HOA Lawsuit questions

Hello everyone, our HOA was facing a law suit by the previous management company for breach of contract. I just found out today the our HOA lost the law suit. Is there a way I can find out what the settlement was? Is this public record?
Can I request to inspect the records and ask for a copy of the settlement agreement?
Can we face a possible assessment?
Thank you all for your time, have a great day.

I just want to add that you will probably be able to find out how much the judgment was against the HOA (if there was one) but you may never find out all the hidden costs. For example, our HOA pursued a lawsuit against a homeowner for an unauthorized architectural change. It never even got to the lawsuit because in Florida you must go into mediation before a lawsuit can be filed and this matter was resolved in mediation. But the attorney bill was incredibly high to even get to mediation and the cost of the mediation was considered a claim against our D&O insurance, so our insurance premium went up. That's before the cost of the expenses for the work that was agreed upon in mediation.

We're very transparent with our budgets in our HOA, but until I was on the board I would have never been able to put the entire cost together.

All good advice here - I really like CarissaM's quote from the Quicken Loans article. People often talking about suing the HOA, the Board, both or something or someone else, but when it comes to lawsuits, I always say you can sue over anything, but it doesn't guarantee you'll win or even collect your judgment (which is why you usually sue in the first place.) It's not that you can't or shouldn't sue, but it's a good idea to do everything you can to resolve the problem before you go that route.

In this case, I'd rally my neighbors together (something I think you've been advised to do more than once) and demand answers of the board. The association got sued for breach of contract - how did that even happen? Did anyone read the contract or consult with the association attorney to ensure they were following the terms or did they just shut the thing down for whatever reason? Did the board discuss any concerns it had with the property manager and give it a chance to fix the problem before canceling the contract? If not, why not? How long has this been going on - people usually don't cancel a contract on a whim.

Ideally, the board would have let the community know it was working with the property manager on addressing certain performance issues before it came to this point, perhaps asking people to let them know of examples of poor communication or whatever with the manager. That may have been used as evidence in the case and perhaps the association would have won.

As for how much this will cost homeowners - that remains to be seen, but ultimately, be prepared to pay because homeowners always foot the bill in the end. You either pay higher assessments because of increased costs, such as higher insurance premiums, or a special assessment and perhaps both, depending on the judgment. The board members have to pay it too because they're also homeowners, but that doesn't mean they should remain on the board - this may be grounds for voting them out in the next election or calling a special homeowners meeting to recall them.

However that ends, you probably need a new property manager, so this is a good time to consider what you need, how and why the relationship with the previous manager went sideways, and how to avoid all that next time.

For the record, my quick check on this is far from complete. The Court Clerk's site does not assure that it has all lawsuits listed on it. I am not even sure the 2009 lawsuit was brought by a property manager.