All things considered, La Vina’s fire recovery is going fairly well.
The luxury community on the northwest tip of Altadena lost 52 of its 272 homes in the Eaton fire last year, but more than 70% are currently being rebuilt, and repairs to communal spaces are well underway.
But behind closed gates, a battle has been brewing over a hefty HOA bill residents were forced to pay last summer to repair damage caused by the fire.
The $23,614 “special assessment” — forced upon every homeowner in the community — pitted neighbor against neighbor, leading to a mini civil war. Epithets were hurled, threats were levied, emergency Zoom meetings were called.
For the faction that took umbrage with the fee, it wasn’t so much the amount, but the context surrounding it. The HOA announced the bill on July 29, and gave residents until Sept. 1 — 34 days — to pay it. If they didn’t cough up the money, they were subjected to a deluge of late fees, 12% annual interest, and eventually, a lien on their home whether it was still standing or not.
In March, the HOA followed through on its threat. It filed a lawsuit against a resident whose house burned down, seeking a lien and foreclosure on their empty lot in order to pay off debts owed to the association, including the unpaid special assessment.
Neither the HOA board, nor its attorneys, nor its management company responded to multiple requests for comment.
“It’s trouble in paradise,” resident Ryan Harmon said.
Harmon has emerged as the de facto leader of the resistance to the fee, vocalizing his dissent in the Google group that residents used as a message board.
It’s a role that cost him dearly. Harmon — whose house was damaged by smoke, forcing him to live in a rental since the fire — said he was labeled as a troublemaker for asking questions. His next-door neighbor stopped talking to him when she found out he didn’t plan to pay.
“I’ve created enemies,” he said. “It’s sad to see a once-thriving community turned so nasty. The fire brought everyone together until that HOA letter went out.”
According to a Powerpoint presented by the HOA at a meeting, the fees were collected to pay for $6.4 million in damages: $2.2 million to replace irrigation, $1.8 million to replace fencing, and $1.5 million to replant shrubs and trees, plus a handful of smaller clean-up and services costs. The HOA had disaster coverage, but not enough to cover the full rebuilding cost.
Some homeowner insurance plans have coverage for unexpected HOA assessments, but Harmon said when he filed a claim with State Farm, the company told him there wasn’t enough evidence to prove the $6.4 million in damages. Residents who support the fee said $6.4 million is the bare minimum to get the neighborhood back to where it was before the fire, but Harmon said the number feels way too high for some new plants and pipes. He claims the HOA never broke down the math on what needs to be replaced.
Harmon held strong for months, racking up thousands of dollars in late fees. Eventually, the HOA threatened to place a lien on his house. Begrudgingly, he took his lawyer’s advice and paid the fee using a $29,000 insurance payout that was meant to go toward cleaning his family’s smoke-damaged clothes.
“Who treats their friends and neighbors so heartlessly after the greatest catastrophe of their lives?” he asked. “Not every resident has $24,000 lying around months after their house burned.”
He said others had it even worse. One neighbor had moved in just three days before the fire burned their home down. Now, they’re paying a mortgage and HOA fees for a home they barely got to live in.
Rande and Jess Sotomayor have lived in La Vina since 1998 and know several board members. They said so many threats were flying around in the wake of the fee — threats to bring in lawyers, or threats to leak the situation to the press — that Rande, a mediator, set up an emergency Zoom call to try to shape concerns into questions for the board.
The couple said the fee was necessary and the process was transparent, complying with the Davis-Stirling Act, the state law that governs HOAs.
“The HOA wasn’t acting in a vacuum. There was a lot of input; they had an accounting firm auditing the numbers and a law firm monitoring their compliance,” Rande said. “It can’t all be collaborative. At some point, the board has to sit down and decide what to do.”
She said residents that live in an HOA have a responsibility to read the governing documents and understand the authority they’re assigning to the board.
“We’re lucky the fee was minimal,” Rande said. “We’ve seen special assessments in the hundreds of thousands in other HOAs.”
Jess said the tight deadline was necessary since the neighborhood needed funds to enter into repair contracts. Otherwise, the work would have to wait until the contractors were paid, and instead of complaining about the fee, residents would be complaining about why things weren’t fixed yet.
As for the foreclosure lawsuit, he said it’s an unfortunate consequence of not paying a bill on time.
“It’s a no-win situation for the board. If they did it one way, they’d be faulted for not doing it another way,” Jess said. “If people aren’t paying, it’s not fair to the people who paid up front.”
Luke Carlson, an attorney who wrote a book about battling bad HOAs, was appalled when he heard about the lawsuit, which the HOA filed in March after a resident, whose home was destroyed in the fire, failed to pay mounting HOA dues, including the special assessment.
“It seems somewhat outrageous,” he said. “This is a situation where a homeowner has lost everything, and I don’t see how aggressive litigation solves any problems.”
Carlson said too often in California, HOAs go for the nuclear option of suing, even though a lawsuit — and the expensive attorney fees it brings — might not be in the best interest of the community.
He described the suit as hyper-aggressive because, beyond seeking damages for unpaid assessments, it asks the court to foreclose on an already-recorded HOA lien and authorize the sale of the home to satisfy the debt. Carlson isn’t involved with the case but said a key defense would focus on whether the HOA followed the required procedures when levying the assessment and pursuing collection.
“If this lawsuit goes through and they don’t defend like hell, they’d be foreclosed on, and any equity goes toward paying off the debts in the lawsuit, plus attorneys’ fees,” he said.
This isn’t the first time the La Vina HOA has gotten litigious. When the community was being built in the ’90s, the developers fenced off a public hiking trail, kicking off a years-long legal battle that saw the HOA get sued by L.A. County. The struggle lasted until 2010, when the neighborhood was forced to reopen the trails — and pay legal fees.
Resident Rick Ursitti lived in La Vina during the fight and said the HOA made a horrific mistake in trying to take the land. He remembered paying increased dues as a result of the legal battle, and the current fee feels eerily similar.
His house was destroyed in the fire, and he’s in the process of rebuilding.
“My insurance covered the assessment, but that doesn’t mean I say ‘tough luck’ to the others,” he said. “I didn’t like the way it was handled.”
Ursitti said there was a lack of transparency, and people were blindsided by the bill. He said he would’ve liked to see some alternative solutions, like the HOA taking out a loan or allowing residents to pay in multiple installments.
“They could’ve spread out the cost over time instead of telling us we owe $23,000 by tomorrow,” he said.
Cassie Coleman said La Vina feels like a reality TV show right now.
“There are specific personality types that live in gated communities,” she said. “You could feel the people that didn’t care. They just want clean streets and green grass for their dog to pee.”
Coleman doesn’t own a home in La Vina; she moved in four years ago to take care of her aging parents, who’ve owned a home in the community since 1999. She didn’t like how quickly people were forced to pay in the wake of a tragedy.
“In the aftermath of a fire, you’re thrown into an administrative nightmare. Insurance claims, figuring out housing,” she said. “There was no time to review post-fire beautification plans for La Vina. Beautification was at the bottom of my list.”
She said the whole process felt rushed. If you missed an email or couldn’t make it to a town hall meeting, you’d never get another chance to weigh in.
According to Coleman, public shaming poured in for those questioning the fee.
“People were saying, ‘If you can’t pay this, why do you even own a home in this community?’” she said. “We were embarrassed.”
At first, Coleman was shocked by the apparent hurry to “beautify” the neighborhood. But she has a working theory.
Last year, developer PLC Communities announced “Encore at La Vina,” a series of 18 luxury homes being rebuilt after the fire. A handful have already sold, and more are on the market, with prices starting at $1.9 million.
“There’s an obsession here with property values, and we know they need to sell those ASAP,” Coleman said. “So why burden people with a huge fee? I wonder if that’s why: to get this place spick and span.”
It’s been a frustrating year for Coleman, who said the sense of communal healing taking place across Altadena hasn’t made its way past the tall, iron gates that guard La Vina.
“Some people are doing so much for the broader community of Altadena,” she said. “But here, people want to restore La Vina first.”
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