How far will a court go? (Tennessee)

We have a homeowner who flagrantly violated our DCCR and changed the brickwork and windows on her house from those approved by our ACC. She sought approval AFTERWARDS, and in so doing acknowledged that she knew she had not complied with the approved plans for her new build.

She claims that to undo her “decisions” will cost $100k. We got our lawyer to sue her and he thinks we have a pretty good case. Just wondering whether it is realistic that a court is going to order someone to spend that much money to take parts of their house apart.

You cannot put a lien for unpaid judgements, or a lien for the cost of restoring the property, you can only put a lien for unpaid assessments and late charges and cost recovery fees related to collection of assessments, most docs say this clearly.

As for this owner, the owner can admit whatever they want, if the docs have a restriction for the modification made then the HOA has a case however if the docs are vague, and they usually are, then the modification made favors the owner and the HOA will have a hard time proving otherwise. This is regardless of if the owner got approval or not, the owner could counter sue to ask the court to approve since the CCR’s don’t strictly forbid the modification made.

This is my take on it and others may have more experience with actual scenarios.

Actually most HOA's have this written into their documents. That a HOA can pay to correct a violation and if owner does not pay, they can lien for that. It's the ONLY other way to place a lien outside of assessments.

Depending on the details, a court may or may not rule for the plaintiff HOA and enforce the covenants. Then there is the question of whether the court will award attorney fees to the HOA. This will depend on what Tennessee HOA statutes say and what the HOA covenants say. It is possible the HOA could win on the enforcement of covenants claim but then lose on the attorney fees claim. In which case practically speaking, both sides lost.

In the case law, one of the biggest questions that arises is whether the HOA had the discretionary authority to set xyz standard for architectural changes. If this discretionary authority is not exercised reasonably, then the court will rule against the HOA.

If I were on your Board, I would weigh suing vs. fining (until the ARC violation was corrected) and liening, if possible, for the fines.

If you want better opinions here, you are going to have to provide more information. E.g. what covenant is the person accused of violating? What Rule or Regulation was the person accused of violating? Is the Rule created by the Board reasonable?

Not all attorneys are going to talk with you about these things. Plus some attorneys will get the law wrong.

The OP didn't name names which would have been against the posting rules anyway. That said, lawsuits are public records, so anyone could do a search of the court records and find the case, and see for themselves who's involved.

As for this case, it's hard to say what a judge will or won't do - all you can do is pursue the matter, document the hell out of everything you did (which you should have already done) and put forth your best argument. If the judge decides in your favor, hooray. If not, you'll have to decide if it's worth appealing. The judge may also require you and the homeowner to try and negotiate a settlement first - perhaps you might consider in advance what you're willing to accept. If the lady was flagrant about not applying for an exterior change request, you could stick to your guns and insist she bring the house in compliance or require certain things to be done and allow the others, depending on what it is. That may cost her, say $50K, which isn't anything to sneeze at. I wouldn't feel sorry for her - sometimes it takes a smackdown in the wallet before people behave - I bet she doesn't try this stunt again.

This is super helpful. Thanks everyone.