tcarpenter
Junior Member
What is the name of your state? washington state
I am the president of our HOA, and last year we held several meetings with residents starting in the Spring to discuss removal of dangerous trees. We had three quotes and various markings made on different trees. In Oct. 2005 we thought it was all worked out and had an arborist come in and take out the dead or dangerous leaning trees. The day after work was completed in one greenbelt area a resident called and was very upset. They said they were out of town and knew nothing about any trees being removed and wouldn't accept any negotiations with the HOA, instead the wife being an insurance person, they called our insurance and filed a claim for $7000. How they knew who our insurance was is a mystery to me. So after speaking to the adjuster at that time, she figured we could settle with under $5000. I heard nothing since then. On 8/29/06 we received a letter from Safeco stating that they had paid these folks $12,000 and were canceling our policy. WOW! they never discussed this with us, and when I called the adjuster back she stated that their attorney felt it was treble? doesn't that mean that the cause was malicious and deliberate? I feel we were sold out by our agent and want to know if we have any options at this time. I feel these residents were negligent by not attending meetings and ignoring all the letters and meetings regarding this subject, and if they sat inside and did nothing while we accidentally removed a private tree just to gain money from their own neighborhood, that is very sick. The mark that was located on the tree had been there for months and wasn't even the mark that our hired arborist had originally used. It just seems that we were tried without being able to represent ourselves and to pay a clean $12,000 even seems odd. If you used a calculation wouldn't this number be something of an odd figure? If we cannot get insurance coverage now, what do we do? Please help us.
Thanks
Teresa Carpenter
Woodsound HOA President
I am the president of our HOA, and last year we held several meetings with residents starting in the Spring to discuss removal of dangerous trees. We had three quotes and various markings made on different trees. In Oct. 2005 we thought it was all worked out and had an arborist come in and take out the dead or dangerous leaning trees. The day after work was completed in one greenbelt area a resident called and was very upset. They said they were out of town and knew nothing about any trees being removed and wouldn't accept any negotiations with the HOA, instead the wife being an insurance person, they called our insurance and filed a claim for $7000. How they knew who our insurance was is a mystery to me. So after speaking to the adjuster at that time, she figured we could settle with under $5000. I heard nothing since then. On 8/29/06 we received a letter from Safeco stating that they had paid these folks $12,000 and were canceling our policy. WOW! they never discussed this with us, and when I called the adjuster back she stated that their attorney felt it was treble? doesn't that mean that the cause was malicious and deliberate? I feel we were sold out by our agent and want to know if we have any options at this time. I feel these residents were negligent by not attending meetings and ignoring all the letters and meetings regarding this subject, and if they sat inside and did nothing while we accidentally removed a private tree just to gain money from their own neighborhood, that is very sick. The mark that was located on the tree had been there for months and wasn't even the mark that our hired arborist had originally used. It just seems that we were tried without being able to represent ourselves and to pay a clean $12,000 even seems odd. If you used a calculation wouldn't this number be something of an odd figure? If we cannot get insurance coverage now, what do we do? Please help us.
Thanks
Teresa Carpenter
Woodsound HOA President