…my client. Including the road you’re all parked on tonight.”
The HOA president, Karen Lyle, stopped laughing.
My attorney, Mr. Shaw, laid out the survey and the deed. My grandfather had built our neighborhood in 1958. He sold the lots but kept ownership of the private road, granting residents the right to use it. When he died, it passed to my father, then to me. Nobody had ever transferred it to the HOA. For decades, the HOA had been collecting “road maintenance fees” from every homeowner — more than four hundred thousand dollars over the years — for a road it didn’t own.
“Where did that money go?” asked an elderly neighbor named Mr. Patel.
Karen didn’t answer. The treasurer, a quiet woman named Linda, did. She stood up and said she’d been worried about the HOA’s accounts for a year. The road hadn’t been resurfaced since 2009. The “maintenance fund” had been paying for the president’s “administrative expenses,” including a new SUV and a trip to Cabo.
The room erupted.
I raised my hand until everyone quieted down. “I’m not here to charge anyone for using my road,” I said. “I’m here because I don’t want to be fined fifteen thousand dollars for a red door.”
Mr. Shaw explained my terms. The fine would be dismissed. The HOA’s financial records would be audited by an outside accountant. And I would donate the road to the city, so it would be maintained properly with public money instead of private fees.
The homeowners voted that night. Unanimously. Karen was removed as president. The audit later found she’d spent more than sixty thousand dollars of HOA money on personal expenses. She was ordered to repay it.
The city repaved the road the following summer. They put up a new street sign at the entrance. It bears my grandfather’s name.
Half the neighborhood painted their front doors bright colors that year. Mr. Patel painted his red, like mine. “Solidarity,” he said.
