Georgia lawmakers to rein in aggressive HOAs after hearing homeowner horror stories

let's get to this story HOA nightmares it's one of the most frequent calls we get into our investigative tip line that's right now there are new bipartisan efforts by state lawmakers to look at how to reign in homeowners associations that really go too far Chann to investigate our consumer investigator Justin Gray is here and Justin in Georgia a homeowners association can take your house you can be up toate on your mortgage have never missed a loan payment and still lose your home to foreclosure your HOA none of it makes any sense each month Karen Gibbons mailed a check for HOA dues on her Gwynette County condo to the address provided in writing at closing but she says she never knew when or if it would be cashed or it was just random I mean there'd be two three four five months go in between checks being cashed then out of the blue she was served with this a notice of foreclosure by her HOA with late fees and thousands of dollars in attorney fees she owed more than $30,000 did you even know you could be foreclosed on by an HOA no never heard of it it's totally insane it's totally insane Trisha Quigley learned it can happen the hard way when her Cherokee County home of 18 years was sold at foreclosure auction on the courthouse steps for about the amount of spare change currently sitting on her coffee table it went for $3.25 quigly admits she did not pay two of her biannual homeowner dues payments $800 total she ended up paying more than 10 grand trying to get right with the HOA but the late fees and the attorney fees kept growing you know I kept thinking I paid all this money how come it's not stopping a big reason attorney costs every email every inquiry every attempt to contest or fix or even pay the overdue Bill adds to the bill that that's a complaint by the time Juliet Graham finally sold her downtown Atlanta condo her OA Bill had reached a quarter of a million dollar and you broke us we're broke we checked for closure records and found that just two Metro Atlanta law firms that specialize in representing HOAs have filed 279 notices seeking damage and foreclosure notices in just the past three years I can't imagine the mafia having been any worse than what my experience was with this state Senator donzela James introduced multiple bills this legislative session trying to re in overly aggressive HOAs people need to be protected and safeguarded against foreclosures this is where I resided the whole thing the only way James McAdoo could stop his HOA from intercepting his paycheck was by filing for bankruptcy they garnish my wages he owes $36,000 in counting predominantly because of weeds in his South folden front yard they were garnishing $600 from his paycheck every two weeks until he started the bankruptcy process what way do you see out of this selling my home and just getting out of this neighborhood that's what Carin Gibbons did earlier this year even though she still doesn't believe she did anything wrong and I just said enough I can't do it anymore she paid $344,000 at closing to put an end to this mess I don't know how it's legal a bipartisan Bill sponsored by Senator James and Republican rules committee chairman Matt brass did pass it the gold Dome this year to create a study committee examining how to change laws to better protect homeowners Senator brass tells me the number one topic on the study committee's agenda will be those HOA forclosures he says are taking families generational wealth and to have some outside group come and take that away to me is again it's it's unamerican and we're not going to stand for it in the state now several states have put in place CS limiting HOA foreclosure that legislative study committee is expected to start their work lightly late this summer so justtin what can a legislative study committee actually do well there's more time to come up with legislation than during the session Senator brass says he expects potential bills to come over out of this and remember he runs the rules committee they set the agenda in the Senate so he has a lot of power to push this through next year all right again there's a place for those HOAs to exist but this sounds like a lot of crazy examples in your story some wild situations yeah all right Justin thank you

Channel: WSB-TV

Views: 640,624

Keywords: WSB-TV, Fox5, Atlanta, Georgia, WAGA, news, 11Alive, channel 2, fox 5, atlanta news, wsb, 11 alive, ajc, abc news, wxia, georgia news

Id: 8h8js_bQ_4c

Length: 4min 33sec (273 seconds)

Published: Mon May 06 2024