Chuck Warne has put up a website detailing his interaction with the Woodmen Hills Covenant Management Board (WHCMB) and the Woodmen Hills Metropolitan District (WHMD). He has posted a timeline of his interactions with both boards, complete with documents and filings. It makes for very interesting reading, and includes the summary judgment against WHCMB. You can find his website by clicking here, or under the links section.
If you read all the documents, you will see what appears to be a pattern of abuse and unbridled hubris on the part of the WHMD and WHCMB.
This is NOT opinion, this is not supposition, this is FACT…go read the legal filings.
Chuck has done a very careful job of tracking the course of this effort…and based on the documents posted, he was right — WHCMB and WHMD were wrong, and should have acknowledged that a long time ago.
Question: Who paid for all the legal wranglings?
If WHMD, this is a foul, and I would fully support an audit of this. This effort was clearly not a District issue, and whoever authorized expenditure of district funds should be held accountable.
Regardless, this will no doubt bankrupt and dissolve the WHCMB. I’ll ask the big question again:
| Jan, Larry? What is WHMD’s exposure or liability in this? |
UPDATE: I’ve done some more reading on this…and I am troubled even more.
On no less than three separate occasions, WHMD was told that DR Horton/Melody Homes could not assign covenant enforcement rights, as they had no rights to assign. Nevertheless, it appears that WHMD kept pushing, and eventually got an assignment letter. These lines in the assignment letter, though, seems to say it all (emphasis theirs):
THE ASSIGNOR EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND REPRESENTATIONS, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, REGARDING THE VALIDITY OF ANY TITLE, INTEREST, RIGHT, POWER, OR CLAIM WHICH ASSIGNOR MAY HAVE TO ENFORCE SUCH COVENANTS. ACCORDINGLY, SUCH ASSIGNMENT TRANSFERS ONLY THE TITLE, INTEREST, RIGHT, POWER, OR CLAIM ASSIGNOR MAY HAVE, IF ANY, TO ENFORCE SUCH COVENANTS. (Paragraph 3 of this document)
In other words…it appears DR Horton/Melody Homes got tired of WHMD ‘demanding’ assignments be transferred, so they wrote a letter which basically says “I have nothing to assign, but here you go“. This letter seems to have as much weight behind it as would a letter I write assigning my rights to the Statue of Liberty to someone — which I will do for anyone interested for a mere $10. I have no rights, so I’ll gladly assign to you my “lack of rights”.
Even more troubling is that the assignment letter from WHMD to WHCMB had no such disclaimer….nor do any of the other assignment letters I’ve read.
Also, and the most ominous: This assignment has this nugget buried in its bowels:
13. The Assignor does further agree to indemnify, protect and hold harmless the Assignee from any and all liability, claims, suits and costs (including attorney fees) arising from the Assignment or arising from the performance of Assignee’s obligations under this Assignment. Such obligation to indemnify, protect and hold harmless shall survive any termination or expiration. (emphasis mine)
If I read this correctly, then WHMD (meaning you and me) are on the hook not only for this lawsuit — costs, legal fees, and punitive awards — we are responsible for (and will pay for) any lawsuits that are sure to arise from this issue forever.
The assignment letter from WHMD to WHCMB reads like this throughout. It’s obvious that WHMD wanted to keep this power, wanted to keep their thumb on WHCMB…..and are just as culpable.
The information presented to me about the separation of WHMD and WHCMB appears false.
The signatory for WHMD on both of these documents is Jennifer Barber, president of WHMD at the time.
| Jennifer? I’d like to hear from you too….what was your rationale for signing these documents? Were you made aware of the seemingly tortuous path this effort took? Who, specifically, initiated this effort? |
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