Not charging 2nd lot , replats allowed to avoid, requested increase to general assessment

If it took three lawsuits to get the board to do the right thing, you may have to brace yourself for a fourth. You can walk around the neighborhood and see if other owners who feel as you. All of you should attend the next few board meetings and demand they comply with the rules. If it appears another lawsuit may be necessary, all of you can get together to split the costs, and ask for reimbursement as part of your lawsuit.

Of course, if you have other homeowners with two lots who like the idea of not paying another assessment, you'll have to deal with that. If that's the majority, you may as well know this won't be easy to change.

Or...you and your like-minded neighbors can work together to vote this crew out of office. Check your documents to see what they say about calling special meetings and/or recall of board members. You may need a special meeting where you can have a vote on recalling these people, but you'd better have a group of people ready to step up and take over. Good luck.

I’ll have to look into who paid for sure , it’s my understsnding it came out of our funds. I know they both together were just under 100k. This was before I bought into the community which was last year. Another question is when the board makes decision to spend 49k a year on security but there are zero logs or reports they can produce when asked. Can that not be something the members vote on? When brought up in meetings two board members get very defensive and borderline hostile. I appreciate the info and looks like it’s a lot of work and prep in future if we are going to make a change.

The board is there to make decisions managing the association's resources (that's why you vote for them). Spending $49K on security isn't necessarily the problem, but homeowners should know what goes into that amount. Do you have video cameras throughout the community? Are there regular drive-throughs of security officers? Is someone posted 24/7 at an entrance gate to the community? And so on.

You said you moved into this community a year ago, so if you haven't already done so, start reading your documents to see how your community's supposed to be run (usually that's in the bylaws). You should know what the association's responsible for, what's considered common area (e.g. streets), what homeowners are responsible for, documents they can request for review, length of terms for board members, what they're empowered to do, etc. There should also be budgeting information - when is the association's fiscal year, do homeowners get copies of the annual budget (preferably itemized), can they vote on assessment increases if they exceed a certain amount or percentage over the previous year? Etc., and so forth.

In this case, your Spidey sense might be correct in that homeowners are getting little to no information on these services, but start with getting a copy of the security contract and previous board meeting minutes to follow how and why the company got hired. The minutes are a summary, not a blow-by-blow of who said what, so it wouldn't hurt to talk to your neighbors for the backstory, what they've seen, and if they're happy with the service. As you know or should know, security doesn't guarantee you'll be crimefree but can reduce the risk.

Then go to the next board meeting and ask questions. Some have resident forums, where 10-15 minutes are reserved for owners to sound off on any association issue. You usually don't get an answer right away (some questions do require research), but depending on what you ask, you might get a response or those board members might get snippy. That's ok, that should prompt more discussion with the neighbors, who may have let this stuff go on for too long and it'll take a newcomer like you to light a fire under their behind. This may also mean you'll make some enemies, so decide right now how far you're willing to go. Good luck!