HOA Extortion during an Epidemic?

Hi. This is “Jim” on Phoebe Way, with an update on my story in Chapter II of “Living on Cuckoo Court.” (Note 1) You recall that, in the fall of 2020, I got laid off, and we fell behind in our monthly HOA assessments. The HOA and its debt attorneys, smelling blood, demanded I pay all that I owed immediately, as well as hundreds of dollars in fines. They also insisted I pay future HOA monthly assessments ($794.50 in a lump sum) up to the end of 2021. That’s right, we are tight on money, and the HOA demanded that I pay future bills in advance.

Well, Governor Hogan popped their balloon, issuing an executive order that rent, and HOA assessments, late fees, and the like, could not be demanded of people during the epidemic—although the bill would come due later. I breathed a sigh of relief.

Silly me. I opened the mail in April 2021 to discover that the HOA’s debt collection attorney had removed those charges, but had invented new ones: $475 in what appears to be attorney’s fees. (Note 2) --Jim, Phoebe Way

Steve L comments follow: Wow! What an enterprising bunch, these debt attorneys! That’s morally repulsive, but you gotta admire their hutzpah.

Is this stuff legal? It looks like loophole lollapalooza. How many millions of HOA-entrapped homeowners in Maryland are being abused like this? There are perhaps 14 million residents of HOAs in our state. (Note 3) There is big money to be made when we lose our homes. "Property flippers in the real estate market notched record average gross earnings in 2020." (Note 4) How are these perverse HOA-industry practices accelerating housing instability? Emotional depression? The debt crisis? Family distress? Lost of trust in government?

We residents have to pay for the whip that whips us, even as we are whupped. How does any of this align with the HOA’s sworn duty to “promote the health, safety, and welfare of the residents”? If that is a law, it has been broken.

As in many other states, the predatory HOA industry in the State of Maryland has blue collar workers in a choke hold, extracting wealth by hook or by crook—governor’s edicts and Fair Housing Laws be damned. As The Washington Post reports, tenants rarely can afford lawyers when they go up against landlords, (Note 5) and that’s equally true of homeowners when they’re being strangled by HOA debt collectors. I suppose "Jim" could hire a lawyer for $500 an hour, get a few fees and fines reduced, but the HOA would be after him again next year, and the year after that. Once you are on an HOA’s hit list, you never get off.

I went to a Webster’s Unabridged Dictionary, a big paper book from 1979, and looked up "extortion.” It’s from the Latin extorquere, meaning “to wrench away.” It’s “the act or practice of wresting money from a person by force, threats, misuse of authority, or by any undue exercise of power.” That's more than Google lets you know.

Independent American Communities (Note 6) describes how many of these abusive practices are upheld by state laws that were drafted by (you guessed it) debt attorney lobbyists. Maybe it’s legal to extort people in this manner in the State of Maryland. "Maybe my wife and I will lose our home before this is over. But I don’t want to think like that," says Jim.

This is America. If Justice is asleep, then we need to wake her up. We are organizing and petitioning our HOA, county, and state politicians. (Note 7) I have joined with 50 Quail Valley families, and we are growing. Some of us walk around the neighborhood on the first Friday evening of each month, the “Shine a Light” walk, in hopes of seeing a more compassionate HOA. We meet at the barn at 8:00pm and “walk the loop” together.

"What's the loop?" you ask. From a crow’s eye view, Quail Valley Boulevard is shaped like a horseshoe, with Strawberry Knoll Road connecting the two ends, There’s a concrete sidewalk all the way round, and the county makes small repairs every year, so it's in good shape. The 2-mile loop is favored by new parents with strollers, joggers, dog walkers, heart-healthy grandparents, a hiker with severe autism and his aide, and others who learn to love the neighborhood. There’s variety in the landscape. You go down the gentle slope to the bottom of the valley (where the old maps tell of “Heron Rill”) and then you gently climb up the knoll. You walk along a boulevard of oak and maple trees; past homes, large common lawns, the elementary school, the community garden, and the outdoor pool. Up, down, and then up again. Just like the economy. Just like life, sometimes.

NOTES

1. “Living on Cuckoo Court,” Chapter 2, https://patch.com/maryland/gai..

2. We believe these entries can be correctly call “attorney’s fees.” The letters these days are sent by the debt collector, not from the HOA or its property manager any more. Also, the lines on the Statement of Account read “setup, ov, bkv” and “lwl, mail,” for entries of $195.00 and $185.00, respectively. The fine print on the back of the statement explicates some of the alphabet soup. Ov = owner verification. Bkv = bankruptcy verification. Lwl = lien warning letter. Mail = the cost of mailing all this stuff to me via Certified Mail, I suppose. Setup = Yes, my family has been set up and is under attack by my own HOA and its "vendors."

3. "National and State Statistical Review for 2016: Community Association Data," www.caionline.org

4. Kyle Swenson, “Third landlord, same ticking clock,” The Washington Post (May 7, 2021), p. A1.

5. “Opinion: In our system, landlords have lawyers. Tenants often don’t. So tenants lose,” Opinion by the Editorial Board, The Washington Post (April 22, 2021); and see Note 4.

6. “Exposing Conodo and HOA Corruption and Abuse,” Independent American Communities.com, https://independentamericancommunities.com/

7. This piece is Chapter VII in the series at PATCH.com, "Living on Cuckoo Court." The series contains the anonymous testimonies (true stories) and opinions of residents living in HOA communities in Maryland. We hope to collect more such narratives--the good, the bad, and the ugly. Send comments to MuskratMusic@gmail.com
IndependentAmericanCommunities.com tracks the problem nationally. Enter "Maryland" in the search box at that site for interesting results.
The Quail Valley Friendly Team of 50+ families is trying to end these HOA abuses in our own neighborhood in Maryland. Join them by sending a message to the email below. –Steven Sellers Lapham, a 20-year resident, lives at 18737 Purple Martin Lane, Gaithersburg, MD 20879, USA.
May 7, 2021. MuskratMusic@gmail.com

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