HOA Warrior: Battle Tactics for Fighting your HOA, all the way to Court if Necessary: HOA WARRIOR, #1

Read what others are saying about the first book in the HOA Warrior series

I WON MY BATTLE WITH the HOA. The HOA sent me dunning notices that my cats were wandering the neighborhood, which is true and they have done it for years. We thought it was a joke until we were told a hearing into the case was going to be announced. So I ordered your book looked at the 'rules' and saw there was absolutely no documents showing they had been passed at a meeting or voted on. Then the C&R and didn't see where the HOA had any authority. {...} I found your book useful, the advice was solid and pretty straight forward. ~Dylan Alliata

Thank you. I also found the book on Amazon, which provided a few pages to view in advance. I'm going through the Grandmother test now and think it is worth the effort. ~Amanda D

If you were foolish enough to buy into a Home Owners Association (HOA) and you want to stay YOU NEED THIS BOOK! The advice provided is sound and comes with many examples of practical applications to most any situation you find yourself. ~Clifford Johnson, President of HVPOA

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HOA Warrior

20 Tactics to fight your board

all the way to court, if necessary

by Shelly Marshall, Owner/Advocate

HOA Warrior on YouTube

Copyright 2009-present/Updated 2021

HOA WARRIOR: BATTLE Tactics for Fighting your HOA, all the way to court if necessary

ISBN: 978-1-934569-10-8 Kindle Version

ISBN: 978-1-934569-33-7 ePub Version (Note: You have this format)

ISBN: 978-1-934569-34-4 PDF & Print Version

HOA WARRIOR II: Responding to Pets, Paint, & Parking in Your HOA

ISBN:  978-1-934569-29-0  Kindle Version

ISBN:  978-1-934569-30-6  ePub Version

ISBN:  978-1-934569-31-3 PDF & Print Version

Publisher Day-By-Day.org

DISCLAIMER

THE AUTHOR AND PUBLISHER of this article has done her best to give you useful and accurate information. This report does not represent nor REPLACE the legal advice you need to get from a qualified attorney or other professionals when you decide to take action against an association board of directors or their management companies. Laws vary from state-to-state and change from time-to-time. The author is NOT an attorney, nor presents self as a legal authority in HOA or Home/property owner rights matters. The author is, however, a published researcher and writer and wants to give you the best foundation possible for protecting your home and hearth.

RESEARCH

HOA power relationship, problem-solving, and communication patterns during a major building renovation construction crisis

Michael J. Marshall, Shelly Marshall & Deborah Goonan

Pages 186-205 | Published online: 13 Oct 2018

READ this Glossary

(even if you don't want to)

AOI Articles of Incorporation (for non-profits, this gives you corporate status)

BBB Better Business Bureau

BOD Board of Directors

Bylaws: (describes how the business runs and affords additional rights and/or limitations on the board, officers, and members)

CAI Community Association Institute (a trade organization for CID vendors such as lawyers, accountants, managers, and insurance companies that claims to represent homeowners as well as the vendors)

CC&Rs: Covenants, Conditions, and Restrictions. This covers the deed restrictions that run with your land. Known by many names. See Declaration

CID Common Interest Development (terms can vary between states)

Community Association: The umbrella term community association simply means a real estate development in which the owners are bound to membership in an organization by a set of governing documents that require adherence to a set of rules and, often, the payment of assessments. This term encompasses homeowners associations, condominiums, cooperatives, gated communities, planned unit developments, and townhouses. Membership in the community associations is automatic and mandatory upon purchase of the property. Unlike other associations, community associations are not voluntary. {definition by Jim Slaughter }

COA Condominium Owners Association

Declaration: the covenants that run with your land. It is a contract between you and your neighbors. Also called Covenants, Deed Restrictions, CC&Rs, Master Contract, Master Deed

HOA Home Owners Association

PDC Planned Development Community

PUD Planned Unit Development

POA Property Owners Association

INTRODUCTION Effecting change with your board

IS YOUR ASSOCIATION Board violating rights you think are self-evident? Are they taking advantage of their position to pursue personal vendettas? Do they violate State Code, rig elections, and hold secret meetings? Do they selectively enforce covenants? Do they make rules and regulations without input from members?

Welcome, you are not alone—it's going on across the country and there is only one effective movement that can stop this growing menace, a reform effort that begins from the Grass Roots up—probably with you, the soon-to-be HOA Warrior.

To prevent homeowner associations from becoming petty, punitive, or worse, a form of corrupt rule, a meaningful system of checks and balances must be introduced. A balance of power between the boards and the members must be imposed, which in many cases does not exist in the current hierarchy of Planned Development Communities (PDC).

According to Paul Franzese and Margaret Bar-Akiva of the NJ Star Ledger (2006), more than 250,000 homeowner associations now exist and more than 50 million Americans live in Planned Development Communities. PDCs were originally intended to protect property values and homeowners ensuring a certain standard of living. Instead they often turn out to be dictatorial organizations that strip away constitutionally granted property rights, take away your home without the benefit of appearing in court, and hold you hostage in a home whose expenses you cannot control. These associations are known as condominiums, town homes, cooperatives, walled or gated communities, property and home owners associations, or disguised as subdivisions.

Most people don't understand the wide sweeping powers entrusted to the boards of these communities until they are ensnared in something they never saw coming. I know because it happened to me. Our members banded together to overthrow a self-righteous, self-serving board. Two years and thousands of dollars later—our community emerged not as a unified and happy community, but as a community with a bad rap in the county. Real estate buyers won't go near this troubled association, neighbors are divided and angry, and we were left with some inexperienced volunteers to serve as the new trustees who also attempted to circumvent proper procedure just like the directors our grass roots group had replaced.

Zimmerman Case

In addition most people who buy into a planned development community don't understand their liability. Take the Travon Martin case. The parents sued the association for wrongful death. This is because Zimmerman, the neighborhood watch guy, shot and killed the teenager while volunteering for the homeowners association of the Sanford gated community on Feb 26, 2012. Each and every homeowner was liable to pay should Travon's parents win the suit.  They actually settled out of court for the one million the association was insured for but what if the Martin's had gone to court and won say $10 million? The insurance would pay their $1 million and then all 263 homeowners would be responsible to make up the $9 million dollar shortfall. That's $35,000 each! It's a risk we are never told about when buying into a planned development community!

MORE RECENTLY (2018), the Pinnacle Condominium Association owners are facing a $145K special assessment to fund $5.2M renovation in San Rafael, California. Yes, it's legal and yes some folks may lose their homes. Can you imagine buying into a Condo and then getting a bill for $145,000:: Richard Halstead of the Marin Independent Journal reported the reaction of one of the owners.

"For us, it’s a pretty raw deal," said Erik Lovlein, who together with his wife purchased a Pinnacle condo in November 2016. "We knew the siding was a bit old and needed some updating, but we had no clue. "

Buying into a development is a HUGE liability—there is no way to list all the things that can go wrong that you, your home, and all your assets are liable for: Every year it's like pulling your assessment out of a hat and hoping for the best.

YOU ARE LIABLE FOR:

Embezzlement (Example: Like the $800,000 that several HOAs in North Carolina will have to make up because of embezzlement by manager Diana Ellis Kelly, from Kornerstone Community Management. 2017)

Homicide (Example: 22-year-old Alex Johnson found shot to death in his condo apartment in  West Palm Beach, Florida and his mother sues the Condominium. 2017)

Insurance Scams (Example: Assignment of Benefits (AOB) scams are well-known in Florida where contractors bill insurers directly while over-inflating prices which results in substantial premium rate hikes ultimately covered by the unit owner. 2018)

Fraud (Example: After years of abuse, the multimillion dollar fraud scheme in a 40-person crime wave in the Las Vegas Valley was exposed and prosecuted by the FBI where organized crimes were perpetrated on numerous Associations including mortgage fraud, election fraud, threats of violence and intimidation, abuse of the judicial process, tax fraud and obstruction of justice. Leon Benzer recruited and paid off puppets to serve on homeowners’ boards so that they would steer lucrative contracts to his company and cronies. He is now serving 15 years, but the homeowners were fleeced and abused for years with no help from the justice system. 2017)

Violent Acts (Example: Violence in HOAs such as rape, murder, assault, and so on, often become the liability of the unit owners. Your association could get sued if they failed to prevent it and you end up paying in your assessments.)

Stupidity (Sometimes Boards are just ignorant and you get to deal with and pay for their stupidity. Although there are thousands of examples—one of my favorites is the residents of Auburn Greens Homeowners Association in California who found fliers on their doors, saying they could face a $200 fine if they did not leave their garage doors OPEN Monday through Friday! 2018)

Lawsuits (Example: Lawsuits are rampant in HOAs—members suing members, members suing the board, the board suing the members, employees suing the associations, lawyers suing the associations for breach of contract, contractors, developers, construction defects, crime, accidents—the list goes on. The worst is when your associations sues YOU. My board filed a SLAPP suit against me personally when I dared to speak up. The problem with all these lawsuits is that the lawyers always win and the homeowner always pays while generally not having any say in who sues who!)

Accidents (Example: Consider the $20 million verdict after a teenager suffered severe brain injuries from a swing set collapsing on his head at Lamplight Village in Northwest Las Vegas. All the homeowners received a bill for their share of the $20 million and the Homestead Act did not protect them. 2018) However, the young man disabled by this was more than reasonable and his family signed a settlement with the HOA so that the stunned owners would not face losing their homes.)

Maintenance Liabilities (Example: Take the Daybreak homeowners in South Jordan, Utah who are looking at $50,000 to $60,000 per owner to properly fix their units because of lack of maintenance or possibly a construction defect—who knows? Never the less, it is the homeowner who pays for the mismanagement. 2017)

These are only a small fraction of what you are liable for. Most folks think these horror stories won't happen to them—yet they are not outliers and they do happen all the time. Living in a Planned Development Community is a huge risk with huge liabilities.

Other Community Horror Stories

Every HOA horror story is different but the theme is usually the same: A board comprised of your neighbors tells you what