HOA Sold Me Their Dried-Up Lake for $9,000 — Then Tried to Take It Back After a $41M Find
Chapter 8
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Sarah arrived in dusty boots carrying a small case and a notebook. She checked the labels before examining the stone. Then she asked permission to look through the other boxes. We worked slowly, laying each sound box on a folding table outside.After a while, she stopped making small talk. She took one pale piece into the sunlight and turned it carefully between her fingers."This is quartz," she said. "Quartz by itself is common. What matters here is what else is in it, how much there is, and whether these labels are accurate."She explained that unusually clean quartz could be useful in making certain kinds of glass and other products, but appearance proved very little. She would need proper tests and fresh samples taken from the ground.I asked whether it was worth enough to cover the fence bill. Sarah smiled, then grew serious again."Jack, please don't start spending money based on a white rock."She did, however, ask to photograph every box and copy the hole locations. Near the back of the shelter, she found several empty spaces in the numbered rows: the boxes from the deepest sections were missing.That evening, she called with another question: Had anyone from the association given me a drilling report? I told her no. She said the company name in Walter's photograph belonged to a business that had since closed; finding its records might take time. Meanwhile, she wanted the surviving samples kept dry and secure because their labels could help guide the new tests. I moved them into Frank's covered work trailer.Two mornings later, Patricia called me for the first time since the accident. Her voice was pleasant in a way that made me sit down. She said the board felt terrible about my trouble and wanted to offer $12,000 to buy the property back; they would even handle the paperwork.I asked what had changed since she told me the lake was a burden."We've had another discussion," she said. "Some residents miss having control of it."I told her I needed time. Her pleasant voice disappeared. She said the old equipment and stored materials had never been part of the sale, and I needed to stop moving things. When I asked which materials she meant, she paused, then said, "Anything in the buildings."Rebecca read the deed again and sent Patricia a reply: whatever claim the association wanted to make, it needed to explain in writing. Until then, nobody had permission to enter my property or remove anything.I bought a better gate chain that afternoon. Frank let me keep the trailer another week, and we parked it beside the pump building inside the new fence and away from the damaged bank. Walter joined me there after supper to help match Sarah's photographs with his old pictures. A work light hung over our folding table.We were studying the drilling truck when he touched the corner of the photograph and went quiet. He said the man standing behind the treasurer might be his son, Brian, who had worked occasional maintenance jobs for the association before moving away.