“Issue: A commenter said HUD should include social isolation and neglect as forms of harassment under the rule, especially when they occur with the intent to drive a person from his or her home or interfere with his or her enjoyment of a dwelling. According to the commenter, these actions have major implications for the psychological well-being of an individual.
HUD Response: HUD appreciates that social isolation and neglect are serious concerns. This rule is limited to conduct engaged in because of a protected characteristic. If a tenant is subjected to unwanted severe or pervasive conduct because of a disability, for example, which leads to social isolation with the intent or effect of driving the tenant from his or her home or interfering with his or her enjoyment of a dwelling, such conduct could constitute hostile environment harassment under the standards set forth in the rule.“
During President Ballweber’s Testimony on 1/2/24 before the HOA Homeowners Rights Task Force, she made a point to describe how I am being isolated. It was a minor snarky comment, but in her prepared comments, which the POHOA Board apparently voted for (in an Action Without A Meeting, or AWAM) and indicates a deliberate and calculated statement, she said: “But a negative shift has occurred within our association because of the undue influence of a single combative homeowner who can rarely rally one or two others to his cause.“
Why is this important for President Ballweber to emphasize before the HOA Task Force?
I believe it is a tell for what has been my core allegation all along: That the people dominating the HOA politics in our 87-home HOA believe that they can and should use the powers and authorities of the HOA, and to some extent their voting majority, to control who lives within the neighborhood. And, the combination of using the HOA to anonymize who are the parties who take action (filing complaints that are not borne in facts to attempt to get HOA rules enforcement pointed towards us) with the ability of a Board to use the Meeting Minutes and public statements that are derogatory towards my wife and I, they have successfully driven a wedge between us and most of the rest of the neighbors.
I’m sure it is fair to say that we too have a choice, and the choice of participating in this HOA and pointing out where the Boards or Committees have erred could reasonably be expected to put a target on our back. But, this isn’t a Reality Show where all participants have agreed to some form of game, where perhaps there is some prize at the end. This is life. To deliberately run around the neighborhood passing rumors, and literally telling people not to associate with us is in hopes it will make us move. . . beyond any reasonable purpose of an HOA.
The effect of such behaviors is to pretend that this is more than an HOA, and something like a Gated Community or County Club. Where membership is at the whim of the organization. An HOA is different – it is an agreement to purchase real estate with rules that “run with the land”, and to abide by those rules.
The issue here isn’t whether we are or are not following the rules, although there are perennial attempts to find some flaw. Most recently, it was discovered the a neighbor two doors down from us turned us in during COVID for allegedly running a Bed and Breakfast (we were not), and was then taking down the license plates of cars parked in the street adjacent to our home because they were from “out of state”. Turned out they were the friends of the neighbor in between, but we never got an apology – just more suspicion. It reeks of desperation to find some justification for the isolation.
But, upon discovery of their written complaint in the old Gmail account, I learned that MANY homeowners were aware of this rumor – and their subsequent embarrassment. It means that while some may not be participating, they are also not letting us know about such plots against us. And, their silence and neutrality works in favor of the aggressors.
But, this didn’t begin recently. A year after we moved into our home in 2007, someone left an anonymous bag of poop on our doorstep. We went door to door to see if anyone saw someone walking to our home (in broad daylight, no less), and easily found the neighbor who did it. They weren’t apologetic. They were convinced that the poop on their lawn was from our cat – and didn’t understand that cats bury their poop. Yeah, the put Fox poop on our doorstep before we ever got introduced.
We learned from one of the landscaping companies that there were people who didn’t like us in the neighborhood because, in particular, I am a male with long hair. Of course in any cross-section of America, there are likely to be conservative-minded persons, even in the 21st Century who harbor such prejudices and biases. But, this made us want, even less, to go out and meet people randomly. We just kept to ourselves, and interacted with those who walked both in front of and behind our homes – which was frequent.
But, then in 2016, we made the mistake of asking for a monthly payment plan for our assessments, which had been billed in January with the expectation that the lump sum be paid at once. The management company didn’t just make a huge issue of it, they filed a lien on our house AFTER we had an agreement with the HOA attorney, including the amounts to be paid (which of course now had his fees built in). In spite of the agreement, they doubled back and said it was not an agreement because it was only made verbally confirmed by email, and was not a “wet ink” agreement. Seriously.
It was at that time I meet with one Director, Perry Malisani, who was also a Larimer County Sheriff. He explained to me that the other two Directors were the neighborhood “gestapo” (his descriptive term), and that he was constantly having to be the peacemaker who stopped them from making proverbial mountains of molehills. He told me that our paranoia was justified, and that there were people who wished we could be driven from our home.
I wasn’t aware that in that same year, 2016, HUD was revising the law and its rules on Hostile Environment Harassment to make clear that the law applied to HOAs. Nor was I aware that they considered those who targeted Protected Classes with Hostile Environment Harassment that intended to socially isolate people as the aggressors – and the law was designed to protect them from such actions.
The thing is, it’s difficult to prove.
And, of course, in 2019, there was the incident with Mr. Lanny Goyn. I was out volunteering on HOA landscaping, and he came up to me and grabbed my hand like he wanted to break it. But, after saying he was glad to “meet” me, he went into a tirade about how he and others had been “watching” me for “years”, and then made some threatening and intimidating remarks. I wished I had my phone on me so that I could have recorded it – because when we got back in the presence of other volunteers, he pretended like nothing was said at all. Chilling.
We also have a neighbor who is in two protected classes who was told to his face to sell his home and move. And, he has been targeted repeatedly with threats and messages for being a member of a protected class. When I learned the details of FHA law in 2019, I recognized that the parties who were engaged in this behavior needed intervention – by the HOA Board, because some of this behavior was occurring at HOA Board Meetings. The one in December of 2019 almost became a physical brawl – and I wasn’t in attendance, either.
But, my request for intervention was met with “We don’t get involved in neighborhood kerfuffles“, as an official POLICY of Poudre Overlook HOA. Even after showing the Board the language of the HUD rule, and all the information in the Federal Register from 2016, they were somehow convinced by the HOA General Counsel (Pete Dauster) and the attorneys for the insurance company (American Family Insurance), which was an outside firm, Sutton-Booker, that they had no obligation to follow FHA law.
I offered reasonable resolutions to my dispute. I simply wanted those who were engaged in this hostile environment harassment to be kept for a short period (1-3 years, depending on severity) from participating in meetings or as Directors or Committee Members. I could not obtain a hearing, they would not agree to mediation, and ultimately left me with one option – litigation. And, for me, with PTSD, their behavior, and in particular constantly going behind our home in the drainage ditch to harass us in our yard, it was extremely difficult to get out of my head. Unwanted repetitive memories (audio and visual) were a constant condition for years, and I believe it is all intentional.
Because these same folks went around the neighborhood telling our neighbors that I was “crazy” and “off my meds”. Folks, PTSD isn’t treated with meds – you have coping mechanisms. It’s the combination of having a good vivid memory, and a brain that automatically repeats them. It’s how I’m built, and I can’t change that.
And, for me, writing the memories or about them or the circumstances, even at length, was one of the primary means of accomplishing two things. It would get the issue out of my head, where it would cycle over and over, and it would also create documentation of these actions and behaviors because . . . certainly, there must be some agency or body to enforce this, right?
Nope. No one comes to your aid. And, if they do, they get a target on their back themselves. Leading to more social isolation. Which is the point.
I was already deeply involved in advocacy on HOA issues at the Colorado State Legislature. I was becoming aware of the patterns at other HOAs, and over and over I was told that the only option was to litigate or sell our home and move.
The choice to litigate is difficult. First of all, if you don’t put a monetary value on the dispute, it is unlikely to get past the Motion to Dismiss, which often accompanies a Defendant’s strategy. What is the appropriate value assigned to being forced to move from a home you otherwise love?
After the Court rejected the initial complaint for failing to state a claim upon which relief may be granted, and specifically not putting a value on it, I discussed this with our attorney. And, the issue was that we didn’t want to move from our home, but we also didn’t want to give up the investment. But, we would have an expense of living elsewhere if we did not. So, it seemed reasonable to use the value of our home, and a demand to be provided with an equal value dwelling as one of the reliefs sought for the claim.
At the time, our home was valued at $750,000. So, that’s what we put in the Amended Complaint. Our attorney, however, didn’t do something procedurally correct when you have a six-figure or greater case. And, for that, he was sanctioned and ultimately had to pay Sutton-Booker their legal fees for having to respond to one motion related to that Amended Complaint.
But, Walker Flanary, who is the primary antagonist in our narrative, went around the neighborhood and promoted a fantasy – that the lawsuit was simply an attempt to get some money. He would leave out the part that he and Irve Denenberg’s daily repetitive walks behind our home, which caused my wife to have to go inside our house EVERY time they came by (they would stand just over our back fence, point, gesture, and make verbal comments) particularly if I wasn’t home. This is tremendously harmful to the mental health of those who have to live through it – like a horror movie. PTSD means you relive such confrontations over and over in your head – and even when I made clear this was the case, they didn’t stop – they stepped up their “visits”.
In fact, during litigation, Sutton-Booker argued that they have a RIGHT to go behind our home, even though the purpose is a Stormwater Drainage Facility, not a park path (which is how it is effectively used). After months of settlement negotiations, where we were demanding that the HOA limit these two individuals from being able to go behind our home, they offered to ALLOW us to build a 6-foot high privacy fence where there is currently an HOA-owned 3-rail fence. In other words, we were welcome to fence ourselves in, literally.
While we didn’t enjoy Mr. Denenberg or Mr. Flanary’s visits, we DID enjoy socializing with neighbors, many of whom actually live outside the HOA in adjacent neighborhoods. So, the “offer” to “allow” us to be further socially isolated was . . . just ridiculous. And, our attorneys at Robinson & Henry said they had never seen an HOA Board that was this unreasonable.
So, we settled for simply having the HOA stop trying to assign blame to us for litigating, and to move on. They’ve never honored that agreement.
Within a month of the Settlement Agreement in June of 2021, the POHOA Board hired VF-Law to go on the attack, and try to threaten us. They spent THOUSANDS of dollars to have them write us a nasty threatening letter, which resulted in a very interesting conversation with Damien Bielli from VF-Law. It was clear to me that the narrative he had been given painted us, once again, as socially isolated and completely unjustified. But, I explained that even if I am in a political minority, I have a right to participate in the HOA political process and explain my side of the story to my neighbors to win their votes (or influence their votes against those who are the aggressors). He actually and surprisingly agreed.
But, they weren’t done. They then attempted to change our CCRs and other governing documents. At the time, I didn’t understand why it was so urgent. And, they made it the top priority for the business of the association. But, again, my work and experience as a HOA Homeowners Rights advocate led me to discovery of the practice of embedding “Individual Assessment” clauses in HOA Governing Documents for the purpose of being able to legally assign legal fees to individual homeowners – at the direction of the HOA Board, with very few if any checks and balances against abuses of this power.
This coincided with the legislative process for HB22-1137, which aimed to stop foreclosures based upon the predatory and abusive use of “Individual Assessments” that would take minor fines and escalate them into debts of tens of thousands of dollars in as little as 90 days. If you write an email to the HOA, they could then turn it over to the attorney, tell them to “investigate”, and it would give them a blank check to create HUGE legal expenses.
And, that is what the POHOA Board did. They ran up over $11,000 in legal expenses in 2021 with the plan to change our documents so that they could legally be assigned to my wife and I.
When I attempted to participate in the “Document Revision” process, they would not allow either myself or the “one or two others I could rally to my cause” to participate. The meetings were locked down like they were Homeland Security meetings. And, the underlying draft documents were kept hidden like a secret CIA plot.
There was a reason – Lisa Cancanon, who worked at VF-Law (and just recently returned to the firm in November of 2023), was embroiled in the controversial practices of targeting over 50 homeowners in Green Valley Ranch. This is one of the primary reasons HB22-1137 passed, as the media found evidence of this network of attorneys running foreclosure mills that targeted people – and basically stole their homes. Because the very same people could then purchase them (often for the cost of the outstanding mortgage and the inflated legal fees), and then flip the home capturing all of the equity!
And, who did POHOA have working on “Document Revision”?
Yes, Lisa Cancanon. With the simultaneous passage of HB22-1137, and the revelation that we were using the firm and individual attorney directly involved with the predatory practices, the entire Board and VF-Law all resigned/terminated at the same time.
I’m credited, however, with somehow “harassing” them, not catching them doing something that they should not have – which is to create a tool by which those involved in Hostile Environment Harassment are able to socially isolate homeowners and drive them from their homes using the threat of individual assessments to do so.
So, going back to President Ballweber’s testimony, there are several references to social isolation that are either subconsciously or deliberately included. Because, there is absolutely no individual independent observer who has looked at this and not concluded that they are trying to drive us from our home. While Walker Flanery likes to declare such concepts as “conspiracy theory”, what has been revealed thus far, particularly once the old Gmail account was accessible, is that this is, in fact, a conspiracy for which we find many supporting facts.
“the undue influence of a single combative homeowner”
“this small minority”
“gets massively overwhelmed by this single homeowner”
“the single homeowner was responsible for “
“The single homeowner filed a frivolous lawsuit against the HOA board“
The last one is a strong tell. You see, in the minds of the past few HOA Board configurations since litigation, they have promoted the idea that THE BOARD was sued. Yet, when these same folks go to HOA meetings and bring this up, they then tell everyone that I “sued [my] neighbors”. So, which is it?
Well, this gets into the topic of the relationship with the HOA General Counsel, which many Boards believe think represents the Board vs. the homeowners. They fail to recognize, however, that the Association is a Non-Profit Corporation and that Corporations are actual people. The Board has a fiduciary duty to protect this person, the Association, the Corporation.
The HOA General Counsel represents . . . The Association. Not the Board. And, when the Association is named in the lawsuit, it is not suing your neighbors. It is suing the Corporate Person, The Association.
And, this is yet another tool to create and perpetuate social isolation to drive someone from their home. By positioning the SOLE MEANS of enforcement of rules on HOA Directors, which is private litigation, as a hostile, distasteful, and offensive action against your NEIGHBORS, it literally makes enforcement of rules on rogue Boards difficult to impossible. Social isolation, which we know HUD considers Hostile Environment Harassment, becomes a knee-jerk tool commonly used by Boards who cannot defend themselves with FACTS. They pretend that the Board is being sued, not the Association, and then fail to take responsibility for their failure of fiduciary duty to invite and encourage litigation which has a good faith purpose – to stop their non-compliance.
This is why I say the HOA model of governance is broken and perhaps FUBAR.
But, make no mistake, President Ballweber has completed the picture in this so-called conspiracy theory. Her language of social isolation makes clear there is no intent to work things out with us. They intend to drive us from our home as the “solution” by pitting us against our neighbors. It’s sinister, predatory, and just plain wrong. And, when the Board members agree to do this as a group, it is LITERALLY a conspiracy!
The best I can do is continue to document and shine light upon the facts that support the allegations. And, hope that at some point, the legislators will provide actual meaningful protections for Homeowners who have a right to complain when the Board or their Vendors do not follow laws, rules, or ethics without fear of retaliation – that includes socially isolating tactics.
I believe that this FHA/HUD law/rules to be too obscure to be effectively enforced, which is why I have been lobbying for 3 years for the Colorado Legislature to put these elements directly into CCIOA. The reason is that the Colorado Civil Rights Division (CCRD) doesn’t recognize any responsibility to enforce FHA/HUD laws or rules – it has to be in Colorado statutes.
We are going on 8 years since HUD changed the rules – and it is time for Colorado to recognize that these aggressive and predatory behaviors are common in Colorado HOAs. Many homeowners have reported being forced to sell their homes and move out of HOAs because of Hostile Environment Harassment.
When our neighbor walked up to me as I was taking a picture of a double-rainbow over our home and said “that will look good on the real estate listing when you sell your home”, I knew that these folks know how to keep their toes on the line – like mobsters who say things like “it would be a terrible thing if . . . “. It’s nerve-wracking, which is the intent – particularly when they’ve already been through a CCRD case documenting that I have PTSD and how such subtle threats are received.
But, for now, we simply have to live with a Board that is actively fomenting negativity towards us based upon falsehoods, and using them as pawns in their game to force us from our home. We intend to stand our ground because we have hope that the Legislature will someday make protections of people in our position a priority.