localinfopost
New Member
O.K. this will not be usual case but I will try to make it simple.
We are foreigners from Lithuania. As a young couple we moved to NW Indiana 5 years ago and purchased Town House as first time home buyers. Homeowners Association fee was $60 and then it was raised to $75. We were thinking that fee is being collected and placed in to special savings but that was not the case. Developer was stealing and pocketing money. For all the money he collected he hired two private people to cut grass and never ever performed any preventive maintenance on any of the buildings.
Our first issue was when we noticed adjoining property owner demolishing wild trees in the back yard with his private tractor (around 15 acres). He was also owner of now closed water park. He had no permits and in few days all trees were gone... leaving our property and back yard looking like Iraq battle field. It stayed that way since 2006. not much was done to stop him since he also was sitting Town Council member. Developer did not wanted to deal with an issue and dumped our Homeowners Association to homeowners. I was able to review and noticed that all the money collected were gone and after years of collecting Homeowners Association had less than $15K in the account. I was legally elected by the homeowners to serve as a President and really wanted to change our community and make better place to live. I was threatened and people were sabotaged and I was left without an option and resigned the same month I was elected. The reason for my removal was my disagreement to allow outside management company to handle our Homeowners Association and I wanted to retrieve stolen money.
Management company took over and without delay I and my family were made instant targets of harassment and retaliation for my previous opinion that was not in favor to sign contract with this management company. As I predicted they raised fee almost instantly to $100 without any votes or explanations to the homeowners.
Besides all kind of minor things I was forced to sell my van, place my corvette in storage, my Lexus was damaged twice and property maintenance requests were always ignored. They never cleaned our snow making last year extremely hard because of my wife's pregnancy and scheduled doctor visits. I paid two times deductible to State Farm for the Lexus vehicle damage $250 plus another incident $250.. my rate went up because of two claims (never ever had claim before). Then I had to purchase grass mower and power washer and do all the yard work myself. This year they already showed up to remove snow 4 times but we were left out again. I documented, video taped and noted few years of repeated incidents to the point that we are tired of it. With the current economy it is not in our best interest to move.
I wrote management company number of angry letters and received no response. I finally stopped payments to them for our homeowners association fee. I have not paid for 7 months $700 plus $70 late fee ($10 per month). December 30 2009 they filed a lien against my property for $920 I guess $770 plus $150 for the filing.
Funny thing we have no legal board... we have no willing members... management company dictates everything and few homeowners that were assigned to serve most likely do not know what fiduciary duty is are incompetent to be serving on board. In the middle of December board management compny distributed letters asking $140.00 per month for the fee. They use scare tacticks and steal money. They legitimize their actions by subcontracting work to their own people that work for them.
Besides small claim anyone has any better advice ?
We are foreigners from Lithuania. As a young couple we moved to NW Indiana 5 years ago and purchased Town House as first time home buyers. Homeowners Association fee was $60 and then it was raised to $75. We were thinking that fee is being collected and placed in to special savings but that was not the case. Developer was stealing and pocketing money. For all the money he collected he hired two private people to cut grass and never ever performed any preventive maintenance on any of the buildings.
Our first issue was when we noticed adjoining property owner demolishing wild trees in the back yard with his private tractor (around 15 acres). He was also owner of now closed water park. He had no permits and in few days all trees were gone... leaving our property and back yard looking like Iraq battle field. It stayed that way since 2006. not much was done to stop him since he also was sitting Town Council member. Developer did not wanted to deal with an issue and dumped our Homeowners Association to homeowners. I was able to review and noticed that all the money collected were gone and after years of collecting Homeowners Association had less than $15K in the account. I was legally elected by the homeowners to serve as a President and really wanted to change our community and make better place to live. I was threatened and people were sabotaged and I was left without an option and resigned the same month I was elected. The reason for my removal was my disagreement to allow outside management company to handle our Homeowners Association and I wanted to retrieve stolen money.
Management company took over and without delay I and my family were made instant targets of harassment and retaliation for my previous opinion that was not in favor to sign contract with this management company. As I predicted they raised fee almost instantly to $100 without any votes or explanations to the homeowners.
Besides all kind of minor things I was forced to sell my van, place my corvette in storage, my Lexus was damaged twice and property maintenance requests were always ignored. They never cleaned our snow making last year extremely hard because of my wife's pregnancy and scheduled doctor visits. I paid two times deductible to State Farm for the Lexus vehicle damage $250 plus another incident $250.. my rate went up because of two claims (never ever had claim before). Then I had to purchase grass mower and power washer and do all the yard work myself. This year they already showed up to remove snow 4 times but we were left out again. I documented, video taped and noted few years of repeated incidents to the point that we are tired of it. With the current economy it is not in our best interest to move.
I wrote management company number of angry letters and received no response. I finally stopped payments to them for our homeowners association fee. I have not paid for 7 months $700 plus $70 late fee ($10 per month). December 30 2009 they filed a lien against my property for $920 I guess $770 plus $150 for the filing.
Funny thing we have no legal board... we have no willing members... management company dictates everything and few homeowners that were assigned to serve most likely do not know what fiduciary duty is are incompetent to be serving on board. In the middle of December board management compny distributed letters asking $140.00 per month for the fee. They use scare tacticks and steal money. They legitimize their actions by subcontracting work to their own people that work for them.
Besides small claim anyone has any better advice ?
