Get ready for a fight

Was this a post to hear yourself? A HOA doesn't have "full pockets". They ONLY have the money that the members contribute with their dues. So suing your HOA is suing yourself and your neighbors. Being sued personally usually gets tossed out in court due to the "corporate shield" that protects board members making decisions as part of the HOA. So the HOA board should have liability insurance to protect them from individual lawsuits. It takes ALOT of effort to break through that "corporate shield".

Not exactly sure what your "protecting". A HOA is not responsible for keeping your home values. Just to keep it ATTRACTIVE to potential buyers. You'd have to prove your lost money by selling your house. Which then means you are no longer a HOA member once sold.

When no one is giving your money or support for you "fight" you may want to see who is actually holding up their fists...

Agreed Sheila. Do the actual work and not a lawsuit cop-out... He already doesn't like his board which are made up of his neighbors. So it will be impossible for him to be ever satisfied whomever is in office. They will always be "crooked" and working against them. The writing is on the wall on this one... Lazy and wants things handed to them than do the REAL work... Which with much respect to those who post here as board members, did the hard work to make the changes. Bravo to ya'll….

You guys sure come to a lot of unwarranted conclusions. Is it really so hard to believe that HOA boards can be truly bad?

Yes, I have tried to work with my neighbors. Yes, I have tried to work with the board. Yes, other neighbors are suing.

Let me give you a scenario so you understand the depth of the depravity of our board. One of our buildings has a sewage backup and 4 units are flooded with about an inch of sewer water (not mine, I wasn't affected). They fixed all units except for one because they don't like the homeowner. To make matters even worse one of those units they fixed was a board member. When the contractors arrived to fix the unit of they guy they didn't like another board member literally stood in the parking lot and refused the contractors access to the property. Now mind you all this was covered by insurance.

This is just one example and the subject of an ongoing lawsuit. You tell me what is the homeowner to do? Live with a buckled floor and open walls because board members physically obstruct fixing his unit?

We recently had an election and MOST homeowners voted this board into power and they knew full well these people were bad actors. The stories I can tell are shocking.

The point of the post was to inform people of the reality of having to deal with boards who not only refuse to act in good faith but take it a step further to purposefully harm homeowners.

JaredC, thanks for posting these accounts. They make me feel better about some of my own bad experiences with HOAs. Which happened to include sewer line backups (not as bad as yours, but bad enough that attorneys were going back and forth) and a rodent infestation. The board refuses to address the rodents. Idiots.

What is striking to me is that a substantial number (a majority?) of members at your HOA do not care about these serious abuses.

While a lawsuit sounds justified in that situation, I also would take more immediate action and get local authorities involved, in addition to contacting my insurance company about what was going on (i.e. a BOD member blocking access to my unit would get to have a nice chat with the police). HOAs tend to cave when dealing with a bigger fish.

Only if you really love your home and can't/won't live elsewhere. Speaking as someone who has sued a HOA, I'd rather just move.

It’s called human nature and people have pondered for centuries why folks do what they do. Why do you think your HOA would be any different?

Personally, I don’t know why anyone would vote against getting someone to deal with the rodents – I don’t want to see them, hear them and I certainly don’t want them in my home, in my garden or anywhere else where I or a friend/contractor can get bit.

As for the folks with the units flooded with sewage, if I’d known about this board member’s behavior, I would have called him out in front of EVERYONE, even if my house wasn’t affected. Why your neighbors seem to think this is ok, I don’t know (what would they do if they’d been in this position?) Perhaps they needed to be called out as well. In fact, the heart of most problems in every neighborhood, HOA or not, tends to be apathy, selfishness, and plain old indifference, along with being too.damn.cheap! Too many people don’t give a rat’s ass about ANYTHING going on in or around the neighborhood because it doesn’t affect them, but then will raise holy hell as soon as their home sweet home is affected, or their spouse, kids, dog, and especially their wallet. Selfishness and indifference is a thing and has led to all sorts of chaos on the planet.

If people were more willing to share and work together, we might be able to fix a lot of problems, but instead, we have extremely rich people hoarding everything, other folks who don’t like people they don’t even know because of their gender, race, religion and so on. Then, you have the people who are assholes and do what they do because that’s who they are.

You asked how to justify your effort – you don’t have to justify this to anyone. If you’re happy with your home and are doing this to fight for it, do you and good luck. That said, I do think PaulJ6 makes a good point – sometimes, it’s best to just move on. You’ll save some money, lots of aggravation and sooner or later, your neighbors will realize all this drama is costing THEM in time, money and probably the community reputation (would you move in if you knew all the neighbors are suing the board and vice versa?)

SheilaJ1 is also correct – by the time the neighbors reach their breaking point (and they will), fixing the problems will take a lot longer and cost more money, and they’ll have no choice but to do the work because if they don’t, they won’t be able to get what they feel the unit is worth (unlike you, who got out while the getting was good).

I think the above sociological reality is unlikely to change. Given the latter, perhaps the 'real problem' is those of us who cannot mentally accept that which is unlikely to change.

If one is unlucky enough to be a victim of something as extreme as sewer backups that are the association's responsibility, go ahead and file that lawsuit. After the suit is concluded, get out.

Perhaps more emphasis should be placed here on reasons for a person not to fight an incompetent board:

1) the person cannot find a like-minded majority to run for the board

2) the percentage of HOA units that are owned by landlords is 45% or more.

3) the HOA manager is in cahoots with the HOA President

4) the President abuses HOA funds to keep him- or herself in office.

5) the board is in the habit of retaliating in a manner that will cause a person a lot of distress

6) the HOA attorney is all about writing nasty letters to innocent members, to run up his or her billable hours.

7) your life has already been consumed by trying to defeat an incompetent board, and you spend a lot of time at either hoatalk or with friends complaining about the HOA.

8) voter and proxy turnout at annual meetings is one-third or less.

Paul, yes I saw your most recent thread. I also googled on the law regarding audio recordings. I believe your fellow residents may be correct that the law is being broken. But maybe in peaceful defeat these days, I realized I had nothing intelligent to add. This is pretty much for the above reasons.