Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Creekside Golf Club owners sue HOA board for reserve fund spending

Creekside Golf Club owners sue HOA board for reserve fund spending

"Creekside Golf Club’s owners have asked a judge to remove the board of an adjacent homeowners association and put the HOA into receivership. It’s the latest volley in a two-year legal battle that will decide whether the club’s owners, developers Larry Tokarski and Terry Kelly, can close the South Salem championship course and turn it into a residential subdivision. The developers say the six members of the Creekside Homeowners Association Board, all of whom own golf course-view homes, illegally used the association’s reserve account to pay for an April 2016 lawsuit alleging the course must remain open indefinitely. That bankrupted the association, raising monthly assessments for the many homeowners whose property values would not be affected by the course’s closure, the lawsuit alleges."

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I haven't looked up any of the pleadings, but this looks like an unusual situation. The golf course owners seem to be claiming there is no contractual or property rights connection between the golf course and the residential properties, so they can turn the course into a subdivision if they want to.  But the HOA said that buyers were promised in their original covenants that there would be a golf course next door.  Deborah Goonan did a long post on HOA conflicts involving golf courses that mentions this case and others.