HOA President Gets Homeowner To Join HOA Under False Pretenses, Masterful Revenge Ensues

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mattstaff
Oct 11, 2021 11:00 AM EDT

Every now and again we'll stumble upon just the kind of pro revenge story that almost seems to transcend the realm of revenge itself... into what very well could be called art. This revenge absolutely fits into that category. If this revenge tale got you going, check out another tale of pro revenge that involves a scummy collection agency that messed with a guy's credit score.

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  • 01
    Font - HOA President is a bully. Well, his ego allows me to bully him! Semeone A lot of people suggested I crosspost this here. So this story is about a property I own, but rent out. This may sound strange, but I don't think I could afford to live there these days - it's become somewhat exclusive. (Maybe I should I guess this could also go in pro revenge. have put it here first?)
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 02
    Font - I've used dollars here, because it's what most people reading this will relate to. This doesn't take place in the US, and I've given an approximate dollar value for local currency. This is going to be VERY LONG. BACKGROUND A illion years ago my property was part of a large farm. I bought it about 30 years ago, long after the farm was broken up, but before there was any development near it. The piece of land I got was near the back entrance that joined into a dirt road that ran past. The m
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 03
    Font - I originally bought a large chunk of the land intending to do some farming, but that never happened. About 20 years ago some of the owners got organised (We'll call them the Organised Owners - 00) and had the area designated as a municipal suburb. The municipality agreed to put in tarred roads, water and electricity if a certain percentage of the properties were developed. A construction company (linked to the 00) went around contacting the owners who had land but no buildings offering to
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 04
    Handwriting - I stayed in the house for a few years, and my mom moved in with me. I had decided to subdivide the property again and build her a house next to mine, but unfortunately an un-diagnosed tumor took her before the house could even be started (well, it was diagnosed, but too late to do anything).
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 05
    Font - Soon after she died, we moved out of the house and started renting it out. About a few weeks before we moved out the 00 l'd sold the land to started talking about starting an HOA. I wasn't interested, and left soon after. About two years later, the neighbour 00 contacted me. There were two roads entering the area these days - the original tarred road that was near where the farmhouse had been and was entered from a fairly busy main road, and my "dirt road back entrance" which was now a ta
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 06
    Font - I said no, and I was adamant, and eventually they accepted that, but told me they wanted to have a sign near the road welcoming people to the neighbourhood, and the only practical place to put it was on the edge of my property. They also wanted to build a little guard hut and have a security guard permanently monitoring who went in and came out, and they wanted to build his shed on my property. We came to an agreement whereby they would mow the lawn and pay the equivalent of about $35 per
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 07
    Font - This all happened a over a decade ago. They eventually got the other main road blocked off, and the HOA is paying for rent-a-cop to be permanently stationed close to my property, as well as mowing my lawn and paying me enough money for takeaways for the family each month. I'm occasionally contacted by members of the HOA to get me to sign up, but l'm really not interested. My property has been rented to the same tenant for all these years and everything there is going well for me.
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 08
    Font - Until about 3 years ago, when someone scared the crap out of my tenants young daughter by making strange noises and shooting a gun close to her bedroom window three or four times over about a month. This scared my tenant and I guessed it scared the HOA because they AND my tenant contacted me with a proposal - I join the HOA and they give me exclusions from the HOA rules, including exclusions from paying the monthly fees, and in addition they will build a wall around the ENTIRE HOA neighbo
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 09
    Font - THE DISHONEST DEALINGS It took a little over a year to build the wall and get everything completed, which is quite fast. And then a month to the day after everything was done, my tenant got an HOA warning about his dogs barking. He told the HOA that while the property was in the HOA, it was exempt from the rules. The HOA told him that they had cancelled the exemptions, and that he had 30 days to comply. He contacted me, and I opened some mail l'd gotten from the HOA (l'd ignored it since
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 10
    Font - 2. That the easement agreement had been cancelled, and that they were retroactively canceling it a year back because the HOA contract allowed them to use "small unused portions" of HOA members land for the common good for free 3. That I refund them the money they had paid for the easement over that period, 4. That I owed them money for the garden service mowing the large lawn, and 5. That I would be fined for each infraction my tenant failed to remedy. This started an expensive process in
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 11
    Font - As I was walking to my car the neighbour OO (the one who bought half my land so many years ago) told me that I was stupid to have refused to join when the HOA started, as I could have been a founder member (whatever that means), and that next time I should be sure to understand the documents I sign before signing them. THE MALICIOUS COMPLIANCE Neighbour 00 was right, I should have read the contract (better). Also, I was interested in what it meant to be a "Founding Member" (spoiler: Nothi
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 12
    Font - While the street address of the property is used to identify it for all practical purposes, in the city records it has a unique property number that has to be used on legal records. When my mom moved in, l'd subdivided the remaining property but hadn't yet started building on it. And when I gave the HOA the easement all those years ago it had been on the property l'd sliced off for my mom. And when the HOA set up the contract, they had simply used the property number from the easement. Th
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 13
    Font - THE REVENGE EXACTLY 30 days TO THE HOUR after the HOA had given me the 30 days notice, I knocked on the neighbour O0's door (did I mention he was the president of the HOA?) and had him sign for two documents. The first was that I planned to build a house on my HOA property (which confused him) and the second was notice that they had 30 days to remove from the property the guard shed, the parts of the electric boom that were on my property, as well as the sign. He tried to engage me but I
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 14
    Font - Early the next morning I got a call from the HOA lawyer who explained to me that their junk would be staying on my property since it was in an "unused" part of my land. I explained that I was building a house there, and that the land would not be unused anymore. Icould hear the smirk as he told me that building a second house to be spiteful would not be accepted by the courts. I sure hope he could hear the smirk in my voice when I told him that the property in question did not have a hous
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 15
    Font - It took them just under 5 days to get back to me. Their lawyer told me that the terms of the easement meant that I could not cancel without their permission, so I emailed him a photo of the document they sent to me cancelling the easement. That afternoon Neighbour 00 invited me to lunch (his treat) to discuss the problem. I said "No thanks". He extended the offer again two days later, and again I said "No thanks". Others of the original 00 contacted me to try to talk. Some sounded aggress
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 16
    Font - About 9 days before their 30 days was up I got a call from a different lawyer. He said he wanted to "negotiate a surrender" (his words, not mine). I agreed to meet him at his office the next day. I'd already had documents drawn up, and the meeting was as simple as me giving him the documents and him reading them over. My new easement offer:
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 17
    Font - 1. Included everything offered by the old easement offer, 2. 1 changed the line "mow the lawn" to "get the property to HOA standards and keep it there" since it was now in the HOA. 3. Would cost them about $500 per month instead of -$35, 1. This amount would increased with inflation (the previous contract didn't include that bit). 4. When cancelled, for whatever reason, the HOA would have to pay me a cancellation fee of around $7500. 5. The contract automatically terminated 30 days after
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 18
    Font - 3. any legal action was taken against the property by anyone in the HOA, 6. That [lawyer who had offerred to negotiate surrender] would be allowed to mediate any disputes between us, at HOAS expense, and that 7. The HOA would pay all my legal fees if any legal action was taken against me. I'd deliberately left some insane things in there so that I could appear to "concede" some points or be negotiated down when the HOA got indignant about the points I actually cared about.
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 19
    Font - The lawyer didn't look happy. He said that my proposal sounded unfair, but that he'd have the HOA president look at them. I reminded him that in 8 days l'd be setting a group of men armed with sledgehammers and anger management issues lose on whatever of theirs was still on my property. That evening I got an irate call from the HOA president. He told me he was never going to sign the new contract. I said "OK". He then told me I was charging too much per month, and that it should be at the
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 20
    Font - The next morning Surrender Lawyer called to ask if l'd be willing to come to their offices to sign the contract. I agreed. When l got there that afternoon I learned that Surrender Lawyer was not a lawyer, but a Paralegal. He handed me the contract and asked me to sign it. He laughed when I told him l'd have to read through it first to make sure nothing was changed, and mumbled something that sounded like "I'm sure you would".
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 21
    Font - I read the contract. Nothing had been changed. NOT A SINGLE THING. And the HOA president had signed it, with the Surrender Paralegal signing as witness. I looked at him and said "Why did he sign this? It was stupid to sign it!" and the paralegal looked at me and said "I started telling him that signing it would be a bad decision, but he told me I wasn't being paid to think or give legal advice, and to shut up. So I shut up." I said "Do you understand what he's signed here?" He looks at me
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 22
    Font - This happened about a year and a half ago. It took 6 months for the HOA to find out how screwed they were. They wanted to sue me, but their lawyers explained to them that there was no way to win. Even if the court sided with them, all they would get is the easement contract voided, and they did not think that the court would side with them. The lawyers were adamant about one thing - the HOA could not live with the "HOA pays my legal fees if legal action was taken against me" since it didn
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 23
    Font - probably not enforce that, since the context of the agreement was to do with the HOA, and I told them I was prepared to find out since the HOA would definitely be the ones taking action against me if they challenged it. T eventually signed an addendum to the contract that said that the neighbour O0 (HOA President) would personally pay all my legal fees unless he held no position at all in the HOA, and that the HOA would pay all legal fees if the HOA took legal action against me. He resign
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 24
    Font - It came out during the mediation (you cannot imagine how happy the lawyers were that their paralegal was mediating) that without the ability to control access to the HOA neighborhood through the security boom (partially) on my property (the HOA had become a "gated community" a number of years back) the HOA would be in breach of their own articles and would be dissolved. I also learned (should have been obvious to me) that all the security cameras were wired, and all terminate in the guard
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 25
    Font - That first mediation was really quite funny. My paralegal looked more than a little glum as we assembled and he called everyone to order. I suspected that he had been told to work against me, so I took the initiative. I reminded everyone there that I had agreed to let Paralegal mediate, but that I had agreed to no arbitration at all. If I didn't feel like the proceedings were fair l'd leave and they could go ahead and sue. Paralegal brightened up and things actually went quite well.
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 26
    Font - I'm writing this after getting home from the latest mediation. I built a "paddling pool" for the neighborhood dogs. As in I made it myself. I dug a hole, packed it with stone, and added a concrete finish. It was my first attempt, and if I say so myself, it looked ... well, terrible. The HOA called for a mediation meeting (what they do now instead of taking official action. I've declined their mediation requests in the past) in which they told me, as nicely as they could, that the paddling
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 27
    Font - extensive. It basically required the pool to be rebuilt from scratch, Tasked them if there was any way to reduce costs on the work they needed to get it up to HOA standards, and they assured me there was not. I thanked them, pulled out a copy of the agreement where they had agreed to "get the property to HOA standards" (which l'd highlighted) and handed it to them with the list. I told them the HOA usually preferred if these things were dealt with within 30 days. They started arguing unti
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 28
    Font - I also learned a lot about neighbour 00 today: 1. I found out that Neighbour 00 sold his property about 3 months back, and is apparently leaving the country for Australia. 2. 1 found out that the HOA had successfully sued him for a crapload of money they had lost to his mismanagement as part of his vendetta against me. 3. I also learned that he had a vendetta against me. I have no idea what I did to upset him.
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma
  • 29
    Font - I'm not sure if I will screw with the HOA any more. I already think I'm so close to breaking them the only thing stopping them from canceling the contract is the massive financial loss if they do. I guess a lot depends on how they treat me and my tenants going forward. Also, I do like the monthly payments, though, so l'm motivated to play nice. TL;DR HOA President gets me to join the HOA under false pretenses that get upheld in court, then finds out that that he signed up (literally) the
    via u/AlsoNotTheMamma

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