NC condo owner learned the hard way: Fighting your HOA can be a long, costly battle

Jennifer Jackson has survived cervical cancer. But not even that diagnosis — or the year of intensive radiation and chemotherapy that followed — caused as much distress as her long-running dispute with her homeowners association.

The HOA for her condominium complex in Charlotte’s Myers Park neighborhood has billed her for thousands of dollars in fines and fees that she says stemmed from a problem that wasn’t her responsibility. In April, the HOA moved to foreclose.

Jackson had the money to pay the disputed fees and to hire an attorney to fight her HOA. So she did, knowing that losing her home was the alternative.

“It has been terror,” she said.

No state or federal agencies oversee HOAs. So homeowners have little recourse but to sue associations that move to take their houses. But that’s expensive so it doesn’t happen often, lawyers say. HOAs, on the other hand, can tap into insurance money or the dues paid by property owners to cover their legal costs.

Hopes Foreclosed

NC rules make it easy for HOAs to foreclose on homeowners. State law allows them to force the sale of homes for any amount of unpaid dues, no matter how small. Our investigation shows how often it's happening — and how it can be devastating to homeowners.

• Hundreds in NC lose homes, equity after HOAs foreclose. Who protects homeowners?

• Deceit, rigged bids and extortion: How HOA foreclosures can open the door to predators

• ‘Once. Twice. Sold for $4,400.’ How HOA foreclosure auctions cost owners their homes

• Can an HOA sell your home? What NC law says, and how to challenge foreclosures

• Charlotte HOA member learned the hard way: Fighting back can be a long, costly battle

• When North Carolina HOAs want to block or pass legislation, they often get their way

HOA files to foreclose

Jackson, a 49-year-old registered nurse, bought her one-bedroom condominium in 2007. For years, she said, she never failed to pay her HOA dues.

Her ordeal began in July 2018 when she got a notice from her HOA, the 400 Queens Road Condominium Association, that the heating and air conditioning unit on the balcony of her fourth floor condo was dripping onto the balcony below hers, she said.

An air conditioning contractor checked the unit and concluded it was working properly. A plumber hired by the HOA subsequently determined that the problem appeared to be in a copper drain line that the association was supposed to maintain at the 1960s-era complex, a January 2019 invoice from the plumber shows.

But starting in October 2018, the HOA began fining Jackson $100 a day for having “improper drainage,” according to billing records. In March 2019, the HOA’s plumber fixed the problem.

But for more than a month after that, the HOA’s $100-a-day fines continued for reasons Jackson doesn’t understand. The total eventually climbed above $18,000, the records show.

After much correspondence with Jackson’s lawyer, the HOA agreed to remove the fines in 2021. But billing records indicate that more than $2,500 wasn’t canceled. Jackson said no one told her why.

On top of those fines, the HOA in 2023 demanded that she pay about $2,000 more for legal fees, maintenance and late fees, she said. Jackson refused, contending she didn’t owe them.

The HOA filed a lien on her condominium in February and later instructed its attorney to pursue foreclosure.

Fearing she was on the verge of losing her home, Jackson in September gave her HOA a cashier’s check for more than $19,000 — the full amount the association contended it was owed and an amount she still disputes.

HOA: Fines are a motivator

Fred Ervin, president of the condo association’s board, said the water dripping from Jackson’s HVAC unit had caused problems for people living below her. Asked about why the HOA issued such large fines, he told The Charlotte Observer: “We did that in an effort to motivate her to fix the problem.”

The HOA moved to foreclose because Jackson had stopped paying her dues, he said.

But Jackson said the association made it impossible for her to do so. She repeatedly tried to pay her regular monthly dues and assessments, she said, but starting in 2020, she was no longer allowed to do that until she paid the disputed fines, legal charges and delinquent fees.

Her records show that she wrote the HOA a cashier’s check for $7,520 in 2021 but the association never deposited it. HOA attorney Ben Karb, in a subsequent letter to Jackson’s attorney, said the check “was returned to her with a request to tender the full balance.”

And in a May 2023 letter to the HOA’s lawyer, Jackson’s attorney enclosed her check for $11,220 — the amount that Jackson calculated she owed for past dues. That check wasn’t cashed either, Jackson said.

Ervin said the board didn’t intend to refuse her dues payments, but could not speak to the actions of the HOA’s management company or attorney.

Neither the attorney nor the president of Greenway Realty Management, which until March 2023 served as the HOA’s management company, would discuss Jackson’s case.

“The case you reference was a very unusual and difficult case, and is not representative of a typical HOA foreclosure or typical HOA dispute,” Karb, the association attorney, wrote in an email to The Observer. “Beyond that, we cannot provide any specific information about it due to federal and state laws.”

Greenway president Derek Nester said his company has a policy of shutting down homeowners’ access to the HOA’s online portal when their accounts go into collections. As a result, homeowners can no longer pay their dues online and “have to talk to the HOA’s attorney,” he said.

Jackson still disputes that she owes much of the money she was forced to pay, and she plans to sue her HOA to recover those funds, she said.

For now, she has been working extra nursing shifts at a local hospital to pay her legal bills, she said. And if need be, she said, she will borrow from her 401K as well.

Her HOA, meanwhile, has billed her for its legal expenses. If she files a lawsuit, the HOA could use insurance or dues paid by all of its members to cover its legal bills — a luxury that Jackson says she and other homeowners don’t have.

“The only people who can challenge this stuff are people with very deep pockets,” she said.

Lake Wylie homeowner: ‘It’s costing me dearly’

Sherry Loeffler can vouch for that. As The Observer reported in August, Loeffler had new windows installed on her townhouse that matched plans approved by her HOA at the Yachtsman on Lake Wylie.

Then, she contends, the association reneged on its approval, ordering her to replace her windows at her own expense to conform with most in the community.

After she refused, the HOA hit her with nearly $12,000 in fines — and put a lien on her home.

Worried that the HOA would foreclose, Loeffler sued. Earlier this year, a Mecklenburg County judge backed Loeffler’s claim that the HOA had approved her windows and ordered the association to remove the lien, cancel the fines and reimburse her for the more than $12,000 she has spent on legal fees.

But as of early December, her HOA still hadn’t reimbursed her, or told her whether it will appeal the judge’s ruling.

“People are losing their homes,” Loeffler said. “Luckily for me, I had an attorney to fight for me. But it’s costing me dearly.”

When fighting back costs too much

Many homeowners don’t have the money to fight.

In 1999, Joy Crom and her husband bought a four-bedroom house in northeast Charlotte. She later paid off the $133,000 mortgage. But after she and her family fell behind on HOA dues, the association put a $1,061 lien on the house and foreclosed. In 2020, her house was sold at auction for just $2,000.

Her son and his family had been living at the house, and Crom didn’t get notice of the HOA’s plans to foreclose until shortly before the home was taken from her family, she said.

Crom said she spent $4,000 to hire a lawyer, hoping to reverse the foreclosure sale. But she didn’t have enough money to keep pursuing her case, so her attorney stopped representing her in August 2022.

Three months later, a judge dismissed her court motion to invalidate the foreclosure sale. “I just couldn’t do it any more,” she said.

Jackson, meanwhile, expects she’ll be facing more legal bills when she files a lawsuit against her Myers Park HOA. But her fight is about more than just money: It’s about taking a stand so the same thing doesn’t happen to others, she said.

“I could have just paid the money and kept my mouth shut,” she said. “But you don’t make the bully stop by continuing to give him your lunch money.”