Tag: Board Bad Behavior

In February 2021, Texas suffered from “Snovid” – i.e., a temperatures suddenly dipping below freezing, leading to lack of power and utilities such as water and electricity. Harris County, where Berkley Court is located, was most affected, and Berkley Court residents were not spared.

During this difficult time, many residents of Berkley Court were without power and asked the association for help, as folks were without water for days, which turned into weeks. Some home owners begged for assistance, as the solution to restore services required fixing pipes in the common element areas of the property.

While this state of emergency was going on, multiple home owners independently reported that they saw the supplier utilized by Rise AMG to fix plumbing issues ignore their requests for days, and instead work during that period in the current Board Secretary’s unit on non-emergency repairs (e.g., replacing sheetrock, painting walls, etc.).

So while many home owners had to fend for themselves in getting water restored, and other owners are still living with damage caused by the unlicensed personnel and waiting for critical services to be restored over 6 months later, the Board Secretary apparently used her position to get an updated apartment at a discounted price.

Don’t know about you but this sounds like one of the classic condo association corruption schemes to me…

We have also heard rumors of kickbacks to board members for work steered toward certain vendors – please send any evidence that can substantiate this information to berkleycourtneighbor@gmail.com or let us know anything else we may have missed in the comments below.

Berkley Court’s current porter is the current, unelected board member and HOA Vice President’s, Ceceilia Carrizales (nee Thompson), adult child, Valencia Thompson.

There is no contract posted to cover what is in the details of this engagement, because, despite repeated request – the managing agent, Rise AMG, has only made its own, expired agreement available to home owners.

Based on a former occupant of the job, the primary responsibilities for the role are to:

• Pick up the trash
• Change out lightbulbs around the property that are burnt out
• Dismantle heavy trash to put it in dumpster for removal

Essentially, the current, unelected board Vice President’s child is being paid $725+ a month to pick up trash.

Some observations related to this “service” that is being provided to the Berkley Court community with this vendor:

• Most residents and visitors remark on how dirty this community is, and how things never used to be this when the prior porter, Mr. Lee, was employed.

• This porter is hardly ever seen on the grounds of Berkley Court Condominiums. How a person can do this role without being on the ground on a regular basis is beyond us. Especially as all evidence points to the job not being done.

As a home owner, some immediate question and concerns come to mind:

1. Why wasn’t this vendor selected as part of an open bid? How come the board has never held discussions to evaluate whether to renew this service, what other choices are available, etc.?
2. How competent is a property management company or board if these entities don’t specify a schedule, required amount of hours, or a definition of done for this job? Do we trust these folks to negotiate any contract if they do not require these basics in a service provider?
3. Can the Board provide adequate oversight of this vendor? Even if the one board member recuses herself from decisions, there are only 2 other directors and any divisions in decision-making cannot be made without third member weighing in. And what other horse trades have occurred for each director to turn a blind eye to clear misconduct, so that they can each personally profit from their time on the board?
4. Shouldn’t a managing agent, such as Rise AMG, advise against hiring a board member’s relative as a vendor, due to the conflicts of interest? Can it oversee the vendor/relative without bias, knowing that it can put its own contract and paychecks in jeopardy, if it doesn’t go along with the scheme put forward by the members of the board?
5. Could Berkley Court have a better porter (or retained the previous one) at lower cost and superior service, saving home owners money and providing residents a safer environment?

What do you think? Is this is a clear case of:

a) Nepotism

b) Conflict of interest

c) Willful misconduct

d) All of the above

e) None of the above

Let us know your response in the comments!

In our last post, we discussed home owners confusion as to where all the money collected from our community is being spent and some of the charges made by the (unelected) Board Secretary/Treasurer during one randomly-selected month.

While the (unelected) Secretary/Treasurer is spending money at Cajun Kitchen, the managing agent (Rise AMG) has approved the following invoice that apparently pays another unelected Board member – the Vice President, Ceceilia Carrizales.

This description of providing a dumpster pick-up is surprising, as the association already paid an established company over $1500 for the same services during the same period:

The disbursement report shows a different description than the invoice – one that implies that the VP is being paid to remove trash from the dumpster.

There is also no mention in any of the meeting minutes made available to home owners that this is a decision that was approved by the board or home owners, that there was any sort of open bid for this work, or any controls in place to check potential abuse.

When asked by home owners as to how it validates invoices/charges to ensure it is appropriate, Rise AMG does not respond and the unelected Board does not reply, though both have a fiduciary duty to home owners.

How would you want your managing agent to act if an unelected Board member asks you to approve and pay questionable invoices where there is no contract, no strict controls, and no communication to home owners that this is happening? Would you risk your reputation as a property manager or as a legal entity by acquiescing to these requests and supporting them by not providing any further information to questions home owners raise about these charges?

Property managers owe a fiduciary duty to the communities or buildings they represent. A fiduciary duty is the highest duty owed at law, and requires the property manager to always act in the best interests of their clients. This means avoiding conflicts of interest and opportunities for self-gain that would work to the detriment of the client. This duty is owed to the community as a whole, though, not to each individual resident within the community.

-Property Management Law, as seen on https://www.hg.org/property-management.html

Many Berkley Court home owners have the same question – where is our money going? Assessments have increased, residents are being fined and billed in unprecedented manner, and yet – the property isn’t being maintained and continues to deteriorate, making it increasingly unsafe to all living here.

One home owner asked the property management company (Rise AMG) to furnish the documents supporting the June 2021 financial statement. Rise AMG did not furnish a complete set, and provided no response when asked about it, as seen below:

As seen in the above email, our current (unelected) Board does not lift a finger to ensure it’s agents are responding to home owner requests in compliance with current Texas law, even when concerns are escalated to its attention.

Why not?

One may suspect it is because the current, unelected Board members are spending home owner funds intended for maintenance of the property on personal or frivolous expenses.

For example, part of the June HOA expenses included reimbursements to the (unelected) Board Secretary, including an Amazon purchase and a $100+ meal from Cajun Kitchen.

When looking at where this spend is seen in the financial statement for June 2021, it is classed by the managing agent as a “meeting expense”, as seen below:

This expense looks like it was incurred on 6/14/2021. Yet, it is classed as a meeting expense by RISE, although the (unannounced) Board meeting was held only on 6/23/2021, as seen below:

Is this an example of willful misconduct by the current, unelected Board? Is the managing agent complicit with fraud since they are the ones misclassifying these statements and processing questionable reimbursements? Do you have more examples of the same? Share your view in the comments!

According to the site Texas-Homeowners-Associations.com, these are the top pros and cons for living in an HOA.

What is striking is that it seems that Berkley Court home owners may have all the cons and none of the gains of living in an HOA.

Let’s take each boon one by one:

1. The HOA provides amenities you can enjoy without having to worry about its upkeep. However:
   1. HOAs allow you to enjoy amenities without the burden of each home owners having to maintain it – Berkley Court’s amenities such as the pool or clubhouse has been closed for YEARS, due to the current (unelected) Board’s executive decision – and yet we still pay the same/more assessment fees though we have a significant reduction in service.
   2. HOAs offer extra services like lawn maintenance – our current (unelected) Board has contracted with a property management company that utilizes vendors that do no work or destroys our property
   3. HOA’s regulate the property’s appearance, driving property value up – Our current (unelected) Board enforces regulations selectively, only for home owners it dislikes, and these unelected Board members flout violating the rules of the community themselves openly, without penalty
   4. HOAs promote a strong sense of community – the current (unelected) Board has not held a home owner’s association meeting, including the annual required meeting, since March 2019. This is despite numerous, documented requests to hold meetings openly so that home owners can attend, and other petitions and requests to open the amenities to the home owners and residents in the community.
   5. HOAs may mediate neighbor disputes – The current (unelected) Board has clearly stated that they are too busy to fulfill required HOA duties, much less actually respond to any additional request for help within the community.

What is your view? What benefits does the current management of Berkley Court Home Owner’s Association provide you?

In America, our judicial systems presume someone is innocent until proven guilty. That is the prevailing system – except in Berkley Court.

At Berkley Court, the sad reality is that the current (unelected) Board of Directors believes it KNOWS everything and that everyone is guilty, and they do not have to prove anything.

Let’s take an example to see why this matters. In the below email, the property manager has denied a home owner’s request to fix the sheet rock damaged by the supplier that the (unelected) Board contracted.

Why?

Because the (unelected) Board president, an individual who has never met the home owner nor been in the unit with the home owner’s knowledge, said so.

When the homeowner asked, the property manager could not answer the question as to how anyone on the Board lawfully claims to know the happenings within an individual’s unit. He cannot provide any evidence to substantiate the claim.

A few possibilities as to how this knowledge has come to be then emerges:

• The (unelected) Board is illegally trespassing, breaking and entering into people’s homes, to put surveillance equipment to get its “knowledge”
• The (unelected) Board or property management company is lying, and does not want to get repairs fixed in this unit for their own reasons (e.g., harassment and retaliation of a home owner it does not like), and knows it can get away with its mendacity

How does this matter?

The current (unelected) Board’s belief that it knows all leads to flawed decisions and biased judgements that impact Berkley Court residents in a very real manner.

• The unelected Board will not repair property of certain home owners, even if it is the HOA responsibility to do so
• The unelected Board refuses to acknowledge or comply with Texas law and regulations in how it manages the property and related administrative affairs – creating unsafe environments for all residents and raising risk and costs for home owners in the long run
• The unelected Board alleges violations and then fines homeowners selectively and incessantly, and moving to foreclose on home owners who are unable to pay the sudden sums of penalties levied

The list goes on and on…

Homeowners – we ask that you not sit by and allow this to continue to happen any longer. You may not have experienced it yet, but it may be you sooner or later.