Most gated communities in San Carlos have some form of home owners association or HOA. The HOA over at the Costa del Mar (CDM), located at Algodones beach right next to the high rise condos of Playa Blanca, development is something we have reported on in the past. I wrote a rather extensive piece on the CDM documenting a rather large dispute over there back in May of 2013.
Back in 2006 the CDM HOA decided it was going to lock out a Mexican lot owner from being able to access his property. The reason he was being locked out was for a lack of payment of his HOA fees. The man being locked out was named Juan Carlos Gonzalez. We just recently wrote a story about Juan Carlos and his fight with the water company and we will be finishing that story in the coming months. Juan Carlos stopped paying his HOA fees approximately one year after he purchased his lot. It was his believe that the CDM HOA board of directors were violating the by laws of the HOA in the manner in which money was spend on infrastructure projects such as the new road that was installed out there.
To make a rather long story short the then president of the HOA Ken Unrein along with the rest of the board of directors of the HOA decided that they would lock Juan Carlos out of the development. Juan Carlos stayed locked out of the development for 6 years and was not allowed to enter and visit his property. That all changed in 2012 when Francisco Vellez Villa, a Mexican home owner was also locked out for non payment of HOA fees. Francisco was locked out from driving his vehicle in the CDM for a short period of time before the CDM HOA backed off and started letting him drive back into the development. Francisco had pretty much the same reasons for non payment of HOA fees as Juan Carlos. He believed that the HOA was violating their bylaws. Again You can read all about that fiasco on our May 3, 2013 post.
What is going to be different for the CDM HOA this year? Francisco Villa Vellez has hired an attorney. What he wants from the HOA is to have a full accounting of the books from 2006. In November of 2014 Albaro Antonio Romero attorney for Mr. Vellez petitioned a judge for a full audit of the HOA. CDM lawyers fought to have the petition denied. CDM was unsuccessful.
Just recently a judge has ruled in favor of Francisco which means sometime this month an accountant for Francisco and an accountant for CDM will be going through the books and there will be a full audit. If their is a dispute between the accountants the court will provide a third party accountant to be present during the audit.
If CDM is unable to provide complete files on the accounting there could be negative legal ramification over this. For example, it has been stated that many files for the HOA were lost during the hurricane Jimena disaster. If that is true and the HOA has not informed the state or the court of these missing files that could be the beginning of big problems for the HOA.
The HOA has recently elected a new board and have stated the last board and the new incoming board of directors are trying to be squeaky clean on how board business is run. The problem is that possible errors of the past board of directors may come back to haunt the present Costa del Mar board of directors. Only time, and apparently lawyers, will tell.