HOA Sold Me Their Dried-Up Lake for $9,000 — Then Tried to Take It Back After a $41M Find
Chapter 13
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I turned toward the far shore. Through the willow trees, an excavator's boom rose beside the little storage shelter. Its bucket swung down, struck the concrete roof, and sent a cloud of dust across the lake bed. The second strike broke a corner off the shelter roof.I shouted into the phone, asking Walter where he was. He said he was on the far service road, safely above the bank. I told him to stay there and call 911.Then I turned my camera toward Patricia. "You have people tearing down my building," I said. "Tell them to stop."She looked past me toward the rising dust. For a moment, she seemed as surprised as I was. Then her mouth tightened. "That structure is unsafe. The association is removing a hazard."I asked who had given permission to enter my property. She lifted the paper against the fence again. It was a demand from the board dressed up to look important; it was not a court order.The man holding the chain cutter lowered it. He asked Patricia whether she had the owner's permission."We are correcting an ownership dispute," she snapped.I held up my deed on my phone and gave him Rebecca's number. He stepped away from the gate. Behind him, the bulldozer operator climbed down from his machine and said he would not move another inch until someone explained what was happening.I could not reach the far shore quickly on my injured ankle, and running beneath an excavator would help nobody. I called the company number printed on the machine waiting at my gate. A dispatcher answered. I gave her the address, told her demolition was underway without my permission, and asked her to contact the operator immediately.Across the lake bed, the excavator lifted its bucket for another strike. The bucket stopped in the air. It hung there while dust drifted through the willows, then lowered slowly to the ground. My knees nearly gave way with relief.Patricia was calling someone, her free hand pressed against her other ear. I kept recording. For once, she did not order me to put the phone away; she was too busy telling whoever answered that there had been a misunderstanding.Deputy Price arrived while the workers were loading their tools. He told everyone to remain where they were. A second patrol vehicle went around to the far entrance where Walter waited.Patricia began explaining that the board had authorized emergency maintenance. Price asked her for the work order. She handed him the same sheet she had wanted me to sign, and he asked again for the actual work order.It came from Russell: the demolition contractor produced an email describing the shelter as abandoned association property, with instructions to clear it before noon. Attached was an old map that left out my ownership and showed the service road as unrestricted access.Russell was waiting near the excavator. According to Walter, he had tried to leave when the bucket stopped, but the patrol vehicle reached the narrow road first.