Thursday, April 21, 2016

KFOX14 Investigates: Residents continue battle with Oasis Ranch HOA | KFOX

KFOX14 Investigates: Residents continue battle with Oasis Ranch HOA | KFOX: "Some residents living in the Oasis Ranch neighborhood in east El Paso are continuing their protest against their Homeowner's Association board.

KFOX14Investigates reported last week some residents stopped paying their $20 monthly HOA fees, saying they're not getting the maintenance services they pay for.

Dana Properties, who manages the neighborhood, said the HOA can't do needed maintenance because they don't have the money since people have quit paying the fees."

----------

Not paying HOA assessments is always a risky tactic. You can find yourself facing a lien on your home that can be released only by paying the assessments plus thousands of dollars in attorney fees and penalties.

2 comments:

Tom Skiba said...

Good advice Evan

Unknown said...

This says it all:

Adams said residents can file complaints with environmental services if they feel there are violations.
"The city has made it simple," he said. "Just call '311' and they will create a case for that and we will go out and investigate any and all cases."
Adams said El Paso Environmental Services has investigated about 150 complaints in the Oasis Ranch neighborhood over the last several years.

Clearly, residents are not getting any satisfaction here. the City and the HOA just keep blaming the victims for not voting in another board. But given all of the recent reports of HOA voting fraud (not to mention all of the unreported cases I hear about on a regular basis), it may be next to impossible for the owners to vote in a new board. Even if they were able to do that, would the new board be any more qualified? Maybe not.

There's simply no accountability here. And no amount of board member education is going to tranform board members into trained public administrators. What is the manager's role here? If dues are not being collected, why pay for a manager?

There needs to be an effective recourse for owners when the HOA does not provide maintenance and repairs to common areas and elements. It is ironic that the HOA can go after owners - to the point of placing a lien and foreclosing on the home after adding exortitant attorney fees - but the owners have no equivalent way to go after the HOA that is squandering (or perhaps even stealing) their money.