never told about an hoa

we bought our house in 2005 signed a contract w the seller and on the contract for an hoa says n/a , we refinanced our house in july of 2007 and in march of 2009 we received a letter stating we are being sued for not payn our hoa fees us and 72 other home owners in our development our court date is coming up. we have since contacted the person in chg of the hoa lettn her know we were never told any such thing and she has sent us a package w mtg minutes of mtgs that we were never informed of never the less she has 3 different property addresses listed for me and my husband. she states she has mailed things to us on several occassions which we never received . the question is how can she say she sent us anything when she dont even know our correct address. this hoa was supposably started in 1993 but no one started paying fees till 2007, is that legal? there is no street lights no sidewalks, and what the call a common area is a big field w no park or anything or a drainage area with huge drains a child could fit inside. the township takes care of our snow removal and we pay for our own trash removal. the hoa does nothing for anyone of us, and we didnt receive anything about bylaws til we requested it after we received notification we were being sued for something we were never informed of that existed. how can she hold us responsible for fees that we were never informed of? we read our deed and the only thing its says about an hoa is if one exists its paid by our escrow account. what can we do about this?

First, and please don't take this the wrong way, but I don't do so well when people don't use punctuation. Or capitalization.

I have no idea where some of your sentences end and where others begin, except for a handful of question marks scattered about.

Again, sorry to be critical, but it really really really makes trying to understand your issue somewhat problematic when we have to decipher sentence structures.

Now, about your concerns.

The first place you probably need to check is with your county clerk's office, in the Deed Room.

You should go down there in person and have a clerk help you locate your deed and your development. The clerk can pull any documents such as deed restrictions or covenants that may have been filed with your deed.

Yes, you probably should have received them from your seller, but apparently you didn't.

Second, try to do a search at your Secretary of State's website. MOST Secretaries of State's websites have a section that lists business incorporated in your state.

If you have a Homeowners Association, it's very likely it was incorporated and the filing documents would be in the SoS's records.

We have homeowners in our development for whom we have several contact addresses as well, so I'm not surprised if the woman who sent you your package of meeting minutes says she has several addresses for you, as well.

And, quite frankly, I also hear from people who insist they have "never" received anything from us until they get either a notice of lien pending or a notice from our attorney.

Believe it or not, lots of people throw away HOA materials thinking they are "junk."

Anyway, we, also, have no amenities, no do we provide snow removal or trash pickup. We do, however, still require assessments to be paid since that chunk of common area, including the retention basin, still needs to be maintained AND insurance needs to be provided for it. We DO have street lights we pay for however. Also, WE (the HOA) does not "maintain" the sidewalks in our development, either. That is up to each resident, per our Deed Restrictions.

At any rate, do some of these searches and see what sort of materials you find.

In the meantime, how much are your assessments? According to this HOA person? I don't mean the total amount now due and owing, I mean annually, how much are(were) you supposed to be paying?

Even though you didnt know, sounds like your still part of an HOA. You should have pulled the deed at the town hall before you bought the place.

To go a step further, I would have found the owners name and pulled their mortgage from county records when they bought the place to see what documents were included in the sale and what else is under thier name at the county. Like lawsuits regarding the property, etc.

April,

If, in fact, a mandatory HOA exists, the fact that you were not informed is meaningless. You are still subject to the CCRs (deed restrictions) and payment of assessments. Take a look at your title insurance, as it should make mention of an HOA. Also take a look at your warranty deed, which should also mention whether or not there are deed restrictions. If there are no deed restrictions then there cannot be an HOA, because the reason for an HOA is to enforce the deed restrictions. Aside from meeting minutes, what else was in the package you received from the woman who wrote the letter? Perhaps a copy of the CCRs, bylaws, articles of incorporation??? These are the documents you need to have; if you don't then I suggest you send a letter back to that woman and ask for them.

Get together with the other 72 h/o's who are being sued and join forces. It sounds really fishy that so many are being sued for delinquent assessments; perhaps they all have the same complaints as you, namely no knowledge of an HOA and the requirement to pay assessments.

John,

Your advice to "Just pay the bill and move on" may be sound advice IF April knew for a fact a mandatory HOA exists. But, since she does not, paying and moving on is not the proper action to take. April needs to know whether or not a mandatory HOA exists. I won't even elaborate on all the different scenarios that could be going on here, but suffice it to say that nothing would surprise me! If I were April I would be asking for copies of all the gov docs as a first step. Once she is sure of the presence of a mandatory HOA and the requirement to pay assessments, then she can "just pay the bill and move on. . ."

Don't you think it strange that 72 other h/o's are being sued for delinquent assessments????

Uh, the word COMPETANT it's spelled COMPETENT