HOA Boards are Liars and Connivers

So many of us after moving into an HOA are full of hope. We hope we've chosen the right house, near the right school, close to shopping and with friendly neighbors. But that's rarely the case. In most cases we end up in a community that just doesn't have the same values we were raised with.

You can attend all the HOA meetings you care to attend, and if you are careful to record them, then listen to the tapes while reading the minutes you'll soon become skeptical of that perfect little community your chose. The minutes are deceitful and lull you into thinking the Board is managing properly. CAI (Community Association Institute, a trade organization) has robbed the word specifically to use as propaganda. There is where they lie begins. If a community is: a group of people with a common characteristic or interest living together within a larger society then that might loosely define us. In reality most of us have little in common with the person who shares a wall with our unit. We don't go to sports events together, we don't have dinner together, we don't talk about the kids ... we say "Hi, nice weather". End of conversation. It's not a barn raising event, a bake sale or a quilting bee. We never get to know them.

If you can't trust the minutes to be an accurate representation of a meeting you didn't attend, what can you trust? Boards are not required to tape or video a meeting. However, you can! And you can do so without giving notice to the Board with very few exceptions. Board members or their Management Company skew the minutes the way they want them to read to the Members. They leave out their intent to installing cameras, or that they created a new enforcement + fine policy or the conversation about raising rates. They never reprimand the Board member who consistently has trucks parked on their front yard. They slip new enforcement policies onto the website and hope you don't see it until you're fined. It's an ambush instead of a conversation.

It matters not if you are important in the community. They will try to make you irrelevant but stand your ground. It matters not if a Board Member is your friend. What matters if that when the board lies and connives, you call them on it. Bring it out into the open. The only way an HOA can become a community if indeed the board is open and honest about their discussions. Hiding conversation due to a State Statute and subsequently closing a meeting members leads to dissent.

It is not carefree living in an HOA.

If you have suffered HOA abuse, contact HOATruth.com. Dennis Legere is the principal advocate. Or you can reach me at EarsUp@iCloud.com. Full disclosure, neither are attorneys. We do this bc we don't like bullies. FREE.