Small Town Corruption Steals Property Rights of Elderly Woman
Not all corruption in Oklahoma is big league, there is plenty in every county and town across the state. The politically connected run roughshod over the unconnected, sure in their belief that no one cares and no one will ever suffer for the damage done other than the mark.
Such was the case when in late 2015 an elderly woman purchased an expensive residential lot in Edmond at the Villages at Coffee Creek development. The development is run by a non profit home owners association who in turn enabled a three person architectural review board to keep the quality and aesthetics of new homes in character with the other homes. There is a lengthy set of regulations including requirements for mandatory arbitration before lawsuits can be filed. Sounds like just the kind of place to build an expensive home that will retain property value as the years go by. Unless you are an outsider and someone else wants the property...
The problem started when the new lot owner was visiting the property and met a part time local builder and plumbing contractor Louis Jones named who had built one of the neighboring houses. A comment was made by Jones allegedly to the point that he was supposed to buy that lot and was angered by the sale to an outsider. Jones allegedly made threats to the new lot owner that he had “friends” that would cause problems if she attempted to build. Jones denied the allegations when we interviewed him, claiming that he had no idea that the lot was up for sale and as it wasn't adjacent to his property that he lived in he had no interest in the lot. Jones was the only person on that side of the controversy that was willing to talk about the allegations and history of the dispute.
Cue the Architectural Review Committee, ARC for short. The homeowner submitted plans, which were rejected for small changes, new plans were re submitted following the requested changes, and the new plans were likewise rejected for entirely new reasons in some cases and no reasons in others. Each building plan revision was met with more changes requested, time after time despite the cost to the lot owner. A year passes with the lot owner being no closer to an approved design on the fifth set of drawings than she was on the first set of drawings. Each of the three members would have different and even conflicting reason for rejecting all five sets of building drawings, vague, ever changing, and inconsistent. Worse, the items that caused the plans to be rejected were all present in other homes already built in the development.
And these ARC members all lived on the same cul de sac as Louis Jones and in one case purchased a house from Jones on that cul de sac. Reba Bassinger is the HOA president and is a retired Midwest City Clerk that would have access and the sympathy of local judges.
Finally in August of 2017 the elderly woman had ran out of patience and her lawyer filed a request for the mandatory mediation process which would lead to mandatory arbitration as required in the covenant that governed the development. All the processes were followed one by one till mid November of 2017. The elderly lot owner submitted her statements and evidence to the arbitrators only to see the HOA and ARC refuse to participate in the mediation. The HOA and ARC had 45 days to appoint an independent arbitrator, with December 21st being the deadline.
Instead, on December 17th of 2017 the property managers filed a lawsuit seeking an injunction preventing the elderly lot owner from beginning construction on the lot despite the mandatory arbitration clause in the contract that governed the lot. One would think if the HOA believes the ARC has the right to continue to deny approval of house plans they would comfortably win at arbitration and appoint the arbitrator instead of filing suit in defiance of their own covenant.
Worse, the HOA required 75% approval of the voting members of the HOA before starting litigation of any kind as it exposed the entire development to costs and liability. That approval was never received.
As no ground had been broken at any point there was no need for an injunction. What was needed was the mandatory mediation followed by the mandatory arbitration to resolve the impasse. The elderly lot owner didn't dispute the right of the ARC to control the building design, she just wanted the design to stop being a moving target by listing out a definitive list of changes required to approve the building design.
Case law demands that covenants be followed so the initial motion in December of 2017 ought to have been the end of the HOA lawsuit on the irrefutable grounds of evading the mediation/arbitration clauses (pages actually) and the missing approval by 75% of the Home Owners Association voting membership.
The response of the HOA was simply to call the elderly woman erratic and uncivilized, claiming her demands for mediation and arbitration, stating that “her tenor and behavior has become so erratic and uncivilized..... such as to require the Plaintiff's last resort to court.” And interestingly enough, the HOA attorneys decide that the mandatory mediation and mandatory arbitration clauses within their own covenant are “contracts of adhesion and unconscionable” and thus void! The case law applying to these type of mandatory dispute resolutions is generally aimed at the developer, not the lot purchaser or homeowner! The legal argument made by the HOA is that these mandatory dispute methods force the purchaser of a lot or home to take it or leave it. And at the same time they are forcing the lot owner to take or leave the authority of the ACR despite admitting they need not give a reason for rejecting a building plan.
Even worse, in a following pleading the HOA admits that the HOA bylaws state that the HOA is responsible for costs of any lawsuits against their members, volunteers, or board members. They accept the fact that there will be liability in their own bylaws.
It is quite strange to see the author of a set of covenants arguing that they are unfair for the homeowners/lot purchasers as the HOA is in charge of the existing covenants and are able to change them at a whim. At the same time the HOA argues that these covenants that they wrote or maintain are overly harsh, oppressive, and offer one sided terms. Their final argument is that a court battle is cheaper, quicker, and easier than mediation or arbitration, a laughable attempt at best.
By early February 2018 the elderly homeowner had enough of the obstruction and filed an amendment to her motion to dismiss the HOA lawsuit, adding the three ARC members to the list of defendants in a counter-suit. Larry Patterson, Kurt Pitzer, and Paul Moore were the three men that had obstructed the elderly lot owner for over a year by this point. But the HOA is suddenly now supporting the covenants that they early decried as un-democratic and unconscionable because the HOA held the ACR members are held harmless and not liable for their acts or misdeeds because they are volunteers. At the same time the HOA admits that all three ACR members serve at the pleasure of the HOA and can be replaced or overruled at any time, an excellent way to clear up any tyranny or corruption.
The HOA is depending upon state law that holds non profit volunteers harmless for damages done while volunteering if the act was done in good faith and was inline with their official duties. Everyone understands the Good Samaritan laws but using a volunteer to hide the taking of a property by denying approval of a building plan simply doesn't fit the law. In fact the response asking for summary judgment provides the statute that does absolve a board member from the negligent acts of another director or employee of the non profit yet it doesn't hold a board member harmless from his own acts or negligence. Instead it holds these board members responsible for their own acts or omissions. The HOA goes further and advocates that both the ARC members and the HOA board members are immune despite the law stating that they are not immune! Printed right there in their own motion for summary judgment.
So you have the HOA first claiming that the covenants are un-democratic, harsh, and one sided, while also claiming that all parties involved on the HOA/ARC side are immune from being held responsible.....
By June of 2018 the trial judge has granted the motion to drop the three ARC board members from the lawsuit despite the lack of any other avenue of redress by the lot owner. The excuses are flimsy, the HOA claims they have no control over the ARC board members bad faith dealing despite their ability to dismiss them at any time and both ARC and HOA lawyers claim there is no factual controversy despite much disputed facts and testimony. It was a bad call by the judge for politically connected men to cover their misdeeds.
At this point the poor woman has been denied the use of her lot for over four years and is facing demands for attorney fees from both ACR and HOA lawyers despite the obvious bad dealing of the two boards. The willful and wanton abuse of their power and their claiming immunity from being held responsible is simply breathtaking. Eventually the elderly woman was forced to abandon her plans to build her retirement home and purchase a lot in another gated community where she had no problems getting her original house plans approved with minor changes. Since then the neighbors, the ARC, and the HOA have damaged her lot by dumping subsoil from nearby construction, removing trees, and generally trespassing on the property, continuing the seemingly coordinated effort to prevent the woman from ever developing her lot and perhaps even interfering with the sale of the lot, perhaps to force a sale at bargain pricing. Meanwhile property taxes and the mortgage is paid while four years of attorney costs continue to pile up, all apparently because a well connected local wanted to purchase a lot.
All of the defendants in the lawsuits including the HOA president and the three ACR members were contacted for their side of the story. Two of them answered the phone or returned the call, both refused to comment, the others have not replied. All were contacted via email as well but all have refused or neglected to respond to the email prior to publication.
