HOAs loved enforcing rules — right up until those rules were used against them.

One condo owner watched his building fall apart while the board stonewalled repairs, then slapped residents with fees after he took them to court.

So the owner found a way to return the favor using a petty revenge plot that only cost $31.

Keep reading for the full story!

Put a lien on my neighbors for not being able to pay an illegal special assessment? I’ll put a lien on your $20m mansion!

So I bought a condo in a building in a large city in the U.S. about 2.5 years ago. The building has an HOA that we all pay into monthly.

Since I’ve lived here, the building has rapidly deteriorated, and we have all hired an attorney for a class action–style lawsuit.

The building really hasn’t been maintained well at all.

I’m talking broken elevators, broken rooftop AC units, and the pool being empty for four months during the summer, etc.

The people in the building are great, though, and we are a friendly bunch.

So finally the condo owner took the HOA to court.

Last year, I took the HOA to small claims court because they failed to provide financial documents showing us how our fees are being spent.

As this is a legal requirement for all HOAs in my state, I won the case and was awarded the $30 filing fee plus $1 symbolic (I sued for documents, not money).

The fact that they can’t provide the documents as they are legally required to do is a separate issue, among others — including possible criminal activity — that we’ve hired attorneys for.

Of course, the HOA tries to get out of it at every turn.

I have asked the HOA to pay the $31 to me, and the president of the HOA wants to either meet me somewhere private to give it to me, or mail me a Satisfaction of Judgment form, have me sign it, mail it back, and then mail me a check.

No to both!

So once the lawsuit concluded, the HOA was quick to retaliate.

Three days after I won the case, the HOA announced that they were going to charge us all a special assessment of about $1,000 each and increase our monthly dues by 10%.

In my state, a membership vote is triggered if a special assessment brings the building more than 5% of its yearly income, meaning 51% of owners must approve it.

This was completely unethical, and everyone fought back.

Since this amount is about 20% of our yearly income, a vote should have taken place.

When we asked about the vote, the HOA said it was being made under an emergency clause, which means the membership vote doesn’t have to occur. The “emergency” was fixing the elevator that broke on December 24, 2021.

The spirit of the emergency clause is meant for things like fire, earthquake, or flood — not a broken elevator that had already been broken for a year.

But the HOA didn’t care, and threatened the condo owners even more.

When there was understandable pushback, the HOA sent out an email stating that anyone who didn’t pay the assessment would have a lien placed on their unit.

The liens came down yesterday for those who couldn’t pay $1,000 on short notice.

Our attorneys told us that even though the money is in dispute, we still have to pay it, and I did pay mine — but we also have a lot of retirees and lower-income people in the building.

But that’s where this condo owner had some leverage.

The HOA president’s house is currently on the market for $20 million.

I just got back from the courthouse where I filed a $31 lien against it for $140, clouding its title.

It’s a matter of principle, not money.

Now the title can’t change hands until he pays me my $31, and I am perfectly within my rights to collect on a judgment owed.

This was petty revenge perfectly executed.

What did Reddit have to say?

Something isn’t adding up for this reader.

This fellow HOA president can hardly believe what they’re reading.

If it were up to this user, this is what they’d do.

This idea was brilliant.

This story was petty, satisfying, and all perfectly legal!

If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.