This is what scared looks like when it wears a suit. I told him to decline by letter, which he did formally within 24 hours. Karen's response came 6 days later, not through her attorney, but through the HOA newsletter. She sent it to all 96 households. I received a forwarded copy from Beverly.
The newsletter described me as a neighboring property owner who was, in her words, attempting to claim HOA common property through a series of false deed assertions and bad faith county complaints. It stated that my actions had cost the HOA over $80,000 in legal fees. It said the board was confident in the resort's legal standing and that the HOA's attorneys had advised the association that all necessary permits were valid and properly obtained. Every sentence was either a lie or a carefully constructed half-truth. The deed assertions weren't false.
They were certified. The legal fees were real, but Karen had generated them by building on land she didn't own. The permit validity statement was directly contradicted by the county planning department's own inquiry, which Karen knew about and hadn't mentioned. None of that mattered to the people reading it over breakfast. Three neighbors who had been calling me with updates went silent after the newsletter.
One of them, a man named Curtis, who had given me Ray's phone number in the first place, sent me a short text. Sorry, Crawford. "We're going to trust the board on this one." Hope it works out. I read it and set the phone down on the counter and stood in my kitchen for a while.
I didn't blame Curtis. I understood exactly what had happened. Karen was his president. The resort had been in the paper. The construction was finished.
The landscaping was in. And from the road, it looked like exactly what she'd promised. And I was a property owner. He barely knew 6 months into a fight that had cost his ho $80,000 in legal fees that would eventually come back to him in his quarterly bill. In 48 hours, I lost two friendships I hadn't known I was making.
I didn't change course. June 14th was 8 days away. The couple from out of state, she was a teacher he worked construction had called Lakeside Grand to confirm the final details. 180 guests, a caterer, a photographer, a live band. The florist had been briefed on the centerpiece arrangements.
The bridal suite had been reserved from the night before. They had sent a save the date card to everyone they knew. Karen told her events coordinator that this was exactly the kind of client they'd built Lakeside Grand for. I was aware of all of it. Beverly kept me informed because Beverly understood what was coming and believed it needed to happen regardless of the cost to the timeline.