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Home Owners Association

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A

angel_face16

Guest
What is the name of your state? Maryland

I bought my house 4 years ago when the community was first built and they were just establishing the home owners association. I honestly didn't pay much attention to anything around the community at the time. My only complaint was that there was no assigned parking so some of the residents would get nasty if you were parked in front of their homes because they felt that should be their spot. But the grass seemed to be cut and I rarely saw the president so I never bothered to attend any of the meetings. I don't exactly know what the other home owners complaints were but a petition circulated and the prez. was voted out and a new person voted in. The new prez and I were friends so he told me that she refused to turn ANY ledgers over to him and the accounts were "cleaned out". There are about 100 homes in our community and the fees are $ 40 a month. You do the math. She was definitely pocketing some of the money. Well, within 2 months of becoming prez. my buddy gets himself a brand new pt cruiser and his wife a brand new benz. I KNOW his wife didn't work and his salary was never able to support those luxuries before so I knew he was stealing also. He also went power crazy. He assigned everyone the two spots directly in front of their homes which ended the parking arguments, but then there ended up being NO extra spaces for guests if you had 2 cars so guests began parking along the curbs. He then had the curbs sprayed yellow and "fire lane" painted on them. We've checked with the county and those areas are NOT fire lanes so everyone ignored it and guests continued to park there anyway. The grass was rarely cut and most of it was dying and the roads were not plowed everytime it snowed. When questioned about this he wanted to claim that the landscapers and tow truck driver charged a ridiculous amount of money and there wasn't enough in the account at that time. Why when you're collecting $ 4,000 a month? He moved while in office and just kind of handed someone else the title of prez. Within a couple months of being office, this guy has a new BMW parked in front of his home. Now everyone is starting to question where the heck our money is going. They've asked for a record of the money at the past few meeting and the secretary has claimed that her printer was broken. It's winter now so the grass and trees aren't growing so the grounds don't need to be maintained and we've only had a couple good snow days so we've only needed to have a plow come through maybe 4 times. WHERE IS OUR MONEY? So some of the home owners have stopped paying their fees. Now to force them to, the prez has enforced towing. He's notified our local tow truck co. of which homes owe fees and cars are being towed on a regular from in front of people's homes and the "fire lane". The County says it's not a fire lane so how can they? And all they should be able to do if you don't pay your fees is lien your property. What right do they have towing you? There's still NO visitor parking and since they're towing from the fire lane, visitors are parking in front of vacant houses. So the tow truck companies were then given a list of which houses are vacant to tow from there and it's $ 155 to get your car back!!! Is any of this illegal? Is there anything that the homeowners can do?
 


HomeGuru

Senior Member
angel_face16 said:
What is the name of your state? Maryland

I bought my house 4 years ago when the community was first built and they were just establishing the home owners association. I honestly didn't pay much attention to anything around the community at the time. My only complaint was that there was no assigned parking so some of the residents would get nasty if you were parked in front of their homes because they felt that should be their spot. But the grass seemed to be cut and I rarely saw the president so I never bothered to attend any of the meetings. I don't exactly know what the other home owners complaints were but a petition circulated and the prez. was voted out and a new person voted in. The new prez and I were friends so he told me that she refused to turn ANY ledgers over to him and the accounts were "cleaned out". There are about 100 homes in our community and the fees are $ 40 a month. You do the math. She was definitely pocketing some of the money. Well, within 2 months of becoming prez. my buddy gets himself a brand new pt cruiser and his wife a brand new benz. I KNOW his wife didn't work and his salary was never able to support those luxuries before so I knew he was stealing also. He also went power crazy. He assigned everyone the two spots directly in front of their homes which ended the parking arguments, but then there ended up being NO extra spaces for guests if you had 2 cars so guests began parking along the curbs. He then had the curbs sprayed yellow and "fire lane" painted on them. We've checked with the county and those areas are NOT fire lanes so everyone ignored it and guests continued to park there anyway. The grass was rarely cut and most of it was dying and the roads were not plowed everytime it snowed. When questioned about this he wanted to claim that the landscapers and tow truck driver charged a ridiculous amount of money and there wasn't enough in the account at that time. Why when you're collecting $ 4,000 a month? He moved while in office and just kind of handed someone else the title of prez. Within a couple months of being office, this guy has a new BMW parked in front of his home. Now everyone is starting to question where the heck our money is going. They've asked for a record of the money at the past few meeting and the secretary has claimed that her printer was broken. It's winter now so the grass and trees aren't growing so the grounds don't need to be maintained and we've only had a couple good snow days so we've only needed to have a plow come through maybe 4 times. WHERE IS OUR MONEY? So some of the home owners have stopped paying their fees. Now to force them to, the prez has enforced towing. He's notified our local tow truck co. of which homes owe fees and cars are being towed on a regular from in front of people's homes and the "fire lane". The County says it's not a fire lane so how can they? And all they should be able to do if you don't pay your fees is lien your property. What right do they have towing you? There's still NO visitor parking and since they're towing from the fire lane, visitors are parking in front of vacant houses. So the tow truck companies were then given a list of which houses are vacant to tow from there and it's $ 155 to get your car back!!! Is any of this illegal? Is there anything that the homeowners can do?

**A: have the owners band together and hire an attorney.
 

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