A $9,800 Special Assessment Showed Up With My March HOA Dues

Two pages, one envelope. I was standing barefoot at the end of my driveway in Chandler, Arizona, at 8:05 on a Saturday morning, March 7, holding the Sunstone Routines HOA envelope in one hand and the rest of my mail in the other, and page 2 had a number at the bottom that did not fit anything: $9,800, due May 1 or financed on the board's plan.

Beyond the number, the stakes were my savings: $6,100 left after a December of car trouble and two flights home to Atlanta, against dues that had just gone from $286 to $331 in January. The letter gave me two doors. Pay in full by May 1, or finance through the lender the board picked at 9.9 percent over five years, which turns $9,800 into $205.83 a month and $12,350 total. Nine thousand eight hundred dollars, for a roof I already owned.

Page 1 of the letter spent its whole length on how necessary the roofs were. Fine, they were necessary. What it never said: when the board voted, how the contract was bid, or why notice came by mail in March for a deal the county records show was signed in October. Page 41 of our covenants explains that gap. Reading 63 pages of covenants at my kitchen table in March is the reason 41 of my neighbors now expect a vote in November.

$286 became $331 in January

I bought this townhouse in 2019 for $242,000, when dues were $214. The history since: $239 in 2021, $262 in 2023, $286 in 2025, then $331 this January, a 15.7 percent jump in one motion at the October meeting. The October budget letter attributed the increase to insurance, and the numbers I later pried outta the minutes backed that up, a renewal up $38,400 across the community. Insurance I understood. What I did not understand in January was why a board raising dues 15.7 percent was not also talking about roofs, because anyone who has looked up at our parapets knew what was coming.

the reserve study said 11 percent

The 2024 reserve study, done by a firm outta Mesa, sat in the portal behind three clicks, and I found it on March 9 while fact-checking my own anger. Roof component: 11 percent funded. Full replacement projection: $412,000 by 2027, with the study's own language calling the funding level poor. The board had that document for eleven months. Nobody noted it at the October meeting, not once, while the dues motion passed 5 to 0 in nine minutes.

page 41 of the covenants

Our covenants run 63 pages and the notice clause lives at the bottom of page 41: notice of any special assessment shall be given by conspicuous posting within the community or by first-class mail, at the Board's discretion. Discretion. The word does all the work in that sentence, and whoever drafted it in 1985 knew it. The board chose posting. Page 41 gave 'em the right to tell 42 households about $9,800 each with a corkboard.

the bulletin board in the clubhouse

The posting went up October 9, per a timestamped photo my neighbor Ravi took of the clubhouse corkboard, wedged between a lost-cat flyer and a swim-class schedule, five days before the October 14 meeting where the assessment concept passed. Four households attended. Forty-two units. The minutes record the vote as unanimous among members present and note that the roof contract would return to the board for signature. It returned October 20 and was signed the same afternoon, which I know because the corporate filing is public: $412,000, Freedom Roofing, 42 roofs, tear-off and recover, 20-year warranty.

the April 2 meeting, 34 of us

Thirty-four of forty-two households showed up on April 2, which for this community is a stadium crowd, and the meeting ran 92 minutes in a room with 40 chairs. President Gary, who has held the gavel since 2018, read the assessment rationale off the same page 1 we had all received in March. Homeowners asked for the bid documents. The board's answer was that the board has authority and the documents would be available going forward. One owner asked why the reserve study sat for eleven months and got a pause long enough to hear the air conditioner cycle. The assessment stands. The May 1 deadline stands. Nobody in that room disputes the roofs. Everyone in that room disputes the corkboard.

the 9.9 percent payment plan

The finance option deserves its own paragraph, because the board presented it like a courtesy. $9,800 financed at 9.9 percent over 60 months thru a lender the management company partners with is $205.83 a month, $12,350 all in, $2,550 extra for the same roof. I paid cash on April 3 instead, which emptied the emergency fund to $980 and put the last $3,700 on a 12-month zero-interest card at $309 a month. My own math, my own choice, and I resent how little of it felt like a choice. The payment plan is a product. The assessment was never optional.

forty-one signatures on a petition

Our bylaws, section 19, require a membership vote on notice-rule amendments once 30 owners sign. I printed the petition on April 4, and by April 11 there were 41 signatures on it, every door in the community except 12B, where nobody answered in three tries. The amendment is one sentence: assessment notice shall be delivered by first-class mail and email to every owner, no later than 30 days before any board vote. That is the whole thing. It goes on the ballot at the November 5 annual meeting, where the seats held by Gary and two others are also up.

the roofers in June

The scheduling letter arrived April 9: my building is phase 3, week of July 13, dumpsters on the street, everything off exterior walls, cars out by 6:30 a.m. The letter is polite and the roofer did nothing wrong here. Freedom Roofing's crews will fix 42 roofs this summer, and in 2027 I will have a dry parapet, a 20-year warranty, and a $331 dues bill that finally makes sense. The work was always going to cost this much. The corkboard is what turned a bill into a fight.

back at the mailbox on April 11

April 11 was a Saturday, same end of the driveway, this time in shoes, and the mailbox held the March meeting minutes and a one-page letter from the board about transparency goin' forward. I read both standing right there, envelope in hand, same as March 7. The $9,800 leaves my card statement on the 12th of every month til February. The number I am watching for now is whatever the roofs actually invoice against $412,000, and the number I am working for is a yeah on November 5. That is where it stands.