Buying a property with an HOA has its upsides and downsides.

Sure, the HOA holds the owners responsible for keeping the building or neighborhood looking good, but it also comes with a lot of fees and nuances.

So, what would you do if your HOA wasn’t following the laws and then wanted to impose a special assessment and extra monthly dues?

Do you just do as you’re told? Or do you make life a little harder for the HOA president?

In the following story, a homeowner finds themselves in this exact situation and opts for the latter. Let’s see what happened.

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!

This may be the most petty thing I have ever done in my life. I’m a pretty petty person, and I also believe in malicious compliance, but this takes the cake.

So I bought a condo in a building in a large city in the US 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. I’m talking broken elevators, broken rooftop AC units, the pool was empty for four months during the summer, etc.

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

HOAs must follow certain laws.

Last year, I took the HOA to Small Claims court because they failed to provide financial documents that show 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 docs as they are legally required to do is a separate issue among others including possible criming that we’ve hired the attorneys for.

As if this HOA can’t get any worse.

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 he wants to mail me a Satisfaction of Judgement form, have me sign it, and mail it back to him and then he will mail me a check. No to both!

Three days after I won the case, the HOA announced that they were going to charge us all a special assessment of about $1000 each and an increase in our monthly dues of 10%.

In my state, a membership vote gets triggered if you charge a special assessment that brings the building more than 5% its yearly income, which means 51% of the owners must approve of the assessment for it to take effect.

There’s always a loophole.

As this $$$$ is about 20% of our yearly income, a vote should have taken place. When we asked about this vote, the HOA said that it was being made under an emergency clause, which means that the membership vote doesn’t have to take place.

The emergency? Fixing the elevator that broke on Dec 24, 2021. The spirit of the emergency clause is for things like fire, earthquake, flood, etc, not a broken elevator that has been broken for a year already.

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

The taste of sweet satisfaction.

The liens came down yesterday to those that couldn’t pay $1000 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/lower income people in the building).

The HOA president’s house is currently on the market for $20m. 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 judgement owed 🙂

Wow! No one should have to pay extra money for a deteriorating building!

Let’s see how the folks over at Reddit weighed in on this situation.

Here is some insight from an HOA president.

This person suggests looking into the condo building’s insurance policy.

Many people are shocked the HOA president doesn’t live in the building.

This person works in title and knows about property records.

This person still has so many questions.

That HOA president is really something! Looks like it’s time to call for a vote to change the building’s leadership!

If you thought that was an interesting story, check out what happened when a family gave their in-laws a free place to stay in exchange for babysitting, but things changed when they don’t hold up their end of the bargain.