I used to sit on the board of the HOA in my previous condo building. Liens are Plan A generally.
Something is fishy with this HOA. I suspect they may have something against this guy specifically and want him gone from the neighborhood. That reason could be good (running a brothel out of his house or something crazy), or very bad (they don't want Latinos in the neighborhood).
Oh look, there's something later in the article about it:
Patterson, who is now working with residents to reclaim their homes, says that most of the Green Valley Ranchers he’s met who have been foreclosed upon recently are working-class homeowners of color, many of whom speak English as a second language.
Oh and for good measure, thinking back on my time on the HOA board:
- Most of the board were immigrants of some stripe, particularly Latino, but also Eastern European and Indian.
- The one tenant we had which we considered foreclosure for was someone who was himself Latino. The issue was he refused to pay the HOA fees - ever - not one cent since he bought the home a few years before. He also had a huge number of people living there (which was by itself not a problem for anyone), but there was only 1 water meter so the water bill was divided among the building based on square footage and his unit made up around half the building's water bill (!) based on historical billing records.
- The foreclosure proceedings were intended as leverage to get him to start paying his overdue HOA fees. Nobody wanted to actually turn the guy out on the street. It worked, and he started paying, and even though his unit still (at the time I sold my unit) was using up more water than the rest and people were footing the bill for it, he was at least paying HOA fees and everyone was grudgingly fine with it.
- I don't think we ever progressed to filing the paperwork for the foreclosure.
Patterson, who is now working with residents to reclaim their homes, says that most of the Green Valley Ranchers he’s met who have been foreclosed upon recently are working-class homeowners of color, many of whom speak English as a second language.
This is not surprising. Denver is 45% "of color" [1], and the recent arrivals likely more so. It is those recent arrivals that would be over-represented among new home buyers that get snared into whatever this new HOA type that steals houses is.
Comments
I used to sit on the board of the HOA in my previous condo building. Liens are Plan A generally.
Something is fishy with this HOA. I suspect they may have something against this guy specifically and want him gone from the neighborhood. That reason could be good (running a brothel out of his house or something crazy), or very bad (they don't want Latinos in the neighborhood).
Oh look, there's something later in the article about it:
Oh and for good measure, thinking back on my time on the HOA board:
- Most of the board were immigrants of some stripe, particularly Latino, but also Eastern European and Indian.
- The one tenant we had which we considered foreclosure for was someone who was himself Latino. The issue was he refused to pay the HOA fees - ever - not one cent since he bought the home a few years before. He also had a huge number of people living there (which was by itself not a problem for anyone), but there was only 1 water meter so the water bill was divided among the building based on square footage and his unit made up around half the building's water bill (!) based on historical billing records.
- The foreclosure proceedings were intended as leverage to get him to start paying his overdue HOA fees. Nobody wanted to actually turn the guy out on the street. It worked, and he started paying, and even though his unit still (at the time I sold my unit) was using up more water than the rest and people were footing the bill for it, he was at least paying HOA fees and everyone was grudgingly fine with it.
- I don't think we ever progressed to filing the paperwork for the foreclosure.
This is not surprising. Denver is 45% "of color" [1], and the recent arrivals likely more so. It is those recent arrivals that would be over-represented among new home buyers that get snared into whatever this new HOA type that steals houses is.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver#Demographics