HOA Cut Down a 78-Year-Old Widow's Flagpole and Came for Her House — They Forgot Who Typed the Rules

The Retyped Pages

Copperline Community Management had its office in a stucco building off Baseline Road, between a dentist and a tax preparer. Margie drove there on Tuesday, the day after Memorial Day, in Arne's old Buick, wearing her good navy slacks and carrying a manila folder.

The air conditioning inside was turned down so far she wished she had brought a sweater. A young woman at the front desk asked if she had an appointment.

"I'd like to see Tessa Holt, please. It's about Desert Willow."

Tessa came out after twelve minutes. She was in her middle forties, dark hair pulled back tight, a phone in her hand that buzzed twice while she was shaking Margie's hand. She managed eleven communities in the East Valley. She looked like someone who had not had a quiet lunch in years.

"Mrs. Sorensen. I'm so glad you came in. Let's sit."

The conference room had a long table and a framed photograph of a golf course. Tessa sat across from her and smiled.

"I'm guessing this is about the flagpole."

"It's about Section 7.14," Margie said. "I'd like to see it."

"Of course." Tessa tapped her phone and turned it around. "Here's the Amended and Restated Declaration. It was recorded with the county in March. Section 7.14, flagpoles. Maximum height not to exceed the roofline of the residence. Pretty standard in Arizona."

"Could I see it on paper?"

Tessa sent someone to print it. While they waited, she talked about curb appeal and the new desert-modern landscaping palette and how the board was working hard to bring Desert Willow into the twenty-first century. Margie listened. She had listened to a lot of people explain things to her in conference rooms. Conrad Albrecht used to say she had the best poker face in Maricopa County.

The printout came. Fifty-two pages, stapled. Margie turned through it slowly.

The language was mostly the same. Whole paragraphs she remembered were there, word for word. Definitions. Easements. The pool hours. But the document had been retyped from top to bottom in a modern font, and in places the words had been rearranged, and some things were not there at all.

Section 5.9 was gone. She had typed Section 5.9 at Conrad's insistence, after a builder he knew in Scottsdale had watched his homeowners' board spend their roof money on a clubhouse bar. No expenditure from the Reserve Fund for any purpose other than repair or replacement of Common Area improvements shall be made without the approval of a majority of the Owners.

And Section 8.11 was gone. Prior Approvals. She remembered typing that one late on a Friday in August, because Conrad had come back from lunch with a buyer who was worried about exactly this. Any improvement approved in writing by Declarant or the Architectural Committee shall not thereafter be deemed a violation of any subsequently adopted rule, amendment, or design guideline, and may be maintained, repaired, and replaced in kind.

"There used to be a section here," Margie said, pointing. "Prior approvals. It protected anything that had already been approved in writing. My husband's flagpole was approved in writing in 1987."

"The owners voted to restate the whole document," Tessa said. "That means the old version doesn't apply anymore. That's the point of a restatement."

"How many owners voted?"

"More than enough. It needed seventy-five percent."

"I didn't get a ballot."

"They went out by mail in February. I'm sorry if yours got lost." Tessa's phone buzzed again. She glanced at it and turned it face down. "Mrs. Sorensen, I want to be honest with you, because I like you. You can fight this, but it's going to cost you a lot of money and stress, and at the end of it the pole still has to come down. You're entitled to a hearing before the board before any fines are assessed. I'll put you on the calendar."

She checked her screen. "Wednesday, June eleventh, ten a.m., at the clubhouse."

"I'd also like to see the ballots," Margie said. "And the reserve fund statements for the last two years. And every contract with the landscaping company."

Tessa's smile did not move, but it changed temperature.

"You'll need to put that in writing."

"I will."

"Records requests go through our office. There may be fees."

Margie drove home with the fifty-two pages on the passenger seat. At the kitchen table she laid them beside the folder she had brought, which held something Tessa had not asked to see: a yellowed carbon copy of a letter on Albrecht Development letterhead, dated April 9, 1987.

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Sorensen: The Architectural Committee has reviewed and approves your request to install a twenty (20) foot residential flagpole in the front yard of Lot 88. RA:mjs.

Below the typing, in Arne's big looping hand, was the line Conrad made every applicant sign and return: Accepted, A. T. Sorensen.

She had kept carbons of everything for fifteen years. Arne used to tease her about it.

She typed her records request that night on the computer Nils had set up for her, printed it, and mailed it certified on Monday, June 2. Arizona law gave the association ten business days to answer.

Her bank statement came the following Friday. Her monthly dues of $95 had been paid automatically on June 1, as they had been paid every month for thirty-eight years.

But when she logged into the homeowner portal to check, the payment had been moved. It wasn't listed under dues anymore.

It was listed under Violation Fines.

And her account said, in red letters: DELINQUENT.