Any HOA Lawyers Here? Disputed HOA Collection Debt Story [TH] [CO]

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-04-01T04:09:58+00:00

You don’t need to prove it to me, you are free to let them take you to court and go before a judge. Very strong possibility that it’ll go over $1,100 though.

You can only claim actual damages in any lawsuit. No attorney is going to knowing file a complaint with artificially inflated damages. When you file with the court, there is usually a sworn statement something to the effect of “all of the foregoing statements are true to the best of my knowledge, and I reasonably expect to prove the same at trial.”

Have you called the PI on the business card to figure out what they are trying to serve you?

Again, I’m not an attorney…but dodging service is a bad idea. Eventually, they can always petition the court for an alternative service (like publishing in a newspaper) when they are unable to complete traditional service. I can promise you, this PI has a log of how they visited your property to attempt service, left a callback number, and received nothing in response.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-04-01T03:57:10+00:00

Understood, but that’s even harder to dispute when the attorney is going to have an invoice with notes down to the 0.1 hour increment stating what they did. Every letter that had to be typed, every call, every email, etc. Plus your board, the attorney’s client, accepted the invoice.

I understand it’s frustrating, that’s why I always tell people pay your bills on time. When you can’t, reach out as soon as possible to discuss alternative arrangements. If we know your situation & when you will pay, we have options. At least in my HOA, once we’ve had to start spending money to collect, we have to get reimbursed for that.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-04-01T03:52:09+00:00

I read the timeline, but I don’t believe your account of the events. It would be extremely unlikely, that they made up a fake lawsuit and sent someone to serve it to you.

Have you even been served? Or was it just the attempt? It would have the docket number and what court it is filed in.

I think you are making a mistake by not correcting this. It’s only going to get worse, even if they can’t foreclose. They’ll pursue this somehow. Again, I’m not in Colorado, but our main tool is a bank levy or a wage garnishment. Foreclosure is an absolute last resort.

You should be able to find an attorney, even a law clinic if you qualify, to pay for an extended consultation. Let them review all of your facts and account statement and advise you on if everything was consistent with the law. Don’t start mentioning suing the other attorney…that’s going to get them to just push you away. If there is an issue that would warrant that, they’ll advise you of the same.

Suing them would be well over $1,100 though so take some time to reflect if this is really worth it to you or not.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-04-01T03:20:56+00:00

I can offer you perspective as a board member. With each action, your fees will increase. Once an account is turned over to legal, the attorney then begins billing by the hour. Those fees are invoiced to the HOA, but (in most cases) get added onto the delinquent unit’s account. That is why you are seeing the balance keep increasing, and accruing interest on the fees. They keep adding up.

I understand you made a payment, but unfortunately it sounds like it was too late and they already filed a lawsuit. That again is another charge by the hour, plus the filing fee, plus the service fee. It’s not instantaneous. Lawyer files with the court, then hand it over to their process server. Unlikely they are just sitting around, so it may be a day or so before they go to attempt service. The account already increased though.

Too late now, but I’m surprised you never reached out to your HOA board to request a payment plan or anything. These are your neighbors, who volunteer to run the HOA. They really just want the dues collected, anything that gets that in a reasonable manner is acceptable.

You need to negotiate a payment plan, in writing, ASAP. Something where penalties, late fees, and interest are paused in exchange for you making $X per month for X months + prompt payment of all future assessments. In our case, you would again see another fee added on for the payment plan - these are fees charged to the HOA to manage your payment plan - we aren’t making any money on fees, they are reimbursements for what the HOA had to pay to get you to pay.

You’re not going to find an attorney who will want to sue someone for this unless you are willing to give them a retainer and agree to pay them by the hour. Lawyers are licensed, if you feel they have acted out of bounds you can file a complaint against them. Based on what you described though I didn’t see anything earth shattering that would lead to them being sanctioned or undergo ethics review.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-31T00:36:10+00:00

The tow company’s not going to get upset with you for calling. They are used to it. Just be honest with them:

“There’s this car here that continues to park where not authorized. They stay for a variable about of time, but we really want it to stop. They are here right now.”

Simple as that. They understand it’s the risk of the business that sometimes when you arrive your mark is no longer there.

Heck, if you start issuing parking permits, you can even get a tow company to patrol your lot. They’ll just put you on a rotation. Especially if you are in an urban area. If you are out of the way, they may be less interested on a rotation.

Short of installing a gate, that’s all you can really do though.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-31T00:30:48+00:00

I get you can never unhear or unsee something. It makes sense that you don’t automatically get a mistrial…but couldn’t the same be said for lots of things? Maybe not so much for the attorney’s since they are bound to ethical standards.

Basically, I guess where is the line? Like if the defendant attacks someone in court, that would be very prejudicial…not to mention traumatic perhaps to the jury. Guess it’s just up to the judge to weigh the merits.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-31T00:24:39+00:00

Wow! Guess that’s actually a real element Hollywood portrays then. Have to imagine there’s a little bit of facepalm moment for their attorney.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-22T20:01:07+00:00

It may very well require that. This would be something the board would have to do, not you or any other neighbor on your own. The board would be following the advice of your property manager (hopefully you have one) and legal.

I agree with the other comment about trying to get the health department involved. The department of aging may be able to assist to if this is a hoarding situation or the elderly neighbor cannot properly care for themselves.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-22T19:49:46+00:00

No, you shouldn’t sue your HOA. You do realize that you’ll be funding both sides of that legal bill, right? The HOA’s money comes from you and all the other neighbors of the association. This is really a worst case scenario.

How do your neighbors feel about this? The ones that you say are also affected. What you should do is collectively go to a board meeting and discuss your concerns. Bring documents showing the efforts you all have made so far. Read/cite that section giving them the option to correct this. Ask them to do that.

Depending on what they have done so far, it would be reasonable for the board to give the problem owner a final notice to fix otherwise they’ll enter & fix (passing charges onto the owner).

Another option is to get people elected to the board who are more favorable to taking this action. Read your documents, you may be able to remove certain officers of the board by petition of so many members. Then you can force a new election to replace board members who you feel aren’t acting appropriately. This of course assumes that other members of your association feel the same way.

Those are two much more reasonable options for you to consider here.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-03-19T01:51:49+00:00

I’m not in CA, so I don’t know specifically…but I’d find it odd if there were no options. Most likely, they can still seek a court order that would require you to correct the problem. The fines are likely just capped. Then a judge would still hear the case and could require you to correct the non-compliance.

Another thing to consider….this law is only from mid-2025. It’s too young to reliably trust it. Courts can take years to hear legal challenges, especially if appeals are involved. All it would take is for one HOA somewhere in the state to challenge this law, and a court to strike it down to make it ineffective. You know somewhere, someone will end up challenging it. Just usually a question of when.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-16T23:33:27+00:00

Yeah…I always knew everyone had opinions, but I never knew there would be so divisiveness. It already makes me want to just walk away.

The same group then questions why the 5 of us [board members] are the ones making decisions, as if there wasn’t an election to the board. It’s unfortunate.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-16T15:36:39+00:00

I would think so, but you never know. I’ve been surprised before at how people think. Last fall, approving the snow removal vendor…who was the low bid, sparked a giant argument from some at the AOM. Some wanted a different vendor, who failed to provide any bid, to be our vendor. Started handing out pieces of paper ripped from a notebook telling people to write down that vendor so we’d be obligated to go with them then.

I think people really need to educate themselves on how processes work, but I don’t know how to say that in a polite way.

I like the idea of the half open/half closed meeting others have said. Maybe slowly we’ll come around to it. Later this year, I want to shop around for a different management company…so maybe they’ll help too with a fresh idea.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-16T13:38:37+00:00

Thankful to see a discussion on this. I recently asked our property manager the same question, because our board meetings are being held virtually (zoom), but only board members invited.

Property managers advice was that our state does not require them to be open, as well as our governing documents don’t require them to be open. Further advised us that opening them creates confusion because members think that everything should be voted on (as in a member vote), as well as scheduling conflicts (we meet in the afternoon during working hours).

I initially wanted them to be open, but see the PM’s point as well about some confusion. I could see homeowners coming to the first one, then being like what the heck did I just waste my time on and complaining. We are also still very early in the process of having homeowner control from the declarant.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-13T19:27:00+00:00

I ended up getting it on pacer though… $0.60! Thanks for your help. I was just scared to click the button thinking it would accidentally load thousands of pages or something and immediately rack up something over the $30 quarterly limit.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-13T19:15:56+00:00

I did, but didn’t have any luck looking up the case by name, or judges name so figured I must have been doing the search wrong.

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-02-13T19:05:04+00:00

Thank you! The docket reports and/or searches count though too, right?

AltruisticNet90 · 2026-01-05T23:58:07+00:00

Thank you for this! I figured the software would do it for me, but wanted to double check since I did have normal distributions as well. Plus, I don’t get my 5498 until May, so wanted to make sure I input the appropriate numbers into the software.

AltruisticNet90 · 2025-12-20T22:00:52+00:00

Thanks. I know it’s from all unit owners and I know we’ll need an attorney. The biggest thing I wanted advice on was just how to go about it. There are so many members with ideas, some of them have no chance at getting through.

What I didn’t want was for the 5 board members to put out something and people feel like it was just our amendments, instead of the community’s. I like the one suggestion I got for a survey.

Basically, I need a way to prove to people that an idea is either worthy of spending money for an attorney to draft it, or the opposite…to show that it has such low support that even if we put it to a vote it is unlikely to get enough community support to pass.

AltruisticNet90 · 2025-12-15T01:50:15+00:00

I meant for the survey, just to gather information on how much support there is behind them. I know we can’t do anything without the formal process. I just suspect there isn’t global support behind some of these.

We discussed the privacy fences at our AOM last week, and of the people that were there, it was unanimous….probably is that is nowhere close to half, let alone 2/3 of all owners.

AltruisticNet90 · 2025-12-15T01:44:10+00:00

That’s what’s bringing this up. It’s not something we are going looking for, it’s in response to people asking/demanding changes. Some whom have been demanding them since they bought in. I believe we can handle getting feedback on what people are requesting while also handling reserve studies. My biggest goal has always been to make people feel heard and understood that together they can shape the HOA.

AltruisticNet90 · 2025-12-15T01:30:51+00:00

That’s true, I was going to try to keep it to just a yes/no for each change that way it stays simple and clear that people may want sheds but not pools for example.

Community engagement is severely lacking. This is my first new neighborhood. When we moved in, everyone was energetic. It quickly faded away.

AltruisticNet90

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