Can the Board Strip Away Our Voting Rights?
If the Board can continue on the present path, then our voting rights are gone. Every election will be predetermined and we will simply write checks and nod our heads.
Can the Board simply refuse to accept your annual assessment check and then place a lien on your property or attempt to remove your voting rights? Can this practice be a prelude to involuntary foreclosure of your property without your knowledge? This is precisely what has happened on more than one occasion in Huntington Village and it is just another of a series of well hidden secrets.
To See How This May Happen....Can the Board unilaterally increase your annual assessment without a vote and the approval of the community property owners?
(Our Governing Documents REQUIRE a 75% affirmative vote of all community property owners for this to happen) This indeed is precisely what has happened and most members of the community have not a single clue of that violation. Most are not aware for the simple fact that "altered" copies ofdeed restrictions have been passed to old and new property owners alike for over 10 years. This practice has only recently been factually uncovered and we can assure you that those responsible do not appreciate your knowing the real truth.
Can the board unilaterally send you a notice of violation of some ambiguous deed restriction whether factual or not and remove your right to vote? This has happened more often than the current board would like for you to know.
One homeowner was sent a notice of violation for his gutters that were falling down. His reply: "I do not have gutters on my house"....
Another homeowner who rents out one of her homes received a postcard indicating that the grass had not been mowed to "someone's" satisfaction. A few days later was the annual community election and this homeowner was embarrassed to discover upon attempting to vote that her "voting rights" had been arbitrarily suspended. This Property Owner was PROHIBITED FROM VOTING in the annual election because someone sent her a card?
There is more than one "case"
where property owners have sent their annual maintenance in full and on time, but the HV Directors refused to accept the tendered checks and even attempted to return the payments. This common "tactic" was then used to claim the property owner had not paid the annual assessment and a lien was placed on the property owners' home. To make matters worse, the property owners were embarrassed to be told that they were no longer "members in good standing" and could not vote in the annual election nor deliver any of the proxy votes they had gathered from within the community.
On at least one occasion, the director in charge of the annual election summoned the Constable to have the offending "members" either evicted from the community voting building or even "arrested" for the crime of simply asking the HV director to jot down the reason they were not being allowed to vote or deliver any of the proxy votes of other property owners in hand. We have an idea why this kind of action cannot be allowed to be documented in print when it occurs. Do you?
More on this subject as it continues.....
Many Homeowners in the recent past and dating back over ten years have been involved in a steamy and controversial topic dealing with the amount we are billed each year in the annual assessments. Our Deed Restrictions place a maximum limit of $96 per year unless an election of the community can produce a minimum affirmative vote of 75% of the HV homeowners to approve any change. Many residents have asked the same question time after time, but depending on who you are the answers may be very different.
Most are first verbally assured that an election took place in 1984 and everything is just fine.
(Altered copies of deed restrictions that for years have been distributed to HV homeowners indicate that a vote of the community took place in 1984. We now know that that 'indicated' vote NEVER HAPPENED! Those 'altered' copies of our Deed Restrictions are misleading to many who have read them. We are now informed that
When and if pressured to provide the proof of that vote, the directors' next ploy may then be an attempt to explain that either "we needed the money" or if that doesn't appear to receive your approval it then may become "well we decided to raise the annual assessment and get the votes later", or we have even heard "a court case (somewhere vague) said we could do this and we did". One should wonder at this point that if this perceived attitude is to fly, then the next time your home is found burglarized and the culprit is caught, would you accept the excuse of.... "we needed the money"???
To date, the official Deed Restrictions on file as public record in the Harris County Courthouse reflect no official change from the $96 figure. When questioned by the Texas Attorney General, the Board President finally admitted in print that "...no documents exist to legitimize the increase...". (View Page 6, Section 23 of your Current Recorded Deed Restrictions
) The courts have been and are still active in Houston on this very sticky issue. (Rumor has it that more than one EX-Director will be helping to blow the whistle on this one.) Stay tuned for more....
News just in tells us that the Board of Directors have threatened to file lawsuits on ALL FIVE COMPETING CANDIDATES who agreed to run for director seats in the last Annual Election. Reasons given so far are sketchy, but if this is indeed true, the precedence this would set would be chilling and far reaching. Imagine asking for volunteers to run for a future election as a director for the HOA, but with a warning label on it? This kind of action, if taken, would be very interesting to say the least.
Stay Tuned, It Gets Worse.... More...
There is another side to this. There are Board members who do not know the deed restrictions, Texas law, or the real facts of what has transpired and have been misled. This is evident by the fact that there are now a few Ex-Directors who have kept records of some very interesting behavior, much to the dismay and chagrin of the bullies and their collections and litigation lawyer (paid for by you and me). Why did the now Ex-Board members keep such clear records documenting the questionable indiscretions? Because they were once ignorant of the facts and now are ex Directors and not so ignorant.Do we have the right to attend a homeowners meeting without fear or threat of intimidation or arrest?
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