'Thought it was scam,' says homeowner hit with $100k in HOA fines – they didn't even live there when 'nightmare' began | 0163856 | 2024-03-05 19:08:01
In 2018, Kristi Allen was sued for $103,559, for overdue HOA fines regardless
A HOMEOWNER has revealed that she was sued for hundreds of dollars by an HOA, for a house she not lives in.
In 2018, Kristi Allen was sued for $103,559, for overdue HOA fines regardless of not dwelling in her former Florida home for seven years.
Allen moved from her house in Dunedin in 2011 after struggling a string of money issues brought on by the 2008 financial crisis, in accordance with USA Today.
After receiving a pay reduce from her job as a radiologic technologist, she was unable to afford her house and decided to go away.
She signed an settlement with the U.S. Bank Nationwide Association allowing the foreclosure and moved out.
Three years after Allen left, a code inspector visited the house and noticed an array of issues.
Since no one had been maintaining the home, the garden had develop into overgrown, the pool had turned shiny inexperienced, and a neighbor complained of a rotting odor.
On the time, Allen was nonetheless listed because the property owner, so the town started to send her a superb of $100 a day. The letters mailed to Allen had no forwarding handle so she had no concept what was happening.
Allen's identify stayed on the property data because despite leaving the house, the foreclosures was not finalized until late 2014.
Even with the documentation, fines have been being collected up till 2016, when the house had been taken underneath new ownership and was renovated.
"It defies widespread sense that someone might hastily owe $100okay where that they had no concept there was even a problem,"& her& lawyer, Ben Hillard, stated.&
The town previously argued that Allen wanted to be liable for the fines, regardless of her mortgage lender taking management of the house, in accordance with court documents.
<!-- End of Brightcove Player --> Dunedin's attorneys cited a state statute saying the lien the town positioned on the house where the violation occurred applies to different private property Allen owned.
Nevertheless, Hillard believed that forcing the mom of two to pay the fines violated her due course of since she didn't even know that the violations existed.
Allen revealed that the town's lawsuit "totally crippled" her family.
She had spent hundreds of dollars on legal fees, causing her to wrestle with different bills corresponding to her youngsters's summer time camp.
"I want my paycheck to stay, for my youngsters, for my home, for my automotive," Allen stated.
She revealed that she discovered it arduous to pay attention at work as a result of she's so frightened she gained't have the ability to pay her lawyer, not to mention for her youngsters's schooling.
"I do know it's not private to them. However it's personal to me and the opposite people who they're doing this to. Check out who you're hurting and the way you're hurting them. Is it value it?"
Luckily for Allen, in August 2019, Dunedin dropped the lawsuit towards the struggling mother, in line with the Tampa Bay Times.
She later filed a movement to gather lawyer's fees which concluded in a $40,000 settlement in January 2020.
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