'They have lost over half of their contracts': HOA board member discovers shady behavior from management company, protects homeowners with petty payback

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Ben Weiss • Writer and Editor
Oct 28, 2023 8:00 AM EDT

Every so often, you come across a story where a board member of a local HOA actually turns out to be a three-dimensional human with a soul and a conscience. If this story serves as any indication, sometimes it really only takes one good person to uncover silly systemic issues, to identify real solutions to try and fix said silly systemic issues, and to essentially get something done. 

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  • 01
    Property - D USED "Try to Sneak a Foreclosure? Lose my Business and Everyone Else's" BESE
    via Tom Rumble

  • Here, we have an HOA board member who discovered that the management company their board partners with was using an ethically questionable loophole to slap a ton of fines onto homeowners. It got so bad that one homeowner showed up to a board meeting to plead his case for the board not to foreclose on his home. It turns out he had the money to pay the unnecessary fines, but the management company used a petty technicality to bar him from paying them. In the meantime, they kept piling on more each and every day. 

    This enraged the Redditor, who then found a loophole of his own and learned that if the management company lost the business of the HOA, essentially he could make it so that all pending fines could not be recouped by the company after terminating the contract. Furthermore, OP ensured that the company lost business with virtually all of his peers in the area. Again, we rarely see instances of HOA members being upstanding citizens, so when we do come across one, we better soak it in.

    Keep scrolling below for the full post and for the best reactions from folks in the comments section. For more stories like this, here is another HOA-related post in which a resident was told he couldn't park his own cars in his own driveway. 

  • 02
    Font - r/pettyrevenge Posted by u/chilldude890 14 hours ago Try to Sneak a Foreclosure? Lose my Business and Everyone Else's
    via u/chilldude890
  • 03
    Font - Background For anyone who has ever served on an HOA board, you know that most of the violations, accounting, and general management of an HOA (especially with a neighborhood of the size I run) is handled by a property management company. This is mainly because it would be too expensive and biased to have someone who lives in the community handle all of these duties alone. A dirty little secret of these companies however, that many of these companies will make their prices cheaper by secre
    via u/chilldude890
  • 04
    Font - Main Story About a month ago, we were conducting a regular HOA meeting. We have been having them fairly often to keep our board, management company rep, and homeowners in sync since I have been hearing complaints of bad behavior from the management company. This particular meeting however, things almost got out of control.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 05
    Font - As soon as we finished all of our checklist items, we asked homeowners about any questions. A couple stood up and I saw the man holding a paper with a shaking hand, which I quickly learned was due to his anger. Over the next 10 minutes, he explained how he was here to plead his case for the board not to foreclose on his house, especially since he had been making payments on a large debt for a very long time. Without going into too many details, the discussion got extremely heated because
    via u/chilldude890
  • 06
    Font - I left totally confused because I knew that the homeowner was in good standing, and if he was willing to pay (which the records showed he had called to do so), why couldn't he? I had been told by my property manager to NOT take any action, and I decided to call I called the legal firm representing the board (which I was told to not do... even though they represent us?). After talking with the firm for an hour, I found out that the management company had not allowed this homeowner to pay h
    via u/chilldude890
  • 07
    Font - Revenge I spent more time looking into our management company and found out that they would underbid management contract costs and supplement them by adding in their own fines on to homeowner collections without the board's approval. This is a technicality in the fining process, and while it's not illegal, it's highly unethical and disputable because it encourages the management company to fine and escalate non-issues since to make more money. I honestly felt horrendous because I had no i
    via u/chilldude890
  • 08
    Font - Livid with this phone call and new knowledge about fines, I found a new management company and terminated our contract immediately. In addition, I believe I found a loophole where all of the charges unfairly pressed against homeowners will NOT be recouped by the company and the HOA cannot be liable for them since they are pass through. During the issue with the property investment company (see other post), I met about a dozen other HOA board members in my area and discovered about 6 of th
    via u/chilldude890
  • 09
    Font - One of the other association presidents actually knows state counsel for HOA rules, and they are now working with them to make this practice illegal. If it passes, this entire company would go under. While I am not holding my breath, I am certainly following the legal proceedings closely, and have even offered to testify before a committee why this rule is needed. It sounds like deliberations begin in January.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 10
    Font - As for the community manager (the person helping our community), they have lost over half of their contracts, and their manager came begging for me to stay. They even offered to stop the fining policy in the most "corporate" talk way possible where they basically gave themselves plausible deniability if they do it again. I told him that his property manager deserved what she had coming to her and that their policies were stone cold terrible. He tried to reply but I just hung up, I was too
    via u/chilldude890
  • 11
    Font - Watch these management companies closely, they are almost all seriously snakes in the grass waiting to screw over board members and community members.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 12
    Font - Low_Turn_2789 · 13 hr. ago I'm suspecting the community manager is getting a cut of the fines. Would be a good idea to check on any other fines issued. 309 Reply Share
    via u/chilldude890
  • 13
    Font - ConfusedAt63 · 13 hr. ago . You are my new hero! 196 Reply Share
    via u/chilldude890
  • 14
    Font - Valuable-Currency-36. 8 hr. ago It's so good to see a HOA member actually put the community first for a change....your awesome man.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 15
    Font - trismagestus 10 hr. ago Wow, that's terrible. Well done, you. I'm glad HoAs are rare where I live (called body corporates in NZ, though.) Is never choose to live in one. I'm sorry for those that are forced to, for the most part.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 16
    Font - KremitTheFrog01 - 8 hr. ago I despise HOA's, or Body Corp's as we call them in Australia. I thought it was a good idea at the time when I bought a home within one but it was the worst decision.
    via u/chilldude890
  • 17
    Gesture - ImHappier Than Usual 9 hr. ago This is truly awful. Thank you for what you've done
    via u/chilldude890
  • 18
    Font - GrumpyOLB 35 min. ago Remember they're not there to manage buildings, they're there to get money
    via u/chilldude890

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