Divided Gilbert community ousts HOA board

May 5—About 12 years after he moved into the newly built Greenfield Lakes community in Gilbert, Brett Woolley noticed his perimeter wall was tilting toward the canal in back of his property.

Woolley said that he contacted the HOA board and the management company because it was their responsibility to fix it but for the next 14 years, all he heard was the same refrain — they were "investigating the situation."

"That wall has been learning for 12 to 13 some odd years," Woolley said last week. "First it was 3 inches and now it's 9 inches."

Things finally came to a head for Woolley in February.

That's when the HOA notified the community it planned to amend the CC&Rs, or governing documents, to redefine the perimeter walls as party walls, which would make homeowners responsible for half their maintenance and repair costs.

"I have 144 feet of wall along the canal," Woolley said, estimating his share of the cost to fix his leaning wall at between $50,000 and $70,000.

"This will financially destroy my family," Woolley said. "My house is pretty much what I got."

Incensed, Woolley led an unprecedented recall effort in April that removed all five HOA board members by a vote of 92-72. Some ousted board members had been serving 12 to 15 years, according to Woolley.

Elections are currently underway to fill the vacant seats. A meeting is scheduled for May 22 to announce the winners.

Whooley said the issue has torn apart the 350-acre Greenfield Lakes community of 785 homes and a golf course, located off of Greenfield and Warner roads.

"The HOA put out a notice that there's this opposition group trying to recall the board — a bunch of troublemakers who want to make those without perimeter walls pay for families that are shirking their responsibility," he said.

He added that the HOA also accused recall proponents of trying to raise homeowners' dues.

"It worked," he said. "It divided our entire neighborhood into the Hatfields and McCoys — people with perimeter walls and people without."

He said during their canvassing people were yelling "at us that we were socialists."

"They don't understand that when you buy a house in an HOA community, everybody shares in the costs," Woolley said. "You can't have one homeowner say, 'I'm not paying for a tree planting on the other side of the community. Everybody pays in a community."

During his own fight before the recall, Woolley said that when he contacted the HOA president about his concern, he was told, "'Don't worry. We're working to provide financing for you.'"

"I have lived here for 26 year," Woolley said. "And during that entire time all the paint, stucco, and other repairs of perimeter walls was done by the HOA...and not one single homeowner paid for it."

He estimated that about half the homes in the community have perimeter walls that face streets, including Greenfield and Warner roads.

He also recalled that 10 years ago, he notified the HOA that he would spray paint over a "gang tag" on one perimeter wall facing Greenfield until a work crew could come and remove it.

"I started spraying and someone from the HOA called," he said. "I said it was a close color match but they said, 'no. Stop. This is our wall.'

"The board had the audacity to think we all lost our memories as they repeatedly and falsely claimed that owners have always paid half."

Harman Cadis, owner of Focus HOA Management for the community, called the issue a "disagreement of the interpretation of the CC&Rs on who pays for party wall maintenance." Focus in January 2021 replaced the previous management company.

"The CC&Rs state that party-wall maintenance is 50/50," Cadis said. "Some have a different interpretation."

The CC&Rs state that the cost of repairs and maintenance of a wall or fence between two lots or two parcels would be shared equally by the owners of the adjoining lots/parcels.

But the CC&Rs also address perimeter walls.

They state that on lots next to the development's perimeter boundaries, a street or a common area, there is an easement that allows for repairs and maintenance to a perimeter wall.

That easement is "for reasonable ingress, egress, installation, replacement, maintenance and repair of a project perimeter wall located on the easement."

Cadis said that this "caused confusion with owners not understanding easement and extending that to maintenance."

"The HOA proposed an amendment to make the language clearer, it was a poor attempt that could have helped by more/better communication," he said.

Woolley countered that what the HOA was doing was not clarifying "but outright changing of the meaning of the word."

He said that although the board withdrew its proposed amendment due to pushback and the recall petition, the HOA attorney later maintained that there are no perimeter walls within Greenfield Lakes. According to the attorney, all walls were party walls, regardless of who owned the land, Woolley said.

So Woolley began digging. He eventually unearthed the community's original plat map, which trumps the CC&Rs.

The map "appears to be sufficiently clear regarding the existence of perimeter walls and that he HOA is responsible for maintenance and repair of perimeter walls," according to Woolley.

He said the plat map clearly indicates that the community's four tracts, A-D, are to be owned and maintained by the HOA. His property sits on Tract D.

That means maintenance of the landscaping, which under the umbrella term in construction includes hardscapes such as walls, he said.

He also pointed to another important governing document for the community, the Rules and Regulations, which "states in plain English the HOA is responsible for certain perimeter walls."

The Rules and Regulations state the "Association is responsible for a number of community functions including: maintaining the wash corridors, landscaping, certain perimeter walls and signage, etc. for the benefit of residents."

Woolley said that throughout the years of asking the HOA to repair his wall, not once did it come up that he would have to cover half of the costs.

However, the HOA apparently changed course about three years ago and even sued one homeowner in 2021 for payment to fix his 80-foot-long wall.

"We moved into Greenfield Lakes May of 2020," Jon Zifcak said. "The entire perimeter wall collapsed in November 2020. My understanding based upon the CC&Rs the perimeter wall is the HOA's responsibility."

Zifcak, who countersued, was prohibited from discussing his situation in detail due to a confidential settlement agreement in late 2023.

Woolley claimed the HOA got a bid of over $50,000 to fix Zifcak's wall. However, Zifcak balked, having on his own already got a bid of $16,000 to do the job, Woolley added.

"He had little kids and he didn't want them getting out on the streets," Woolley explained. He said that the board solicited its own bids and claimed that they often came in high for projects around the community.

The HOA sent a contractor out to the property without informing the family, according to Woolley.

Zifcak sent him away, which "infuriated the board," he said.

The HOA hired an attorney and sued Zifcak, claiming a tree on his property knocked down the wall and demanded he pay 100% of the cost, according to Woolley.

Zifcak's wall was completed in December 2023.

Woolley said he's also seeking a legal opinion from a Phoenix law firm to safeguard against this occurring again.

"The board found an attorney about three years ago who developed the unsound legal theory they ran on," he said. "We have hired a construction law firm who will be giving us a strong legal opinion based on the one document the board never researched or saw — the final plat map filed with the county. It is our hope that legal opinion will settle the issue and help unite the community that has been indoctrinated by the board."