JoanneL (Virginia)
Posts: 22
Posts: 22
Posted:
Hi. Forgive me for the length of this post. I live in VA. Our HOA recently met to discuss instituting a "special assessment" to raise money to expand our parking lot. In 1986, our development was built. The county needed some of the common area to construct a parkway. The units were owner-occupied (80%) at the time of the sale of our common area, a HOA board existed, but the county mistakenly negotiated the sale of the association's common area with the construction company. The construction company received 34K from the sale of the common area, but deposited the check into the construction company's account. The HOA had an audit of the books, discovered the discrepancy, sued in court and in 1987 the court issued a judgment of $34K to the HOA. One partner of the construction company agreed to pay half ($17K) of the judgment but the HOA has never collected the other 17K from the other partner. (The one partner whom the HOA hasn't collected from transferred all of his assets into his wife's name and according to VA law, you can't go after a spouse's assests - only the businesses' assets.) When the HOA received the $17K check, the HOA members couldn't decide how to spend the money for the common area and ended up splitting it among the existing HOA members. My question is, can the new members of the HOA sue the former members to return the money? The money was from the sale of "common area" which our by-laws strictly state that any money in the HOA account is to be used for "improving/maintaining the common area." Has the statute of limitations run out to collect from the existing HOA members who received this money? I don't have the money to hire a lawyer to research or sue on the new members's behalf. I'm just mad that I may have to pay a special assessment when if the HOA had deposited the money in the account and it collected interest, the new members may not be facing a special assessment.