Homeowner’s abuse of Attorney Letters
Hi Dennis,
I live in a small HOA, and we have a homeowner that sends letters from their attorney almost monthly. It is all very minor issues about landscaping and issues with their neighbors, parking, etc. The board believes, or has been told by the HOA attorney, that every letter the board receives from a homeowner’s attorney must be responded to by the HOA attorney. This practice and homeowner are costing the HOA of only 39 homes over $3000 a month and already $13,000 for 2025. Is it possible for the HOA board or management company to respond to a letter from a homeowner’s lawyer?
About Post Author
1 Response
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Daniel,
Think about this for a minute. Why would any attorney ever tell the board that they do not need to have their attorney respond to the homeowner’s letter from their personal attorney? It’s easy billable hours and $300 to $500 for basically nothing. Nothing stops you from using your attorney to respond to his letters, but you should first look to see if there is any validity to the issues raised by the homeowner.
No one is required to respond to any attorney communication with a response from their attorney unless they are actively involved in litigation. I get letters from attorneys all the time and respond to them personally and mostly tell them to pound sand because their threats are baseless. I had one attorney threaten to sue me for defamation. I told him to go ahead and try; I had good insurance and everything that I had ever stated about his situation with a community I helped was true. The truth can never be defamation. His lawsuit would give me cause to file a complaint against him, seeking to have him disbarred by the bar association for baseless and frivolous lawsuits. I never heard from him again.
The issue really is what this homeowner is doing and why he is doing it. The board should schedule a meeting with the member to understand the concerns and try to address them. If the homeowner is unreasonable and simply wants to harass the board, then ignore further letters from this individual, or bill him for the expenses he generates with his attorney’s letters to the community. You may have to look at the language of your CC&Rs to authorize this type of action.
Dennis