Posted on 06/02/2010 8:04:52 PM PDT by RDTF
Michael Clauer is a captain in the Army Reserve who commanded over 100 soldiers in Iraq. But while he was fighting for his country, a different kind of battle was brewing on the home front. Last September, Michael returned to Frisco, Texas, to find that his homeowners' association had foreclosed on his $300,000 house—and sold it for $3,500. This story illustrates the type of legal quagmire that can get out of hand while soldiers are serving abroad and their families are dealing with the stress of their deployment. And fixing the mess isn't easy.
Michael went on active duty in February 2008 and was sent to Iraq. After he shipped out, his wife May slipped into a deep depression, according to court documents. "A lot of people say that the deployment is more stressful on the spouse than the actual person who's being deployed," Michael, 37, says in an interview with Mother Jones. May Clauer had two kids to take care of—a ten-year-old and a one-year-old with a serious seizure-related disorder. In addition, she was worried sick about her husband. Michael's company was doing convoy security in Iraq—an extremely dangerous job. "It was a pretty tough year for the whole company," he says. "We had IEDs, rocket attacks and mortar attacks, and a few soldiers that were hurt pretty bad and had to be airlifted back to the States."
Seeking to avoid hearing about the situation in Iraq, May stopped watching the news. She rarely answered the door, and Michael says he couldn't tell her when he went "outside the wire"—off-base. May also stopped opening the mail. "I guess she was scared that she would hear bad news," says Michael. That was why she missed multiple notices from the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association informing her that the family owed $800 in dues—and then subsequent notices stating that the HOA was preparing to foreclose on the debt and seize the home. .Advertisement Advertisement In Texas, homeowners' associations can foreclose on homes without a court order, no matter the size of the debt. In May 2008, the HOA sold the Clauers' home for a pittance—$3,500—although its appraisal value was $300,000, according to court documents. The buyer then resold the house to a third person. (Select Management Co., the company that manages Heritage Lakes, declined to comment for this story.)
It wasn't until June 2009 that May realized what had happened. Around that time, the new owner started demanding rent from the Clauers. She told Michael, who was still in Iraq. "At first I didn't believe it," he says. "I didn't understand how someone can take your house and not give you anything for it." When Texas Gov. Rick Perry visited Iraq in July, Michael says he told him about the problem. According to Michael, Perry called May and put lawyers in touch with the Clauers' attorney, but couldn't do much to alleviate the situation. (Perry's office didn't respond to calls seeking comment.) In August 2009, the new owner sent the couple an eviction notice, according to court records filed in the case. In Iraq, "the stress level was finally starting to come down," says Michael, and he was "starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel." He adds, "Then all of a sudden I get hit with this, and I'm trying to get out of there and get home and see what I can do to fight this."
At no point did anyone from the HOA—which is, after all, composed of the Clauers' neighbors—appear to have tried to visit May Clauer's house to talk to her about the problem. "The HOA board members...don't live very far from me at all," Michael Clauer says. There were "neighbors owing much more than us [who] were notified in person of pending foreclosures, but my wife only received a few letters." David Schechter of the Dallas/Fort Worth television station WFAA, which first reported this story, notes that the "Clauers' HOA says homeowners are free to call them, but they do not call or visit homeowners when there's a problem. They're only required to send a certified letter."
There are a bevy of laws that are supposed to protect servicemembers from losing their homes or jobs while they're on active duty, including the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act (SCRA). The homeowners' association's lawyer filed an affidavit wrongly claiming that neither of the Clauers was on active duty, says Barbara Hale, the couple's lawyer. Hale is seeking to have the court reverse the foreclosure and declare it "null and void," she says.
In the meantime, the Clauers have obtained an agreement allowing the family to stay in the home, Hale says. She's "confident that the courts will sort this out and do the right thing," but notes that the drawn-out legal process must be stressful for the Clauers.
The one good thing for the Clauers about Michael's deployment to Iraq was that it gave them a chance to get their finances in order. Michael got a bonus and expenses at home were lower. Now all of that money is gone, says Michael, who is currently working as a production supervisor at a roofing company. "It's ridiculous how much this is costing us," he says. "I'll be taking out a mortgage on my house that was free and clear just to try to get my house back."
Lauren Bean, a spokeswoman for Clauers' congressman, GOP Rep. Michael Burgess, says that Burgess is "aware of Capt. Clauer's issue," but says it is "office policy to not comment on constituent casework."
Even if he can't get his family's home back, Michael hopes that the public will pay attention to his story and push for changes to the laws that give Texas HOAs so much power. "We don't want to see this happen to other people," he says.
UPDATE: Several people have emailed asking how they can help. The Clauers have set up a legal defense fund to help pay for their court battle. You can send checks (made out to Clauer Legal Defense Fund) here:
Clauer Legal Defense Fund
c/o Plains Capital Bank
1629 Hebron Parkway West
Carrollton, TX 75010
old story his wife is an idiot
Thanks for your input Al. Apparently still not resolved.
Your welcome anytime I can help
whatever.
If something like this happened to me, I'd probably get a sprayer truck, fill it with gasoline, and go on a drive through the yards of the board members...
Bingo. Still.... If I were on the HOA and KNEW he was deployed, I’d have made every effort to contact the soldier. HOA’s have the choice of pursuing collection thru small claims. Also, I have a hard time believing the soldier had no clue his wife was whacked. This is a tough one.
He should have married better.
The details of this “sale” need to be exposed.
There was unjust enrichment going on here, and you better believe the new owner knew someone on this board.
sounds like someone in that HOA made a big profit. This needs to be investigated
exactly!
HOA, Little tin gods in their own eyes.
Yep! His wife is an idiot. Pull it together woman and share the load with your husband.
1) If you choose to live in a development with HOA **read** the contract before you sign.
2) If you don’t pay your HOA dues then it makes harder on and more expensive for the other owners and they (rightfully) get ticked!
3) Wasn’t there any extended family checking in on this woman and her family?
Nothing in their family history points to her being an idiot.
If you've never had to deal with anyone with clinical depression or disabling anxieties, then let me just say that there are some extremnely serious things you don't know about. May God protect you from such crippling experiences.
Though the homeowner's group has no contractual obligation past a certified mail, the fact that they selectively reached out personally to some but not others invokes a de facto requirement that they treat everyone by the same standard - and they didn't treat her the same as others. They should be countersued for discrimination, to give them an idea that they are not omnipotent. Homeowners groups are, by and large, so evil they make Satan blanch. The rest are just vicious, petty, and as criminal as they can get away with.
“This needs to be investigated.”
Then the sprayer truck!
I hate HOA, I would make their lives hell if they pulled this on me.
I would bend the rules and give them hell.
Put Ping Play Boy Bunnies on my lawn, what ever it took
I would never buy the property back, but I would sign a lease so I could make it hell for them to get me out of there.
I love a good fight.
I had the lady from a HOA giving me a hard time about slicing concrete up with an unapproved contractor (apparently bonded and insured isn’t good enough). The lady was trying to get me to hire her son-in-law. Fatchance.
I told the contractor to stop work and dump all the concrete in a dump leaving large sections of concrete missing from the driveway and the garage. It was the mother of all eyesores.
She moved out about 1 month after this after I got everyone to understand what went down. She was done as Assoc President, no one ever messed with me again. I am not above calling their bluff.
After she left, I called the contractor back to finish the job, he charged me $50 more because he had to make two trips, but he was happy to see that “$@@ch” out of there.
Anyone who buys in a neighborhood that has a homeowners association is stupid and deserves the headaches he gets. Anyone who agrees to form such an association in a neighborhood previously free ditto.
HOA’s are generally not good things. They easily become dictatorial and oppressive. I lived in a neighborhood once that had one - never again.
Now, a really serious question - why would Texas have a law that gave HOA’s so much power? This is asinine.
The place to start is where the lawyer lied ~ he’s got deep pockets. Time to clean them out for him.
Back in the day when people supported their troops this crap wouldn’t happen. There would have been a great amount of leeway, some tolerance given.
The bastards in the HOA should be crucified. Crucified in the public domain for their inpatients. I would guess that there is not one of the HOA leadership members that is a vet or has a member of their family in the military.
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