Laredo residents' lawsuit could trigger legislation

On Tuesday evening at the Fasken Community Center, around 40 La Bota Ranch homeowners sat in rows, taking notes and simply listening as a fellow homeowner recounted the troubles that have befallen their community.

But this was not a homeowners association meeting. And that's the problem.

It's been over 20 years since La Bota Ranch was built, but the developers of the north Laredo gated community have yet to turn over the HOA board to the actual homeowners. The board remains under "declarant control" because the owners of the subdivision claim they are still in development, still building.

Homeowners association dues in La Bota pay for road maintenance and the upkeep of parks and facilities; the City of Laredo does not provide these services here.

Vanessa Perez is one of the homeowners here who has instigated a lawsuit against Albert Muller, the developer and owner of La Bota Ranch. Now close to half of La Bota's residents have joined the suit, Perez said.

The original petition, which was filed in June 2017, claims that the homeowners' fees to live in the area have become exorbitant, but services have diminished.

In June 2016, resident fees for La Bota's two HOAs suddenly jumped up 70 percent to $2,268 a year, and 57 percent to $2,600 a year, the lawsuit states.

The La Bota Ranch homeowners manual, which has existed since March 4, 1993, stipulates that the HOA dues cannot increase by more than 15 percent annually, according to the plaintiffs' attorney, Doanh "Zone" Nguyen.

However, when Perez raised this point to the Muller family, the board changed the language in the handbook online. When she questioned this, they deleted their website altogether, she said.

At Tuesday's presentation, Perez showed the attendees screenshots of this progression. The last image of labotahoa.com displays an Error 404 screen, adorned with a cartoon bee looking through a magnifying glass.

Perez led Tuesday's information session with clarity and moxie, breaking down intricate state statute concerning HOAs into a 20-minute PowerPoint presentation.

The crux of the issue for homeowners, she explained, is that Texas laws regarding homeowners associations pertain mainly to HOAs that are run by the residents. Typically HOAs must hold an open meeting in order to vote on fines, initiate foreclosures, increase assessments, approve an increase to an annual budget by more than 10 percent, etc.

"So that is awesome. If you live in a homeowners association, because of that, you would know that the most they can raise the dues is by 10 percent," Perez said.

However, HOAs under declarant control, such as La Bota's, do not have to obey these laws.

"Since they supposedly are still developing, they get to bypass that. And that's why our dues went up so high," Perez said.

However, regardless of declarant control, there are four things an HOA cannot do outside an open board meeting, according to state law — the first being, adopt or amend governing documents.

When the Mullers created this subdivision, La Bota's governing documents stated that the HOA's control shall transfer from the developers to the homeowners in 2025.

"But then as they started getting closer to that year ... (Albert Muller) went ahead and unilaterally changed that date on his own, saying that it was an error, and now there's no date," Perez said.

When they changed this date, they did it behind homeowners' backs, she said.

Muller and his attorney did not return requests for comment for this story.

"Albert Muller said that they cannot give a day when they will no longer be in development or turn over the association, because they look to Texas laws for that," Perez said. "So, that's why we're looking to Mr. King. Because he's the one with the power to kind of tweak the laws if he feels that he needs to be tweaked."

State Rep. Tracy King, whose district reaches La Bota Ranch, was the guest of honor at Tuesday's meeting.

He said he wanted to help these homeowners in whichever way he can, but stopped short of promising filing new legislation for the upcoming 2019 session.

"The counties I represent are Zapata, Webb, Dimmit, Zavala, Frio and Uvalde counties. So there's not a lot of homeowners associations in there, certainly none of them with these issues," King said, and the audience chuckled. "... This situation appears to be a little unique because of the long time that it's been in the development phase. And that may be real common throughout the state of Texas. That's one of the things that we're going to look at and see — if that's something that occurs or if that's pretty rare."

He also noted that in each session of the Texas Legislature, 6,500 pieces of legislation will be introduced to changed state law. Of those, only about 1,200 end up passing.

"So it is very, very difficult to change the law in the state of Texas, and it was designed that way on purpose ..." King said. "So I don't want anybody to walk away from here and say, 'Yes! On Sept. 1, 2019 I'll have a brand-new law.'

"Because you cannot guarantee that. But we're certainly going to have a very good discussion about it."

King said that Perez has pointed out to him several places in the law that need to change. He said he will sit down with Nguyen and the landowners and draft a potential new piece of legislation.

One of the co-plaintiffs, Memo Castro who along with Perez led the information session, said he believes they will win this not through the court of law, but by getting the law to change.

"If I'm going to take a loss on my home, I sure as hell want them to take a loss too," Castro said. "... The idea for us is to grow in numbers. The idea for us is to be in their face. The idea for us is to get the media involved. The idea is for them, whatever piece of land that they've got, they don't sell a goddamn thing until we tell them to. That's where we're going to hurt them. ... I should be spending my time with grandkids, not sweating and fighting these a******s."

Julia Wallace may be reached at 956-728-2543 or jwallace@lmtonline.com