Can a Homeowners Association Foreclose on Your House? Mesquite Woman Lost Her Longtime Home Over $3,500 HOA Debt

Finda Koroma bought a house in Mesquite almost two decades ago. The 68-year-old home health nurse was evicted last month when The Hills at Tealwood Homeowners Association voted to foreclose on her property over a $3,500 debt she owed the HOA. 

Do homeowners associations have the power to foreclose even in a property rights state like Texas? They do. The Hills at Tealwood HOA board voted on the foreclosure in mid-November and within a couple of weeks, Koroma was reportedly evicted from her home. 

Mark Melton, founder of the Dallas Eviction Advocacy Center, said HOAs can and will foreclose on and evict residents over a small debt. 

“All day every day,” Melton told CandysDirt.com. “It’s very common. I’ve seen HOAs doing this to little old lady widows.” 

Melton, whose DEAC represents more than 400 tenants a month on illegal evictions, is not involved in Koroma’s case. When asked if he had any thoughts about it, Melton reminded CandysDirt.com that he deals with illegal evictions, and this scenario is not illegal. 

“[I have] lots of thoughts, but not any solutions,” he said. 

Finda Koroma’s Home Foreclosed on by The Hills at Tealwood HOA

Koroma told her story to Christopher Connelly of KERA, shedding light on the loss of a home over a small amount of money and the bigger-picture story of power-hungry HOAs. 

Koroma told the TV station she had been renovating her four-bedroom home and was planning to sell it to fund her retirement. 

Days after the story aired, on Nov. 30, Dallas businessman Charles Opore posted on social media that Koroma’s home was auctioned by the HOA for $82,000. 

“The HOA deducted $3,500 debt and took out nearly $4,500 for legal and other expenses,” Opore said. “That leaves her with under $74,000 (that’s 22 percent of the estimated value, $340,000 on real estate sites like Zillow and Redfin, and less than half of what she paid for the home in 2005).”

CandysDirt.com reached out to Opore but was unable to verify the details of the auction. We also attempted to contact Koroma but were unable to connect. An attorney for The Hills at Tealwood HOA, Jason Reed, did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. 

Melton said the auction process is “robbery.” 

“People come in at these auctions and buy the property well below fair market value,” he said. “If you’ve got a house that’s worth $300,000, someone can buy it for 100 grand. If they would instead let you sell it and pay them, she would have gotten [what it’s worth]. It really is theft. It’s not illegal at all. It’s just absolutely horrible. HOA people are the worst.” 

The HOA could have — and should have — just filed a lien, Melton said. 

“That’s an option, and that should be the law,” he said. “Maybe that pisses off your lender and causes you some problems, but the fact that you can foreclose over a couple thousand dollars and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars from that person that goes into the pockets of an investor that got a sweetheart deal, that’s just wrong.” 

Homeowners Associations in Texas

When former Texas Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) was in office from 1991-1996, he passed “all kinds of laws that gave HOAs enormous power,” Melton said.  

Carona is president and CEO of Associa, a holding company for one of the largest collections of HOA management companies in the U.S. According to reports, the senator came under fire for authoring, supporting, and modifying legislation that benefited his business. 

In July, Texas lawmakers blocked HOAs from discriminating against low-income renters, specifically targeting an HOA in the North Texas town of Providence that barred its homeowners from renting to voucher-holders, the overwhelming majority of whom were Black. 

“It was clear that was their game, to kick all the Black people out of the neighborhood,” Melton said. “The legislature passed a rule in the last session that stopped them from being able to do that, but that’s about the only thing they did that was good.” 

In a separate case several years ago, a Grand Prairie HOA told a homeowner they couldn’t paint their home a pastel color because they didn’t want them “Mexicanizing the neighborhood,” Melton said. 

“If you look at the bylaws, there are all kinds of rules about construction, what kind of blinds you can put on your windows, how tall your fences you can be, whether you can put a shed in your backyard,” he added. “You have to get approval from their architecture committee to make sure it is in line with the aesthetics of the neighborhood. It is a way to control who lives there and to make sure it continues to look like a white, suburban neighborhood.”