In Beaverton, about 33 families live within the Cooper Mountain Estates. Ho a your typical quiet suburban neighborhood, Sam Shaikh and his wife have owned their home since 2008. Recently renting it out to a retired military member. And his family for 15 years. Shake said they had no problems with the neighborhood's homeowners Association. Then last year new neighbors took charge of the three person ho a board you're facing. What kind of penalties right now? Right now we're looking at 10,150. Last time I checked and it's continuing to go up ho A set the rules for a neighborhood, collecting dues and issuing fines for violations. They have similar authority to a government agency but they don't have the accountability of one neighbors here found out that can quickly go sideways. It started in the garage. Shaikh's tenant liked to do woodworking there. The ho A board sent multiple violations and fines up to 1000 $350 per week saying the tenant was operating a woodworking business that he couldn't fit two cars in the garage and that woodworking was proof of habitation in the garage. All ho A violations. This is not a habitation. This is occasional, this is a woodworking hobby. We don't believe that we're in any violations. Shaikh says they were fined for a dead patch of grass which they had covered with stone pavers after checking with the previous board. And then there were fines for who's inside the house. Kgw talked with multiple families who were penalized for having older family members, like parents in law, living with them. The ho a fine families, $300 a week for using their homes as multi family dwellings, the the board asked for specifics so names, uh cars, uh license plates, et cetera, all personal details from every person in there. And you can imagine it's kind of humiliating. Some people moved out of the neighborhood because of these fines and other board decisions. Others asked for their interviews not to be shown on camera because they're trying to get their fines reduced or removed and are worried about retaliation for sheikh. The violation seemed petty and personal. We felt targeted as other families have had felt as well and certainly the tenant felt targeted. I felt that everything we did wouldn't be satisfactory. And this was proved true. On October 17th, a group of 12 frustrated homeowners sent the ho a board a letter requesting a special meeting. They said they wanted to vote to remove the board's president and per the ho a bylaws, they had the numbers to do so. The very next day, board President Martin Anderson called a special meeting of his own. He and one other board member voted to change the bylaws requiring at least half of the neighborhood's homeowners to call for a special meeting. And 90% of the homeowners to establish a quorum. You sent a letter to recall, the board president, that letter was received and the next day they changed the rules. So recall is basically impossible. Yes, that's correct. When homeowners found out that the threshold had been changed without notice to us. We were all shocked. A few weeks ago, I talked with ho a President Martin Anderson on the phone asking him for an interview so he could explain his perspective on all of this. He said the board wanted to crack down on late dues and costs like how much the board was paying for landscaping throughout the neighborhood. And he felt the neighborhood had gone downhill in recent years. Now, we talked for an hour and he had a lot to say, but he didn't agree to an on camera interview that day. And since then, he hasn't responded to my messages. A few weeks after the board changed the rules, Sam Sheikh received two more fines saying his tenant was observed from the street performing work on their truck, a violation of dismantling or assembling motor vehicles. The other violation said the garage was being used for performing repairs on an automobile which involved habitation of the garage by a person while the repairs are being performed. It's endless trying to chase these things, exhausting. It's, it's a huge mental strain like I cannot describe and it has really affected the quality of our lives. Ultimately, Sheikh's tenants decided to leave writing. The harassment of the H A has made us feel very uncomfortable and forced us to look for a new place to live. And these claims are outrageous and the discrimination is appalling. Did it feel to you? This whole system is rigged. Yes, there's simply no oversight. Boy, this just, just screams of abuse, right? Or, or, or, or suggest that this entire system in the wrong hands with the wrong people serving these positions for the wrong reason could damage a community. Ho are largely unregulated and as private organizations, the government sees any disputes as private matters. Kevin Harker is an attorney who specializes in HOA law. He says most HOA board members are volunteers trying their best to help their community. The way I view the board of director's role is to preserve property values, preserve the aesthetics of the community. But Harker explains when there is conflict. Government agencies don't have the legal authority to get involved. Ultimately, a civil lawsuit is the last recourse if the government had to get involved with enforcing these, uh that's all they would do. Uh I mean, we deal with our firm alone deals with dispute after dispute after dispute. And, um and, and frankly, you know, when, when you can't resolve it, ultimately, a judge does. Um And litigation is expensive though. Uh and it's emotional and it can hold up sales in the community and it's increasingly common that new homeowners will buy an ho A governed property. The US census says 84% of the new single family homes sold in 2022 belonged to Hoas sheikh sees his experience as a warning sign. My wife and I, we alternate between indignation, surprise anger and the sense of injustice. We simply don't know who to turn to other than going to a lawyer to help us defend ourselves. I thought we were a community and now it's become us versus them. Evans with me now. Holy smokes. So what if, if somebody lives in something like this, what can they do? Right. That's, that's the essence of this, right? There's little oversight or accountability and often times it gets to the legal stage. So Kevin Harker, the lawyer you heard from there said even with his line of practice, he often encourages any type of mediation resolution with neighbors before getting to the law side of things, you have to consult a lawyer and see what your options are. But really because hoas are private entities, that's where this path ultimately goes to a civil lawsuit that's gonna be expensive on all sides. OK? And then I know that there are some people that you talk to that actually couldn't handle it picked up and moved right? There are multiple other neighbors that I did talk to for this story a lot said that they didn't want to be on camera because they're still trying to reduce those fines and others saying that, hey, we left this neighborhood because we didn't want to do with this. We moved out and that just shows kind of the uh fragility of situations if you find yourself in an ho a or an ho a board. So good practices, read those bylaws, the CC and Rs, make sure you know who's on the board and it takes more time, but maybe volunteer be on the board yourself if you want to ensure that everything is working properly as you'd like to handle it. Yeah. Wow. Interesting stuff. Evan. Thanks hoasw. Avoid them if you can. Thanks a lot.
