If you haven't read the Walker Lake and Maple Park pages you should go back and do so.
Things discussed on this page will make a lot more sense with the background information from those pages.
Things discussed on this page will make a lot more sense with the background information from those pages.
In 1995 Bill and I got married. In 1997 we had our first child, and by the time he was ready for kindergarten we wanted to own our own home in a nice school district and near the river.
We had both grown up on lakes so our interests were (and still are) in river recreation.
We spoke with a local realtor and asked specifically to be shown homes that met those requirements. That kind gentleman showed us what became our home in 2001.
To be fair to him, this home was marketed and sold to us correctly. It is NOT in any HOA.
Now, the title search people only went back 20 years. If you read the Walker Lake page, you know that the easement that is involved here is from 1911. If you read the Maple Park page you know that our home came into that easement in 1966.
2001 to 1966 is 35 years. The title report said nothing about any easement or any $10.00 annual payment. If we had seen that we would have bought elsewhere.
So, unknown to us, we purchased a property that was part of that 1911 easement.
As I stated on the Maple Park page, our home was a VA foreclosure. It needed some work but we figured we could make it great and live happily ever after. Not so much.
The VA policy at the time was to make an installment agreement where they hold the title until the VA loan was refinanced. In 2007 we refinanced the property. The deed was then changed over into our names in Dec. of 2007.
Shortly after that, we get a bill from Walker Lakeshores Landowners Association for $5,400 for "back dues".
We knew it must have been a mistake because we were not in a home owners association.
We tried to talk to Walker Lakeshores Landowners Association about it and we were met with an odd blockade. We were told, essentially, pay it or we will sue you.
There was a suggestion that we get our title insurance to pay the "back dues". Since I didn't legally owe the money my opinion is that that would constitute insurance fraud AND I was not in the HOA so committing insurance fraud to then pay an unjust annual "assessment" did not appear to be in my best interest.
So, without being given any evidence that we justly owed the "back dues", we didn't pay the bill and there began the lawsuits of our HOA Horror Story.
We had both grown up on lakes so our interests were (and still are) in river recreation.
We spoke with a local realtor and asked specifically to be shown homes that met those requirements. That kind gentleman showed us what became our home in 2001.
To be fair to him, this home was marketed and sold to us correctly. It is NOT in any HOA.
Now, the title search people only went back 20 years. If you read the Walker Lake page, you know that the easement that is involved here is from 1911. If you read the Maple Park page you know that our home came into that easement in 1966.
2001 to 1966 is 35 years. The title report said nothing about any easement or any $10.00 annual payment. If we had seen that we would have bought elsewhere.
So, unknown to us, we purchased a property that was part of that 1911 easement.
As I stated on the Maple Park page, our home was a VA foreclosure. It needed some work but we figured we could make it great and live happily ever after. Not so much.
The VA policy at the time was to make an installment agreement where they hold the title until the VA loan was refinanced. In 2007 we refinanced the property. The deed was then changed over into our names in Dec. of 2007.
Shortly after that, we get a bill from Walker Lakeshores Landowners Association for $5,400 for "back dues".
We knew it must have been a mistake because we were not in a home owners association.
We tried to talk to Walker Lakeshores Landowners Association about it and we were met with an odd blockade. We were told, essentially, pay it or we will sue you.
There was a suggestion that we get our title insurance to pay the "back dues". Since I didn't legally owe the money my opinion is that that would constitute insurance fraud AND I was not in the HOA so committing insurance fraud to then pay an unjust annual "assessment" did not appear to be in my best interest.
So, without being given any evidence that we justly owed the "back dues", we didn't pay the bill and there began the lawsuits of our HOA Horror Story.
If you'd like to read my deeds they are in this ZIP file.
mypropertytitle_chain.zip |