‘It’s just literal hate’: Senator hopes new HOA legislation will help neighbors go back to being neighbors
SB406 joins more than a dozen HOA-related bills that tackle board structure, fines, foreclosures, and dispute resolution.
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Author: Rebecca Lindstrom
ATLANTA — At least a dozen bills are moving through the Georgia legislature aimed at curbing what homeowners describe as abusive or overzealous homeowner’s associations.
One of the most far-reaching proposals, Senate Bill 406, would reinforce HOA enforcement rights, create another path for regulating them under the Secretary of State, and change foreclosure rules.
The push follows years of homeowner complaints across the state — stories of escalating fines, mounting legal fees, and little to no consistent communication from the HOA board or its property management company.
Senior Investigator Rebecca Lindstrom has reported on those cases for years, including one in which an HOA foreclosed on a woman’s home and ultimately purchased it at auction for just $3.24, despite the homeowner having already paid thousands of dollars toward what she owed.
Under SB 406, that scenario would no longer be legal. The bill would double the minimum debt required before an HOA can foreclose, raising it from $2,000 to $4,000. That amount could include only unpaid dues — not fines for community violations, such as uncut grass.
The legislation also bars HOAs, property management companies, and individuals connected to them from bidding on or buying homes at foreclosure sales, a practice that has drawn sharp criticism from homeowners and advocates.
Beyond foreclosure changes, SB 406 — titled the Georgia Property Owners’ Bill of Rights Act — would, for the first time, require all homeowners associations in the state to register annually with the Georgia Secretary of State. Associations would pay a $100 yearly fee and submit basic information, including a recent financial statement. HOAs that fail to register would be prohibited from collecting dues, issuing fines, placing liens, or initiating foreclosures.
That registration fee would help fund a new state board to oversee HOAs. The board would be empowered to investigate complaints, refer potential criminal violations to law enforcement, and provide an independent review process for homeowner disputes with their associations.
Sen. Matt Brass, one of the bill’s sponsors, says the goal is to reduce hostility and bring neutral oversight into disputes that often turn personal.
“I mean, it’s just literal hate,” Brass said. “And if we can kind of help mediate that and help solve some of these issues with a level head of someone that’s not financially invested in their property or in their community … take it out of there, have somebody non-biased to look at it, and hopefully we can solve it. And neighbors get back to being neighbors.”
The proposal also spells out specific rights for homeowners, including access to association records, notice of meetings, voting rights, protections for displaying flags and political signs, and clearer expectations for how HOA board members must act in good faith.
“This bill doesn’t take anything away from associations, doesn’t take any power away from them. It’s just saying, you know, you have to follow your bylaws, and if you don’t, there’s going to be, there’s a process to where someone can come in – that’s not necessarily a court – and can look at it and tell you if you’re following your bylaws or not,” said Brass.
11Alive News Investigates reached out to the Community Associations Institute, an education and lobbying nonprofit for HOA boards and property management companies.
In a written statement, the CAI chief executive officer, Dawn Bauman, said, “CAI supports reasonable policies that promote transparency, fairness, and accountability in community associations, while recognizing that associations rely on assessments to maintain shared property and essential services. As SB406 is reviewed, it is important to balance homeowner protections with the practical realities of volunteer-led community associations, avoid duplicative oversight structures, and ensure foreclosure remains a true last resort without undermining an association’s ability to function. CAI also supports clear safeguards that prevent conflicts of interest in the foreclosure process.”
The CAI has already scheduled a meeting at the Capitol on January 27 to encourage its members to discuss with lawmakers any concerns or support they have for HOA-related bills.
SB 406 is a revised version of legislation Brass introduced during a Senate study committee over the break.
Senator Brass expects there will be some changes to the bill as it moves through committees. But he says, “There had to be an accountability piece because there’s currently not one.”
It’s Hammer Time
When my insufferable neighbors hurt my husband, we launched a brutal sonic attack that destroyed their life.
This is part of Revenge Week, a series about how vengeance runs America, from the White House to cheating spouses to that bad boss who totally deserved it.
In 2001 my husband and I moved into the most amazing house in West Seattle. It had a big, lush yard, a beautiful sunroom, and was on a quiet street with friendly neighbors. Well, except for the ones next door.
From the moment we met them, I knew they’d be trouble. They were a fundamentalist Christian family with four pale, gangly children who they homeschooled to protect from “worldly influences.” Normally, you couldn’t pay me to care what someone does with their kids, but the way this family kept their kids inside at home really creeped us out. In the 20-odd years they lived next door, I saw the kids leave only a few times. They never had friends over. They were so cooped up that they were spastic and rambunctious, and they spent the majority of the time screaming as loud as they could from their yard. It was annoying, but I didn’t blame them. It wasn’t their fault—it was their parents’.
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To give you some context, I went to their wedding. (This was before we hated each other.) During the ceremony, the preacher turned to the wife and said, “Now, don’t forget, little lady: You walk behind your husband and do as you’re told.” Her husband was a deacon in the church. She was a cold, neurotic woman whose main hobby seemed to be agoraphobia. Their whole reason for living was to “follow the teachings of Christ,” but none of what they did seemed the least bit Christian. If we lent them something like a rake or a shovel for their yard, we’d never get it back. When they asked for our help, they’d never say thank you. They put a Trump sign in their yard during the Jan. 6 insurrection.
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We had a number of awkward and uncomfortable interactions with them over the years. First, they gave their kids saws and let them cut down some of the trees that were on our side of the property. Then, the dad decided he wanted to teach them to “smelt,” so he collected hundreds of tin cans from around the neighborhood and burned them directly under our window. Our house was filled with toxic smoke for days. And how could we forget the time he tried to teach his kids to “hunt”? They weren’t allowed to leave their yard, so they had to make do with what was there. All they could catch were squirrels, so they trapped one, beat it to death, and ate it. I saw the whole thing from my deck. Through all this, we never unloaded on them—we just politely asked them to stop.
The breaking point came in 2020, right when COVID was hitting Seattle. My husband was out in our garden, and their kids—who were by now in their teens—were playing aggressively on our front walkway. My husband, who was the sweetest man, kindly, gently told them to play on their side of the walkway instead. When they ignored him and didn’t listen, he told him again, more firmly this time. That’s when the mom, who had apparently been watching, flew out of her house and came screaming toward my husband.
“Don’t you talk to my kids!” she shrieked, coming right up to his face.
“I wouldn’t have to if they’d stay off my property,” he shot back.
At that point, my husband took a step toward her, which she somehow interpreted as an attack. She took a few steps backward, and then tumbled, ass up, over a water meter. Then she really started screaming. She stood up and yelled, “Assault! Assault!” as loud as she could. That was a total lie. My husband hadn’t touched her, or even come close to it. She threatened to call the police—to which my husband replied, “Go ahead! You’re the one who’s trespassing!”—and she stormed inside to make good on her promise.
A little while later, the cops came with flashing lights. We couldn’t believe she’d actually called them. Not only did she have no legal basis for doing so, but it was a total waste of their time—and it was the early days of COVID, when everyone was scared and didn’t know if they should be around other people. At first, the police just assumed that my husband was guilty because she was this beige-looking middle-aged woman who seemed helpless. A cop told my husband he wanted to cuff him right then and there.
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Then they questioned us. They also questioned our other neighbors, a number of whom had seen and heard the whole thing. Those neighbors quickly corroborated our story and confirmed that my husband did not, in fact, hit her, nor did he threaten her in any way. They also confirmed that she and her kids had been on our property during the confrontation. After a few minutes, the cops concluded that he had done nothing wrong. They were upset that this lady had called them and taken their attention away from far more pressing matters.
Afterward, my husband was so upset. He’d never been disrespected like that, and it crushed him to know that he’d been part of such an absurd, escalating conflict. It tore me apart to see him so low. It took us a long time to feel normal again. We were in our late 70s, and we weren’t used to such viciousness, let alone from people who called themselves “good Christians.” Would Jesus have been proud of her for acting that way?
It was around then that we decided to get revenge. We were going to eject this douchebag—and her entire freak-ass family—out of her house, and we weren’t going to stop until we did.
We quickly devised a plan. We’d start by hitting them where it hurt: obscenity. My husband developed a charming habit of mooning them when he’d bend over in the garden, and I took to shouting cuss words whenever I knew they were in earshot. If I saw them outside, I’d shout, at the top of my lungs, “FUCK, HONEY, WHERE IS THE FUCKING SHOVEL?” Sometimes he’d yell back, affectionately, “Over here, you bitch!” God, I love him.
Next, we launched a sonic attack. Being the type of Christians they were, they were averse to anything related to sex, drugs, or fun. They also thought all non-Christian music was satanic. Guess what type of music references sex, drugs, and fun and has also been accused of being satanic by uppity Christian types? That’s right: heavy metal. For months, we blasted it right at their house from the speakers on our deck. I remember there being a lot of Alice in Chains, but my favorite was this one punk song that just said “fuck you” over and over. Sometimes, we’d switch to a five-hour playlist of monks singing three aggravating notes one billion times in a row. On more than one occasion, we played filthy, lewd Howard Stern shows as loud as our speakers could go. Then I had an even better idea.
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My best friend is, as it’s been reported, a lovely 35-year-old theater kid with audiovisual talents. I asked him whether it was possible to put together an eight-hour playlist of construction noise. He said no problem. He took to his computer, and in a few days I had a playlist so vile, so discordant, and so absolutely unending that I felt like I was holding her entire fate in my hands. It contained every banging, pounding, hissing, hammering, and whirring sound a construction tool could possibly make. We called it “Hammering Man 1 and 2.”
We played “Hammering Man” at full volume from our porch all day, every day. The noise was awful, but we reveled in it because we knew it was pissing them off. The other neighbors, who also hated them, didn’t mind—they thought it was entertaining, and they couldn’t really hear it from their properties anyway. In case you’re wondering, there’s no law against playing loud music where we live. I guess they could have called the cops on us again, but that didn’t go so well for them the first time.
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We were prepared to do this for as long as we needed to. Then, around the 10-month mark, we saw the most wonderful thing appear in their yard: a for-sale sign. It had worked! Our devious onslaught of butts and cusswords and terrible noise had finally driven them out! They moved shortly thereafter, and we basked in the glorious peace and quiet.
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People sometimes ask if I feel bad about this. Quite the opposite: It was the greatest thing that ever happened to me. If I regret anything, it’s that I didn’t do it sooner. They’d been such dicks to us for so long that it felt amazing to get them back. On top of that, the whole neighborhood hated them. They’d annoyed nearly everyone on my street in one way or another—it just wasn’t the place for them. They’d be much happier in a community surrounded by their type of people. If anything, we did them a favor. Even more than that, it really felt like an eye for an eye.
In 2023 my husband died from cancer. I think a large part of his sickness had to do with this event. He’d been totally healthy before, but when the woman next door sicced the cops on him, it ate him up so much that he never really recovered. His cancer was pancreatic, and they say the metaphysical reason it forms is disrespect. How could I possibly feel bad about booting them out of their house when the price I had to pay was my husband? When he died, they sent me a sympathy card (much to my surprise). I don’t want it in my house. To this day, it’s on my front porch. I spit on it every chance I get.
Eventually, they rented the house to this absolutely incredible young Christian couple who I quickly became friends with. When they were moving in, the father told them, “You’d better watch out for the woman next door. She’s evil.”
“Evil?” my new neighbor responded. “She’s the best person on the block.” Amen!
