From a Concerned Attorney in Our Community
Hi all,
I will not be voting yes to this amendment, because I cannot see essential deal terms. In fact, the Master HOA board is denying this information to us. I will not ratify a deal where I don’t know the terms.
Explanation:
Generally, I am in support of negotiating over suing. But the resulting negotiated deal must be a reasonably good deal.
The devil is in the details. The two camps have made competing and conflicting claims about the deal between the Master HOA board and Gustafson. I found the deal summary to be vague and incomplete in important respects. For example:
What is the price to exercise the right of first refusal?
Can this right be exercised for part of the course, e.g. the fairways between the houses?
What is to prevent conversion of the golf course to residential properties immediately?
And so on.
No problem, I thought, I’ll just look at the contract, expecting to have been attached to one of the emails, or at least available upon request.
I was surprised to find this in the July 30 email from the board:
"The Board has followed past practice, where the HOA removed the Peachtree Development from the Master Declaration and only a summary of the agreement and the consequences of voting yes or no were provided to homeowners. You are encouraged to come to the August 4th meeting where the attorney will cover each of the settlement terms and answer your questions.”
I need time to review an agreement that affects my property rights to this extent, and a verbal summary by an attorney at the last minute won’t do. I would need to see the agreement ahead of time to even know what questions to ask the attorney.
I’m appalled the Master HOA board is taking this approach. I understand that certain elements of a contract may be confidential, e.g. personally identifying information, account numbers. The customary way to handle this is to redact just that information in the review copy. Given that the summary has been publicized, there is no reason to withhold the detailed language that resulted in the summary.
I urge you to vote No on the amendment or withhold your vote if that is easier. If you have given your proxy, you can get it back.
If you have already voted in favor of the amendment, you can still change your vote, either in advance of the August 4th meeting, or by appearing at the meeting and announcing that you want to change your vote.
Or, you can send an email stating that you want to rescind your proxy and/or vote to plantation@keystonepacific.com, our property manager.