Hello #HOAproblems #HOAscam #neighborhoodscam,
I moved into my neighborhood at the end of 2020 (San Antonio, Texas.) Alongside the legal documents associated with closing on the home, there were HOA bylaws and their associated information provided.
After living here for a little over three years, I (alongside most of our neighborhood) have come to the conclusion that the HOA is a scam – not in the way that many people call their HOAs a scam, but a full on money laundering scheme. Here are details that led us to this conclusion (all details below are at least since 2018):
### No Communication, No Oversight
– There are no HOA meetings.
– There is no communication from HOA (by stamped mail per the bylaws, by email, or by the neighborhood website.)
– The HOA board was dismantled prior to us moving here, so it’s just one man acting as the HOA president.
– The HOA management company was fired, so there is no management company.
– Supposedly, there was also a large payout (tens of thousands of dollars) to the neighborhood after doing this, but no one knows where the funds went.
– There are no HOA bills sent out (by stamped mail per the bylaws or otherwise.)
– Despite no one receiving a bill in years, when they attempt to re-finance or sell their home, they are hit with a bill for 5-10 years of “unpaid” dues. They then do not have the time to fight it, as they do not want to risk the sale of their home, so they end up paying it. No one knows where the money goes, but presumably, our HOA president collects it with no oversight or transparency as to what he is spending it on.
### Lack of Maintenance, Lack of Amenities
– There is little management of our neighborhood
– The neighborhood has no amenities or events, so our fees are really supposed to be for HOA operations, maintaining the grass patch outside the neighborhood, and the external brick fence surrounding the neighborhood
– We have had two separate incidents of cars crashing into our brick fence in the last year
– The grass is rarely up kept and usually overgrown
– When searching the county website for active HOAs, ours does not show up.
Every few months, people post about it on Nextdoor and get all riled up, and then nothing happens. Someone tried to contact Kens5 at one point, and I think another neighbor talked with a councilwoman, but nothing has resulted from this. We are finally gaining traction and have started a petition to dissolve it (per the HOA guidelines), but as there are no meetings and only one effective HOA member (the president), it’s incredibly hard to organize. More-so, there are many rental houses in our neighborhood, so I don’t think we can get the needed numbers of homeowner’s signatures.
Any advice on what to do? I feel like this is such a crazy thing to have been going on so long with no resolution, but am not sure what steps to take as a neighborhood. Many neighbors don’t seem to care, as they like not getting bills, but don’t realize we will all be scammed when trying to sell or refinance our homes and are at risk for property liens!
This neighborhood HOA fraud scheme needs to be addressed urgently, and we need to come together as a community to find a solution. Let’s take action and protect our homes and investments.
#neighborhoodsolutions #takeaction #scamalert
Remember to keep an eye out for red flags in your own HOA and take steps to prevent falling victim to similar schemes in your community.
You and your interested neighbors should go see a lawyer who specializes in HOA litigation. The first step will probably be forcing an election, at which point some of you will have to step up and volunteer. You can’t really do much else until there’s a working board.
Search if your HOA is registered under TX business listings and is in good standing, likely listed as a nonprofit corporation. The website should give info on the registered agent. Your board is legally required to hold an annual meeting. If the meeting isn’t called, a member can force it by sending notice via certified mail to the registered agent. That member probably needs to then send notice of the meeting to the other homeowners according to the rules set forth in your bylaws, along with ballots/proxy forms/election applications or whatever else is required. You may need to search public property records, go to the county clerk, or talk to tenants to find the contact information for owners of rented homes.
It might be worth it to reach out to some property management companies to see if they can give you any initial guidance on this free of charge. They’ll also have a lawyer and an accounting firm in their network who specializes in HOA issues. If your HOA has any available funds, it might be worth signing on with a PMC for a year or so to help not only guide a new board, but also help untangle any problems your current dysfunctional board is causing. (IANAL. I’m an HOA board president, unfortunately, and went through something similar.)