Las Vegas Sun

March 29, 2024

Henderson woman fighting for her home

A Henderson woman's battle with her homeowners association has left her family of five on the brink of being evicted from the house she has called home for almost 10 years.

At this point, in the eyes of the legal system, Judi Burns' house has legally been foreclosed on by her homeowners association and sold because of unpaid monthly dues.

As the court process plays out Burns has been living in a two-story, three-bedroom house someone else bought for $10,100 almost 2 1/2 years ago, even though she paid off her mortgage in June 2002.

Her only hope now is that she'll be able to appeal to the state Supreme Court and get a ruling that would overturn a District Court judge's decision that upheld the foreclosure.

"I want to appeal," she said. "This is my life."

Burns' predicament is the result of her decision to stop paying the monthly homeowners association fee for her Pebble Creek home so she could get her association to pay attention to several fines she was disputing.

It's a decision Burns, 52, wouldn't make again if she had the chance.

"This could have all been handled very differently," Burns said. "I would have put the dues in an escrow account or something, but I thought this was the only way to get their attention."

Homeowners advocates say the decision left her with no legal footing.

"They cannot foreclose on your house for fines. Her mistake was that she got mad and stopped paying her assessment," Eldon Hardy, the state ombudsman for common interest communities, said. "I would have jumped in and told her to pay it off and fight it in court."

Unfortunately for Burns she went without Hardy's advice. Burns said she didn't even know there was an ombudsman to go to with complaints about her homeowners association.

Homeowners associations are allowed to foreclose on and then sell homes if the owner doesn't pay association dues. However, Burns' attorney Hal Taylor argued that because the association combined the fines and unpaid association dues in the lien against her home, the foreclosure was not legal.

State Sen. Mike Schneider, D-Las Vegas, the sponsor of a law regulating homeowners associations, agreed.

"All the time technicalities throw things out. This is a blatant technicality," Schneider said.

But Judge Sally Loehrer said the law allows foreclosures for unpaid dues, and also allows associations to bundle unpaid dues, fines, and other charges together in the bill to a homeowner.

"It makes sense to put everything together," Loehrer said. "Otherwise the homeowner faces two legal procedures."

The ombudsman said it appears Loehrer made the correct decision.

"Even though he is the grandfather of the bills," Hardy said about Schneider, "there would only be a valid case if they wouldn't accept the payment of her bills. But she deliberately did not pay the assessment."

Hardy said he plans to look into Burns' situation, but he said it sounds like her case is too far along for him to help. Under the current law Hardy's office isn't told of a foreclosure unless someone complains. That will change Oct. 1, when a new law gives Hardy's office more power and oversight.

Schneider said he hopes the changes to the state oversight of homeowners associations, including a commission to hear disputes, will prevent situations similar to Burns' from happening again.

"In this case Judi Burns didn't understand the whole legal process," Schneider said. "She thought she was still fighting her homeowners association, but there was a foreclosure involved."

The dispute began when Burns was fined for a pickup truck parked in the wrong spot and an unregistered car. Burns said the truck wasn't hers and the car they said was unregistered actually was registered.

She wrote and called association's management company and spoke with Pebble Creek Homeowners' Association board members saying as much and asking them to lift the fines. But they didn't so she decided to withhold her association fees, which are also called assessments, to get their attention.

Burns said that instead of resolving her complaint, the association launched the foreclosure proceedings.

Officers of the Pebble Creek Homeowners' Association referred questions to their attorney Theodore Parker.

Parker did not return repeated telephone calls.

Once the homeowners association took action against her, Burns said she received only one notice of the lien on her home. She said she faxed a response to the company handling the lien saying she was disputing the action, and she thought that took care of it.

But it didn't, and the next she heard about the matter was when a man knocked on her front door and told her he'd just bought her house.

Hardy said that once the foreclosure proceedings were underway, a letter isn't enough to stop a pending sale.

"At that point you have to pay the fine and then fight it. It sounds kind of cold blooded but that's the way the law works," Hardy said.

"She had to pay everything off to stop it," Schneider said. "Or get a judge to issue an injunction. Just writing them is not enough."

Schneider said granting homeowners associations the power to foreclose on a home because of unpaid dues is a necessary evil.

"Without the ability to foreclose you won't get the assessment," he said. "Without the assessments you can't run the association."

So, based on $1,145 in past-due association fees, unpaid fines and late charges, Burns' home was sold at auction in March 2001 for $10,100 to Kevin Smith and Wanda Meyers. Burns said that in 1994 she paid about $130,000 for the house in the quiet Henderson neighborhood near Green Valley Parkway and the Las Vegas Beltway.

Taylor, Burns' lawyer, said that while the sale price was low, it all seemed to have been done legally: Proper notice was given for the auction and two parties bid on the house.

"That's just what happens," Taylor said.

Joe Reiff, the attorney for Smith and Meyers, said that while he could not say why this particular home sold for $10,100, he said often foreclosure sales pose potentially litigious situations for the buyers.

"They say you're buying into a lawsuit," Reiff said.

That was the case in this situation.

Burns eventually challenged the foreclosure and sale in Clark County District Court, but was unsuccessful.

Now Burns is hoping to appeal her case to the state Supreme Court.

If Burns does appeal, she will be able to stay in her home until a ruling is made if she puts up a $45,000 bond. The bond represents the amount of rent Burns owes for staying in the home for the roughly 30 months since the foreclosure sale.

Taylor said if they appeal the best outcome would be for the Supreme Court to overturn the Loehrer's dismissal and send the case back to District Court for a trial.

Burns said that if her appeal is successful she thinks it will be a victory for others battling their homeowners associations.

But for now Burns is focused on her situation.

"I'm looking at raising the money for the bond, but at this point we may be out on the street," she said. "It's an unbearable reality."

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