OT cutting off water for landlord/tenant

I should have asked about this last night. Certainly no assurances were made that no one was in this situation. Kurt, they are sending one more letter, certified and regular, to the 7 and maybe even to people who only owe as little 115 or 230 for more than 3 months. (and they must be still applying the liens or you're right, people who stand to get away without paying a thousand dollars or two would just do without water for a couple weeks until they can sell the house and skip.)

(They don't want to be a paper tiger anymore, so I said they should send different letters to people who owe a lot and those who owe a little, because surely they won't disconnect people who only owe 115 dollars, but maybe that's what they plan to do.)

Even when it's not explicitly illegal, I think people and an HOA can be liable. One of the things I've found surprising about tort law is that it's not quite covered by the Constitution's exclusion of ex post facto laws (which is [mostly or entrirely] about criminal law anyhow). That is, there is a law that people, are responsible for their negligence, but courts decide after the fact what is negligence and what isn't. Because there is an endless number of ways to be negligent and no one could list them all in advance. Even though normal people can disagree about what is negligence and what isn't, a respondent is stuck with what the jury or judge decides.

That's a good idea. It wasn't a hand vote, but the secretary is very diligent about writing down who voted nay. She won't even eat during the meetings because she'll miss something. I'm positive she has the count, and pretty positive she has my name, but I will call her and make sure my no vote, and the other guy's are specified.

I think that's a good idea in that it would be a lot easier to get an answer than from the water company than a judge. Because, they'd probably disagree with me but i think the water company must have fewer issues and fewer legal issues.

Well, I called the water company, and even though I started with the Baltimore County number, I got referred to another number and midway in the conversation I found out she was giving me Baltimore City rules and didn't know about Baltimore County (which doesn't overlap the city at all.) so she gave me to her supervisor, who said they could not disconnect an individual house. They only disconnect where there is a meter, and we all share one meter. Even though there are individual valves. So she didn't know anything really about this. She did say that multiple homes sharing one meter is not unusual at all, and sometimes they arrange to bill based on the number of people living in each house. I would save a little if they did that, but then we would have to have a PPHMC, a Person Per House Monitoring Commission, and that would be bad.

The board has XX and YY insurance (Negligence and Malfeasance? No, something that sounds nicer than that), which they called upon 20 years ago when I sued the HOA. I was pro se against a real lawyer but did pretty well anyhow.

But in an extreme situation, the damages might exceed their insurance.

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mm
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I guess so, but under the current system, I think the president is too unchecked. Of course she was unchecked under the monthly system too, but we found out about it sooner. :(

I don't think that people have a duty to either go to meetings or be on the board. Those who do serve on the board have a duty to do their jobs right, if it doesnt' require excessive time. Most chores require about the amount of time one would expect.

We have never stopped trying. We have a lawyer, who is admitted to the bar and empowered to go after them. So the Board has not been negligent. If anything, I think they are too invested in getting the money back. Maybe a couple have pressing financial needs, but I think it is more their personalities.

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mm

Isn't it going to be hard to sell a house without water? A sensible buyer is going to want to try all the sinks, flush all the toilets, turn on the shower, run a cycle of the dishwasher and the washing machine, etc.

And if the seller explains that the water was turned off due to lack of payment, the buyer is going to wonder

(1) if there is any lien on the property due to this, and

(2) if the seller has also neglected other payments, like taxes.

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Tim Smith

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