CRESSON, Texas — The Hills of Bear Creek is a sprawling, gated subdivision with a quiet pace and big homes.

But in December, neighbors started noticing one home in particular drawing dozens of cars at odd hours. The homeowners association has now filed a lawsuit against the owner of the residence, saying he is operating an improper swingers club.

The suit was filed on Friday in Parker County District Court.

It names Randy Scott Carter, the owner of a 4,000-square foot home off Hidden Meadow Court, as the defendant.

“It’s a swingers club, so to speak,” said Chase Patterson, who lives directly next door to Carter. “Mass amounts of traffic, people at the front gate that don’t know each other. Definitely not a family reunion.”  Read more:

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — An Assembly budget committee has passed a bill aimed at reducing the powers that homeowners associations have when they foreclose over unpaid dues.

The Assembly Ways and Means Committee voted to pass AB359 on Monday. The measure now goes for a vote of the full Assembly.

The Nevada Supreme Court ruled in September that unpaid HOA dues should not only be the first thing paid when a foreclosed home is sold, but that the mortgage itself can be wiped out in the process if a bank doesn’t pay the lien.

Realtors say mortgage “extinguishment” has led to expensive homes being auctioned for a fraction of their worth over relatively small HOA liens and could drag down other property values.

The bill prevents mortgages from being extinguished in a foreclosure. Read story:

ORANGE COUNTY — A west Orange County community homeowner’s attempt to improve some landscaping has led to a three-year battle with the neighborhood’s homeowners association.

CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) — Lawmakers who say a recent Nevada Supreme Court decision gives homeowners associations too much power to foreclose over unpaid dues are pushing a last-minute legislative fix.

Republican Assemblyman David Gardner is sponsoring AB359, which would change rules on so-called “super-priority liens.”

The high court ruled in September that unpaid HOA dues should not only be the first thing paid when a foreclosed home is sold, but that the mortgage itself can be wiped out in the process if a bank doesn’t pay the lien. Read more:

City officials say in 2010, the development had many homes in foreclosure and those homeowners stopped paying their HOA dues.

“When you’re in a community with foreclosures, even if you don’t have issues with financing personally, other people do, and you have to pick up the dollars if they’re not paying,” said David Merker, Boynton Beach city commissioner.

Ultimately, the HOA racked up more than $125,000 in delinquent utility bills owed to the city.  Read more:

A homeowner’s association in Franklin, Tennessee has agreed to pay $156,000 to settle a lawsuit brought by a family who said the HOA unfairly barred them from building a therapeutic sunroom where their two children, both of whom have Down syndrome, could play and receive in-home physical therapy.

To put it another way: The 168 Franklin homeowners living under the aegis of the Chestnut Bend Homeowners Association should budget for an increase in their HOA dues, because the settlement costs which their HOA board paid on their behalf (without admitting to any actual wrongdoing) average out to $928.58 per household.

The Tennessean reported today that former Chestnut Bend residents Charles and Melanie Hollis filed a federal lawsuit in 2012 alleging that, when the Hollises wanted to build a therapeutic sunroom onto their house, “the Chestnut Bend Homeowners Association denied their request to construct it based on concerns about the way the addition would look.”

The family first requested permission to build the sunroom in 2011, according to the lawsuit. Over the next year, the family went back and forth with the HOA’s architectural review committee, which quibbled over the planned materials and design.  Read more:

BEXAR COUNTY — Officials from one of Bexar County’s largest homeowners associations says it is not violating state law, despite a full-time HOA employee being married to one of its board members.

Jennifer Bell is the community manager of the Villages of Westcreek in west Bexar County. Her husband, Christopher Bell, was elected to the HOA’s board of directors last month and now serves as its treasurer.

The HOA is the third largest in Bexar County and is made up of 3,400 homes, the board’s president confirmed this week. The HOA has an annual operating budget of nearly $1.3 million. Read more:

The Novak family, who lives outside Senoia, started Project 586 to help provide household goods, including furniture, appliances and linens, to people in poverty.

The project got its start when Anthony and Karhma Novak and their kids, Scarlett Grace and Jude, sponsored a family for Christmas.

“The house was literally six minutes from mine. We went to go drop off the presents. And there were rat holes in the wall, plastic over most of the windows, boards missing where we could see the crawlspace from underneath,” Anthony said. “There was no heat, most of the doors were replaced with sheets and blankets. The plumbing wasn’t working.”

Seeing that “kind of blew the comfort of being a middle-class American Christian right off us,” Anthony said. Read more:

Add this to your list of reasons for being late to work: The $16 million robotic parking garage at your fancy condo tower is moving at a snail’s pace.

Residents of Brickell House — where a one-bedroom apartment rents for $2,450 per month — were told that a cutting-edge robotic system would retrieve their cars from the 46-story tower’s garage in less than 10 minutes. But the robotic valets don’t seem up to the task, at least not during the morning and evening rush.

During off-peak hours, the garage works fine, residents say. But when it’s time to go to work, impatient commuters complain of waits up to 30 minutes. Apologetic garage attendants offer free Starbucks to ease jangled nerves.

“I’ve already been late to several, important board meetings at work,” said Beatriz Guerrero, a marketing executive who moved into the tower at 1300 Brickell Bay Drive two months ago. “I’m worried about losing my job.”  Read more: