Documentation I can do. He laughed, dry and tired. Brennan, you're an engineer. Of course you can. I drove down to the bridge that evening with Tully in the passenger seat, and we walked the deck together.
She held my flashlight. I crawled under and inspected every cord and every tree nail. I found three new stress fractures along the south truss that had not been there 6 weeks earlier. Two of the fractures were hairline. The third was the width of a pencil lead and ran 4 feet along the underside of the cord.
My father would have called it a warning. I called it a clock. I marked each fracture with a small zinc tag and a Sharpie date. I photographed each one with a scale ruler beside it. I logged each one in the inspection notebook my father had started in 1989 and that I had been keeping since 2008.
I sat on the bank afterward with my elbows on my knees. Tully sat beside me in her muddy rubber boots with her hand on my arm. Daddy, is the bridge going to break? I told her the truth. It might, kiddo, if we don't stop them.
She thought about it for a moment. Then we stopped them. Tessa Hulcom did not wait for me to file the lawsuit. 3 days after our concrete truck conversation, a thick manila envelope arrived in my mailbox in Wesville. Inside was a 16-page document titled Amendment to the Sourwood Creek Crossing Easement, signed by Tessa Hulkcom as HOA president, dated retroactively to January 1st, 2022.
The document purported to modernize the easement by removing the prohibition on commercial vehicles, removing the weight limit reference, and granting the HOA all reasonable access necessary for community development and improvement. It was signed by Tessa. It was signed by Roland. It was signed by two HOA board members named Felton Brackett and Daria Pel. It was not signed by me.
It was not, in fact, signed by anyone with the legal authority to amend the easement because the easement was a recorded covenant running with my land. Only the landowner, me, could agree to amend it. The HOA could no more amend my easement than I could amend the deed to their houses. I scanned every page. I sent copies to my attorney in Asheville, a slow-talking land use specialist named Whitlock Trit, who had spent 27 years on real estate cases in western North Carolina.
He called me back in 8 minutes. Brennan, this is gold. This is a written admission by the HOA signed by four officers that they believe they have the authority to amend your private property rights. They do not. Each commercial crossing from this point forward is now a trespass with documented bad faith intent.
Pile up enough of those and we have a slander of title claim, a quiet title claim, and potentially a criminal conspiracy referral. How fast can I respond? Don't respond. Don't acknowledge. Let her dig.