Posted on 06/21/2018 6:33:41 PM PDT by TermLimits4All
I'm hoping someone may have a way of finding an attorney that I can hire to sue my HOA and management company for damages.
I have more than one family that will be seeking damages for non enforcement of the covenants in our subdivision.
I have been trying to sell my home and have received feedback from multiple buyers about conditions in the development that I had previously reported. The board decided to waive fines on one particular party that had 108 violations. New board members are friends with this family.
Secondly they are not responding to additional submittal. The management company said we have to take it up with the board. Why are we paying the management company then? Finally the board members decided to take over a neighbors Facebook page, even removing her as an administrator, deleting any of the neighborhoods supposed negative comments. They are now stifling free speech on this neighborhood site.
Thanks in advance for any helpful info. All I can find online are the lawyers.com sites and they try to get you into a monthly pool system. Not sure these are legitimate.
You need a lawyer versed in real estate law.
The subdivision is fully built out and we have an elected board.
That wisdom is worth $3k right there! I know nothing of HOAs OR the law, but I greatly appreciate someone like you who is willing to be open and honest with your experience.
You need $400 per hour and the yellow pages. Go get’em tiger. Attorneys don’t take cases on altruism. They charge big bucks with no guaranty of outcome. You got the money, honey? They got the time. Good luck.
The HOA should be providing an accounting of finances in their newsletter.
Ouch. That’s pretty bad.
I forgot to ask how large the lots are. The behavior of the offending/violating homeowner is something I frequently see on run-down, rural acreage properties. If he’s doing it with neighbors close by on each side, its a freaking nuisance. Are you in an unincorporated area, or is there some kind of municipal authority which might be able to bring nuisance ordinances to bear? (Or is the private HOA the only recourse against the offender?)
BTW, when you say 500k, I’m not sure if you are referring to the population, or the average worth of each home ... $500K would buy a nice place in North Georgia I would imagine ... around here in NorCal, not so much ...
My take on attorneys in general.....they are similar to politicians.
Most lawyers are not as wetted to winning as they are to getting paid. Without seeing them in action, it’s a crapshoot. To best serve the client, they must have an emotional attachment to either the client or the lawsuit. And the intellect to win. Interview prospective lawyers instead of them interviewing you.
Trump wins because he believes in winning and America. Politicians only care about reelection. Big difference in results.......
Starting lawsuits is near insanity. If your air conditioning system broke, you could consult Angie’s list to select a couple of repairmen, and/or get specific references. And, you would probably consider yourself a fool if you hired a repairman and DIDN’T do perform such diligence/research. With an attorney, you have virtually no way of knowing whether any given attorney is competent. References? One is going to badmouth another? Sure.
Oh wait; there is a way. Pay them a metric s**tload of money, get 8 months and $35K-$70K into your lawsuit, then find out that your attorney forgot one detail that causes them to be chopped off at the knees in one sentence and then you are done. If you are sitting in a chair, the other side can literally force you to prove that you are sitting in a chair and that will cost you about $2500. in pleadings. There is literally nothing that burns money faster than filing a lawsuit. And, it’s one of those things that you have done zero times and everyone else has done it 200 times.
I will say again: Courtrooms are for losers. If you are in one, you are a loser.
You wrote: “Lastly from the tone of your question I’m going to go ahead and make the assumption that you have not launched lawsuits against people or entities. What I’m going to say is, that there is almost nothing that you can do other than having open heart surgery, that is so expensive, so frustrating and will so consume your resources than such a lawsuit. I speak from personal experience. Courtrooms are for losers. Most cases settle because the parties to the lawsuit simply can no longer stand putting out so much money to continue the litigation. And any lawyer will tell you exactly the same thing. You might just as well sit down at a table take out a stack of $100 bills and set them on fire. On the other hand, returning to the topic of arbitration, I would instead consider Consulting with a professional arbitrator to see if he or she might be amenable to working with you. That might cost 2500 to $3,500. To get an actual lawyer interested in your case who is of any competence will cost you $20,000 just to start.”
I would add a contested divorce against a borderline personality, vindictive, delusional female spouse with minor children involved to your list of horribles. If you have the right insurance coverage and a good surgeon I don’t see that heart surgery would be quite so bad (other than the fact its, well - HEART SURGERY!)
Levity aside, I agree with you. If you have to sue an HOA, or a municipality ... you’re screwed financially regardless of how it comes out (like a contested divorce case with minor children on the other side and assets). Be prepared to lose it all.
Selling below market and getting the he** out of Dodge might actaully be the least worst option.
The Facebook thing is a federal crime.
The HOAthing of enforcement has little chance of success, but you can sue to leave the HOA for breach and equitable estoppel.
my advice is to never seek legal (nor medical or psychological) advice on a an Internet message forum.
Let me guess - Latinos?
True enough, but the gist of what I and several posters have written is almost always true:
If you have to go to court in the US, you have already lost. Our legal system stinks. The only winners in a court case are the lawyers. And if you’re up against a private entity (or government bureaucracy) that can just raise the fees/taxes it collects in order to cover its costs of litigating - you’re on a fool’s errand.
Threaten to rent your property out to the scummiest bunch of low lives you can find if you don’t get some remedy. Then do it!
I’ve seen people from all three main “ethnic groups” engaging in this exact sort of behavior.
The common denominator is not the ethnicity, but the lower-class mindset. The fact that some ethnic groups have a larger proportion of their members in the lower classes skews the perception, but “its the culture” (as Professor Lino Graglia never tired of explaining), not the ethnicity.
Try traveling through a rural “white trash” area and I guarantee you’ll see the same phenomena as you do in the “barrios” ...
You bought property that had an HOA?
You don’t need an attorney... think Mental Health ... pick any field as they are your only hope.
;^)
Good Luck
That would be my recommendation as well, as a starting point.
You are dealing with several issues;
- You wish to sell your house at a fair price and the behavior of others may have diminished the value of the house.
- The damage may not be corrected before you must sell your house and you may have to settle for a reduced price.
- Those others may include both the management company and the HOA Board who will no doubt promptly involve their professional negligence insurance providers.
- You need an attorney who has a track record of suing HOA's, management companies and their insurors. One who can quickly review the documents involved, evaluate the circumstances of your situation and give you a written explanation of how they can help with an estimated budget. The attorney should also tell you what you may be able to do vis-à-vis your similarly situated neighbors that would help avoid unnecessary fees. The attorney may also find it helpful to know which brokers you have talked with; but he will have brokers he has worked with in the past.
My inclination would be to think of one of the large law firms but you haven't indicated where the property is located and you haven't indicated whether this is a $100,000 condo or a subdivision of $1m+ homes.
Good luck.
If you are fighting a HOA, go out and find the most despicable, unethical, down low scumbag lawyer and hope they don’t have one that is better!
Forget the attorney. Check with your State’s AG’s office to see if property management companies are regulated by them. If so, file a complaint with all the details.
I did this in my state and you get a licensed attorney conducting the investigation and he/she has authority to refer cases for criminal prosecution, which won’t cost you anything. At the very least, it will be quite painful for the management company and show them you’re serious.
If you are not inclined to take over the HOA then I would go to the city zoning board. Those are all health and safety violations.
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