condo HOA (attorney, home, construction)

[whisker68]

Our community is partly constructed and the developer has informed us that he will be leaving this project because the bank that held his note has gone out of business and he does not have any prospects for future financing to continue building. He has informed us that he is assessing each homeowner $400.00 because there was a deficit in the budget that he and his partners wil not continue to pay. He is leaving by the first of the year ( 2 months from now) and the bank account of the association is empty. Are we obligated legally to pay this amount in light of the circumstances? Many of us think we should put the money in our HOA account to start off our takeover in the black.

[ellie]

I'd talk to an attorney.

[bellhead]

Which condo complex?

Also I would call an attorney and get an a court order against him touching any of the money. Why is it your problem he went broke?

I have seen many of HOA's is controlled by a builder usually a five person board with the builders/developers controlling 3 of the seats until the home owners stage a revolt and kick them off of the board.

The builders treat the hoa account as a slush fund and funnel money to their friends and family in return for discount work at the developement. 2 prices for jobs.

A good example of this was my last place I lived at. The builders controlled the HOA, after the builders nephew who was another builder went to jail for embezzlement and bank fraud did people in the HOA get curious and we requested the books. The builders and developers fought like crazy to keep them shut. What was happening was the same contractors were being used for the builder on both the HOA and then for construction. As you can guess there was a lot of no bid contracts awarded to contractors, the best we could figure is they would do work at cost for the builder/developer or they were part of the family.

After two years we and a lot of local unrest the builder finally stepped down. The fees dropped from around $600 to $211 a year during my last year.