There are some great benefits to living in a condo, including the fact that most normal maintenance is taken care of by the building owner or the HOA.
What would you do if they not only didn’t keep the property in good conditions, but also tried to increase the HOA dues by a significant amount?
And put liens on properties if it wasn’t paid immediately?
That is what happened to the community in this story, so one person put a lien on the HOA president’s home for $31 in a perfect act of petty revenge.
Check it out.
This may be the most petty thing I have ever done in my life.
I’m a pretty petty person, and I also believe in malicious compliance, but this takes the cake.
So I bought a condo in a building in a large city in the US about 2.5 years ago.
The building has an HOA that we all pay into monthly.
Since I’ve lived here, the building has rapidly deteriorated and we have all hired an attorney for a class action style lawsuit.
What are they doing with the HOA money?
I’m talking broken elevators, broken rooftop AC units, the pool was empty for four months during the summer, etc.
The people in the building are great though, and we are a friendly bunch.
Last year, I took the HOA to Small Claims court because they failed to provide financial documents that show us how our fees are being spent.
Great victory.
As this is a legal requirement for all HOAs in my state, I won the case and was awarded the $30 filing fee plus $1, symbolic (I sued for documents, not money).
The fact that they can’t provide the docs as they are legally required to do is a separate issue among others including possible crimes that we’ve hired the attorneys for.
I have asked the HOA to pay the $31 to me, and the president of the HOA wants to either meet me somewhere private to give it to me.
Or he wants to mail me a Satisfaction of Judgement form, have me sign it, and mail it back to him and then he will mail me a check.
No to both!
Three days after I won the case, the HOA announced that they were going to charge us all a special assessment of about $1000 each and an increase in our monthly dues of 10%.
In my state, a membership vote gets triggered if you charge a special assessment that brings the building more than 5% its yearly income, which means 51% of the owners must approve of the assessment for it to take effect.
That is a huge amount of money for some people.
As this $$$$ is about 20% of our yearly income, a vote should have taken place.
When we asked about this vote, the HOA said that it was being made under an emergency clause, which means that the membership vote doesn’t have to take place.
The emergency? Fixing the elevator that broke on Dec 24, 2021.
The spirit of the emergency clause is for things like fire, earthquake, flood, etc, not a broken elevator that has been broken for a year already.
I would push back too.
When there was understandable pushback, the HOA sent out a little email stating that anyone who didn’t pay the assessment would have a lien put on their unit.
The liens came down yesterday to those that couldn’t pay $1000 on short notice (our attorneys told us that even though the money is in dispute, we still have to pay it, and I did pay mine, but we also have a lot of retirees/lower income people in the building).
The HOA president’s house is currently on the market for $20m.
This is too funny.
I just got back from the courthouse where I filed a $31 lien against it for $140, clouding its title.
It’s a matter of principle, not money.
Now the title can’t change hands until he pays me my $31 and I am perfectly within my rights to collect on a judgement owed 🙂
Even though he’ll be able to pay that money quick, it will undoubtedly take a while to clear the lien, so this is perfect.
Let’s see what the people in the comments have to say.
Here is someone that recommends getting the police involved.
I hope this is true.
This person points out that they are entitled to interest.
Here is a take from another HOA president.
Yup, I love it.
The HOA president needs to be in jail.
But humiliation is a good second.
If you liked that story, check out this post about an oblivious CEO who tells a web developer to “act his wage”… and it results in 30% of the workforce being laid off.
