Homeowner Threatened By New Homeowners Association

Tonight, Local 2 investigates some more aggressive tactics from homeowners associations. This time, families are being threatened in a neighborhood where families didn't even know a HOA existed. So, how can a surprise HOA sprout up with no warning?

KPRC Local 2 investigative reporter Stephen Dean has the story
                           Video: New HOA Threatens Homeowners
        
Normally, notices would have to go out to all the neighbors here near West Orem and Almeda. Then, everyone would have a chance to vote on whether to form an HOA. But here, a home builder may have formed one or he's trying to while most families were kept in the dark.

It's her first home, and Millicent Cole works hard to make her payments and keep things tidy.

"When I closed, my builder told me, absolutely, there'd be no homeowners association," she said.

Now, a year later, this Baylor College of Medicine employee is being threatened.

This letter arrived saying a new HOA has been formed and her grass wasn't short enough. Plus, she's being told she'll have to start paying dues.

"Well, what I heard was that I'm going to lose my home," Cole said.

She watched our report last week with an aggressive HOA renting a chopper to fly over a Magnolia home and then sue a family with the photos snapped from above.

"I had the letter in my hand, and what I was seeing was actually the same thing that could possibly be happening to me," she said.

In Texas, some homebuilders organize HOA boards in new subdivisions. But, the law spells out that a certain percentage of all the people who live in a neighborhood have to be given the chance to vote.

Professor Shelby Moore teaches about the HOAs at South Texas College of Law.

"If the developer has put these people on the board, then you've got a whole sort of incestuous thing going on. That's not pretty," she said.

Cole is being told that her builder formed the new HOA for this whole area, but it's tough to tell if it legally elected a true board of directors. We couldn't find any neighbors who had ever heard of it. If no election was held, it may have no legal authority whatsoever.

The letter from Progressive Property Management had a return address on Highway 6. It's nothing more than a mail drop at this store.

We searched county and state records, and we found no HOA and no listing for the management company renting this box. They didn't respond to our calls and a fax seeking answers.

"The legislation is more watered down than it should be," Moore said.

Moore says families can be kept in the dark about new HOAs sprouting up. Then, it's much tougher to vote and remove the board members because they have such a head start.

She says Austin needs a push in the coming legislative session.

"If we want some change and we want change in a greater way, then we have to be willing to follow the issue through to the end," Moore said.

If you get a letter from an HOA you've never heard of, demand to see the minutes of any board meetings and elections, and you're entitled to see how notice was served to the neighborhood that a new HOA exists.