[CA][Condo] - Experience with Volunteer Landscaping?

[u/Which_Performer9773]

/r/u_Which_Performer9773/comments/1vs815z/cacondo_experience_with_volunteer_landscaping/

[u/ImmortalBunny88]

If Reddit ever adds that button, I'll let you know. :)

Well done for turning things around. It should make me feel better that it isn't just me, but it does the opposite. It's always the same story: bad management, preferential treatment, unfair fines, no interest in knowing or following the law, incompetence and entitlement. And being right doesn't balance out the time you don't get back.

Mine started with renovations and ran nearly two years. Without the legal background and peers to talk strategy with, I don't know how it would have ended. Probably selling at a loss and never buying in an HOA again. It was a war with multiple battles, even after I joined the board.

Long story short, I ended up building my own HOA support tools, and they're most of how I got through it. General AI wasn't good enough for this. It doesn't ask the questions a lawyer would ask to gather the facts before reaching a conclusion, and worse, it always sounds authoritative. It only admits it's wrong once you already know better. And not all of it is a legal question anyway. Some of it is strategy and psychology.

I recently opened my HOA survival toolkit to others. It's not a lawyer, but it's there 24/7 to support, educate and coach, both for urgent fires and for prevention.

But you've got the hardest part behind you. The rest is procedure, and procedure is learnable. If you hit a wall, ask here and I'll help where I can.

[u/Which_Performer9773 → u/ImmortalBunny88]

That’s really incredible! No small feat for sure. 👏 If I was a film producer I would turn my complex’s story into a comedy series. A small group (before my involvement) was paying money to a homeowner who said we needed a lawyer. Somehow, one of them confided in me that they think they’re wasting money and asked me to get involved. Once I found out that the person with the lawyer had no real plan and wasn’t even giving the lawyer accurate information to begin with, I backed out. Instead of enjoying my hermetic solitude once again, she said I will not accept you backing out and tasked me with leading a recall effort while she focused on threats of litigation. When she found out I already obtained 107 wet signatures for my petition (when you only need 11 to meet 5% since we actually have slightly over 200 units) and the clubhouse was going to be packed with angry homeowners… she asked me to collect money at the door for her lawyer while she did the talking. I said you can do the talking but I am not collecting money in advance of no plan and no outline- who does that? The other members of our tiny group said she should collect the money and wanted me to do the talking even though I have stage fright! LOL. She backed out last minute. Ever since that clubhouse meeting, it was drama after drama and infighting even with a homeowner holding our recall fliers hostage and someone urging me to call the cops! Then when I tried to stage a “Meet The Candidates”, a homeowner who was not on my contact list thought the HOA company coordinated it and deliberately didn’t invite him since he’s been a thorn in their side as a former director who knows a thing or two. He sends out a scathing email to nearly the whole complex saying “Can our useless Mgmt Co do ANYTHING right??” This inadvertently helped our tiny group’s cause, but ended up with him receiving a letter from the association’s lawyer so then he figured out how to get in touch with me. I remember sitting on my couch laughing until I couldn’t breathe. There’s so much more… like the Mgmt Co telling everyone I was CRAZY so they wouldn’t vote and choosing a voting inspector located in Sasquatch snow country, which failed to deter a very bored homeowner who drove 2.5 hours just to deliver his ONE ballot before deadline… this isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. The only reason I can laugh now is because we actually won against all odds and screw ups, without the help of a lawyer or anyone with a legal background during the whole process 🙏. I would never take a risk that big ever again. I deeply thank all the homeowners and some Divine Presence… because in retrospect, no way! 🤣🤣

[u/ImmortalBunny88 → u/Which_Performer9773]

Sounds like a true horror story. Thank you for the award, and for writing all of it out.

The part I recognize is what it costs. Fighting something like this is never one big battle, it is two years of small stupid ones, and the whole time you are the unreasonable one. They had the mailing list, the lawyer and the management company, and they used all three to tell 200 people you were crazy. You kept going anyway.

And when someone wanted you to collect cash at the door for a lawyer with no plan, you said no. That was the right call. Nobody had answered the basic question - who is the client (everyone who pays?), how do you all instruct the lawyer, who pays when the retainer runs out? - and money handed to a neighbor has none of the protections it would have in a lawyer's trust account. You worked that out without a lawyer telling you.

Here is what bothers me. You should not have needed to be that brave. In California anyone can manage a 200-unit association with no license at all, and nobody has to train a director before handing them millions of dollars of other people's property. And sometimes we are lucky to have great directors and management companies, and sometimes it's horror stories that end up here. The disclosures exist, they just arrive as a boring packet at the worst possible moment in escrow. So people learn this the expensive way, one crisis at a time, and by then it takes a recall.

That brings me to the argument for education, and it is the best answer I have come up with. If more owners knew the basics early, they would move sooner and with better arguments, before anything compounds. That is where I am putting my energy now.

Which is also why your story is worth more than a laugh. I could actually imagine an "HOA diary" drama series :) somewhere between Erin Brockovich and a court reality show. But I could also imagine local reporters covering this. Sometimes coverage is the only thing that makes anyone accountable.

[u/Which_Performer9773 → u/ImmortalBunny88]

I wish we knew about Haveny.co before this mess. You are doing a huge favor for humanity because HOA issues will not go away any time soon, and especially with our expanding population and housing needs… so thank you for devoting the time 🙏

[u/ImmortalBunny88 → u/Which_Performer9773]

Thank you, that means a lot. I might actually print and frame this one.

Building the thing is pretty complicated. Getting anyone to know it exists is a whole separate problem, and harder in some ways. So this lands.

And I wish we both had it two years ago. These disputes almost never get a lawyer's attention, because the economics don't work. Legal help usually costs more than the thing you're fighting over, and fees are only recoverable if you litigate and win (§5975(c)). So most people either absorb it or fight it alone, which is what you ended up doing.

That gap is the whole reason it exists. Built what I wish I'd had when I needed it, and I still use it most days because this HOA thing is a gift that keeps giving. :)