your journey for an answer by knowing what you want in the end. Your HOA may not have been so defined with the Army. Definition usually works better to get the results.

BTW: Whether it's just you 6 or the whole HOA, you would still be part owner of the pond. It's just divided by 6 rather than if you have 100 members in your HOA. Could have still subject to a special assessment from the HOA to address the issue. It just would have been a bit cheaper and spread out among more members.

You can always use the pond to hide the other bodies...

Of course you are going to need the history of the detention pond - was it always there, or created for your subdivision's drainage purposes?

Your local municipality would have a file on all the approved steps that were gone thru for your development, including engineering plans for the drainage, road and water lines, roads, lighting, etc. etc. These plans would have to have been approved before the development could even have been built.

Most likely, the base has been draining its property this way for years and your 100-year plan detention pond is over-lowing and needs to be cleaned. Seems funny that the onus is placed on individual landowner's and not the association.

In any case, it's illegal to flood someone else's property, so the base should be involved in its maintenance if it's overflowing or needs maintenance. Be sure to get a lawyer versed in municipal planning and knows how to read the approved landscape, drainage plans, and topographical issues.

If this property was not noted in your closing documents and plat ... then your Title Insurance is the entity who needs to duke it out and protect your property rights. They are the entity who did all the title research to insure there were no encumbrances on your property title.

Does the county or state think of this as a storm water management pond?