THIS BLOG POST ONLY THE FACTS!!

RAINTREE BROKE BUT BOARD VOTED TO IGNORE $14,000 HOA JUDGMENT!

$14,000 Judgment Timeline

In 2006-7 Mark LePera was the owner of 4 units at Raintree Village.  During his entrie ownership of these units, he refused to pay any HOA fees.

January 2007 - During a homeowner's meeting, Freda Swafford gave Jim Curly Properties a letter written by LePera (dated 1/8/07) stating that all the money he owed to Raintree would be placed in an Escrow account until treasurer, Susan Humphreys had control of Raintree's checkbook.

April 27, 2007 - Property manager had liens placed on all 4 LePera units.

June 13, 2007 - A civil warrant was filed against LePera in General Session on behalf of Raintree Village for unpaid HOA fees totalling $12,569.68.

August 30, 2007 - Raintree Village won a judgment against LePera for $14,114.43 (included Atty fees).

September 6, 2007- LePera appealed the judgment to Circuit Court.

November 15, 2007 - Circuit Court upheld General Session's decision and assessed all cost to LePera.

January 30, 2008 - After filing numerous lawsuits against the association, Susan Humphreys finally gained control of Raintree Homeowners' checkbook.

February 3, 2008 - Susan and Freda get complete possession of the Raintree's checkbook by firing Jim Curley Properties.  Once Curley Properties was no longer the manager, Raintree funds had to pay the attorneys fees in this case which were included in the $14,114.43 judgment.

January 16, 2009 - At the annual homeowners meeting, Susan was asked why they had not pursued collecting the judgment from LePera.  She claimed to know nothing about the judgment.  That was not true.
According to the minutes for this meeting, that was published by this board, this issue was tabled until further evidence was obtained by the Board.

January 23, 2009 - Seven days later they held another meeting and published the following statement: "The legal issue of an outstanding judgment which was presented in the January 16th Meeting was discussed and is tabled for a couple of years by majority vote of the homeowners present."  (NOTE:  According to the by-laws, all homeowners are entitled to know when a vote is presented before the homeowners.)

October 2, 2009 - This board held a homeowner's meeting.  Now that the association has no money in the general fund, Susan and Freda have decided to bring back the LePera topic and defend themselves for not attempting to collect this $14,000.00 debt.  Susan's defense was showing the homeowners present copies of LePera's proxies where he assigned them to Freda.  She tried to claim she knew nothing about his letter of January 8, 2007.  She even went so far as to blame the attorney who won the judgment under the previous board for not informing them that LePera filed for bankrutcy, which became final May 2009 according to Susan. But the real kicker is that Susan and Freda both stated that they saw Raintree's $14,000.00 in an escrow account owed by Mark LePera.  My immediate question to them was "why didn't they collect Raintree's money from LePera's escrow account" if they knew it existed?  Well, Susan immediately told the other board members to call the police because I was being disruptive at their meeting.  The other board members had enough sense to ignore her this time.

We're Broke and We're Paying a Salary to the Deadbeats!

These deadbeats are the cause of this association being broke, they have wormed their way into Susan's heart and into the good homeowners' checkbook. These people with a long history of non- payment are being paid a salary for doing odd jobs (trimming shrubs, piling up debris, watching the pool, etc.) around the complex. Susan has led us to believe that this is all volunteer work, when in reality she's paying them with our funds. With many of the good people having a long history of paying their bills on time, now can not get any maintenance done because they are paying a salary to these deadbeats. If one deadbeat homeowner can be paid for this "so called" volunteer work, then why can't all the good paying HOA be comprehensive for work they do on the outside of their unit?????????

RAINTREE IS BROKE.....THANKS TO WHO?

On Friday, October 2, 2009 the current board of directors set before the few homeowners in attendance and stated that the general fund has a negative balance.  We are BROKE people and we can thank their "great", "professional" management skills.  You don't have to be the smartest cookie in the jar to know if you spend more than you're bringing in, sooner rather than later you're broke.  According to the financials that were made available to the homeowners in attendance, over the last few months they spent over $3,000 in association money cleaning and installing gutter guards on their units only, with full knowledge that the general funds were extremely low.  The treasurer's excuse for spending this money is that "installing gutter guards is preventative maintainance.  Sure it is, but only for her empty unit and the few friends she choses to do preventative maintainance on.  The Board of Directors are put in place to serve all 54 homeowners not just a few.  As much as this board preaches that this is exactly what they are doing, their actions show something entirely different.

In the history of this association it has never been this bad and it amazes me how homeowners and board members continue to back the costly actions of a treasurer who does not reside on property. Her actions with Raintree's money will never cost her the roof over her head, she lives in Mt. Juliet.

WHO'S A DICTATOR !!!!!!!

During the entire year of 2007 the current board members accussed the previous board members of being dictators over the entire Raintree Village HOA, for not maintaining "curb appeal", and not allowing homeowners to attend board meeting.

Now this current Board has requested that the entire website i-neighbors be taken down for Raintree Village because they do not want homeowners to freely voice their opinions.  They want the website taken down because it allows homeowners "free speech", which is what this country was founded on.  THEY ARE A DICTATORSHIP!!  They do not want homeowners to attend their "private" board meetings because they only care about the curb appeal in the front of buildings 1 and 2 OR if you are one of their "special" homeowner/renter.  They Rule this Association with A DICTATOR "Do as I say" Attitude........don't express your opinions on i-neighbors, don't attend our private board meetings, and you should fully expect that Susan Humphrey (Building 1) and Freda Swafford (Building 2) to always place themselves before any other homeowner at Raintree.

This current Board is leading Raintree Village down a path to an extremely large Assessment within the next 2 years for each homeowner.  There is no way this Association can survive this board's poor financial management skills.  When it starts to get really bad for the Raintree homeowners, Susan Humphrey will have a safe Mt. Juliet roof over her head. 

THEY NEED TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL PROPERTY MANAGER!

They Say Its Not An Assessment....Then What Exactly Is It?

Raintree Village's current board of directors has mailed certain homeowners letters informing them they are being required to pay an amount determined by the board, each month with your HOA payments .  If this is not an "assessment" then what exactly is it.  Condo Homeowners are not required to give this or any association money that is not an "assessment".

In their letter they state "Your water consumption fee average is based on your water consumption transaction history from UBS." Well I have all my invoices going back to August 2005 and my average bill is not what they are charging me. The monthly water bill from UBS included a maintenance and processing fee amounting to $4.91 ($4.91x12 months =$58.92). This number should not be considered when averaging water usage for each unit. They also state that this "will achieve real savings for each homeowner."  Where exactly is this savings.

They did not tell us how they plan to get the thousands of dollars in unpaid water from the homeowners who did not pay their water bill to UBS.  There are homeowners who owe UBS and this association thousands of dollars in water and this board's current action does not explain how they intend to get this unpaid water money collected. They just continue to take from the homeowners who pay.  This board would not cut water off for non-payment of an assessment, now they want us to believe that they will disconnect water for not paying money to them that is not an association assessment.  This move clearly shows that they do not know what they are doing. 

There are Raintree homeowners who chose to turn a blind eye to what these board members are doing.  They continue to feel that these board members can do no wrong.  But this move is truly wrong for this association.  Consider the fact that by February, 2011, the $32,000.00 Metro Water bill needs to be paid in full.  Now that this board has cut off the reliable funds they received from UBS (at least $2,500 a month) they are taking a gamble that they will collect more than UBS did from homeowners.

The TENNESSEE CONDOMINIUM ACT OF 2008, which went into effect January 1, 2009,
§66-27-414 (c)(3) clearly states "The cost of insurance may be assessed in proportion to risk and the costs of utilities must be assessed in proportion to usage." 

They cannot charge Raintree Homeowners for water by occupant/occupants and your unit's square footage.

What Happens to Homeowners That Paid UBS in ADVANCE!!!!!

There are several Homeowners at Raintree Village who paid their water bill in advance, some paid the entire year in advance.  Since the Board has fired UBS effective 10/1/2009, these Homeowners are entited to receive a refund from this board.  Since UBS sent this money to the association, the association should refund and/or credit these homeowner's HOA fee.  If the entire association will no longer be paying a water assessment to UBS why should these homeowners be penalized for paying in advance.

When Will this Board Tell Raintree Homeowners?

At the last homeowners' meeting this current board told homeowners they would be informed of how they would proceed in collecting unpaid water and HOA from homeowners by August 31, 2009. To date, no homeowner has been informed, but this current board  has cancelled UBS meter reading services for Raintree Village effective Oct. 1, 2009 (confirmed by a phone call to UBS). The rumor is they plan to increase our HOA by square footage to pay the Metro Water bill.  This is not confirmed, but just when do they plan on telling homeowners how they plan to recover the water money lost by firing UBS?