On Fri, 27 Apr 2007 09:54:51 +0000 (UTC),
(Larry W) wrote:

IANAL. I think it is somewhat questionable to shut off water as a means
of collecting a HOA fee but won't make any other comment on that.

I agree with you that it at least questionable. But that decision has
been made already, when I wasn't on the board, and I can't turn back
the tide. In fact, even if the decision hadn't been made, I would
only be one vote out of nine, and I've learned that I'm not very
convincing, at least with every set of board members I've served
with**. And they have a point, especially for the 5 or 6 who live in
the house they own, that we have been trying to collect the money for
years, and that they either refused to come in and talk about it, or
they made appointments to come in and then didn't show up. After the
October meeting, on that one night I think 3 people were scheduled to
come in and either one or none did.

**I would probably not have been good in elective office, which I
thought about for a few years. That was the major reason I went to
law school (and then dropped out) and I don't feel so bad about not
finishing since I later learned that I don't remember names or faces,
don't like asking friends for favors or strangers for money, and could
not have gotten elected to anything, or done well had I been.

However, I don't see how it can be "illegal" to tell the tenant or anyone
else anything.

Related story at the bottom***.

As I thought about it more, I realized where they are coming from, but
that doesn't mean I think they are right.

Ironically, I was involved in the first chapter of this. Because of a
dispute 20 years ago, I decided to enlist and get elected to the board
a slate of 6 candidates, and I got the other five, and gave each of
them an area near their house to solicit proxies from. But I didn't
want them to waste their time on people who were more than 3 months
late on their dues because the bylaws didn't permit them to vote
anyhow.

I was already on the board and was allowed to know who was delinquent,
and what I should have done is take all those people for myself and
then ignored them. Instead I put an asterisk or something on the list
next to their names and explained verbally to the 5 other candidates
that they were 3 months delinquent and couldn't vote.

I never did find out what exact rule I violated, but boy the stink
when more people found out about this. I may have truly embarrassed
one of the delinquent homeowners, or maybe it was my political
opponent in the HOA making as much hay as possible out of it.

Anyhow, for years after this, they didn't even show the board members
the names of people who owed money. We would discuss their cases
based on how much money they owed but not their names and I guess not
their addresses.

So the problem now would be that to tell the tenant would be telling
someone not on the board about a homeowner who owes money.

I don't know what rule I violated in the first place, but if there is
a rule, I'm pretty sure there is an exception for telling his tenant,
especially when the person is about to lose his water.
--
Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler.

Larry Wasserman - Baltimore Maryland - lwasserm(a)sdf. lonestar. org


***One of my stupid neighbors, although he had a good job, once told
me I "illegally went to the HOA's lawyer." He said this in a meeting
and I asked him if he was accusing me of a crime. He didn't answer,
but I think even in the words he used he had libelled me, and iirc, at
least in NYS, don't know about Md., you don't have to show actual
damages to recover something if you are falsely accused of committing
a crime. But I wasn't going to sue him, only taunt him at most.

I didn't even do that. I tried instead to make up with him, and left
him a conciliatory note which I dropped off just before I went away
for 5 days. When I got home, there were three messages from him on my
machine. The first was nice, in response to my note. The second was
a complaint that I hadn't called him back, and the third was really
angry and offended that I hadn't called him back. I told him I had
been away, but he was back to not liking me and my words meant
nothing.

On another occasion, it came out that a private manager of group homes
for mentally retarded or mentally ill people, I forget which,
including 4 or 5 patients with one staff person looking over them, had
quietly rented one of the townhouses, and then a second one, and a
neighbor called a meeting to "solve the problem". One of them had
been only 10 townhouses from me for 4 months or more and I'd not
noticed anything special about it, and the other was across the big
parking lot from the first one for about 2 months, and I had also not
noticed it. So I didn't have any complaints. The guy in the previous
paragraph was at the meeting and so was his wife.

The wife began to speak. She said with an almost emotional voice.
"My brother was retarded, and I had to watch him every day" and I was
sure that her love for her brother would influence her feelings about
these people, and she continued, "and I had to watch him stuggle every
day, and I don't want to see that anymore." And she wanted the group
homes gone. And this couple lived on the next block and would never
have seen any of them anyhow. They were married more than 20 years,
and made for each other, both of them jerks.

The group homes stayed for a few more months and then left, but not
because of anything we did, since afaik we didn't do anything. In all
that time, I only noticed them once for 3 to 5 minutes. There was a
medium sized school bus that would pick them up to take them for
training somewhere, and once when the bus returned in the afternoon,
one of the girls, maybe between 15 and 20 didn't want to get off the
bus. And she yelled a little, and the staff person in the house came
outside and got her, and that was the end of it. I don't think the 4
families who lived next door had any complaints either. This was
during the first period when I was on the board.