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CONFESSION #0593 — NEW AGENT BAPTISM BY FIRE
Friday, June 5, 2026
The HOA sent a letter. Three days before closing, certified mail, saying the seller owed twelve thousand in back dues and there was a lien. My broker had told me to always check for liens. I checked. I checked the county records. Nobody told me HOAs file their own liens separately, in their own little HOA world, with their own little HOA timeline. The title company missed it too but guess who the buyer screamed at for forty minutes on speaker phone while her husband kept saying "this is unacceptable" in the background like a broken toy.
Seller claimed he never got any notices. HOA president said they sent eight. Eight notices. The seller's response was "I moved my mailbox."
We closed eleven days late. I paid for the buyer's rate lock extension out of my commission because I didn't know what else to do. Made sixteen hundred dollars on that deal after splits. My first sale.
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Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF NEGLIGENT LIEN BLINDNESS IN THE SECOND DEGREE WITH AGGRAVATED FAILURE TO ANTICIPATE HOA CHICANERY
The Court has reviewed this confession and finds itself DEEPLY CONFLICTED, which is unusual because Reginald is rarely conflicted about anything except whether to refinish the deck this summer. On one hand, you failed to uncover the HOA's secret shadow lien system, a parallel dimension of petty governance that exists solely to ambush the unsuspecting. On the other hand, THE SELLER MOVED HIS MAILBOX. He MOVED it. As if certified mail is a game of hide and seek. As if the United States Postal Service would simply shrug and say "well, we tried." This Court once ruled against a man who claimed he didn't receive a noise complaint because his doorbell was "decorative only," and that man had more credibility than your seller. The HOA sent EIGHT NOTICES — that is not correspondence, that is a HARASSMENT CAMPAIGN conducted with the bureaucratic patience of a DMV employee who has achieved inner peace. You paid sixteen hundred dollars in educational tuition to learn that HOAs operate like tiny sovereign nations with their own laws, their own liens, and their own unquenchable thirst for compliance. The husband repeating "this is unacceptable" in the background is now permanently lodged in The Court's imagination, and I will be billing you for the therapy. Case cited: In re: Homeowner Who Thought Rules Were Optional, 2019. Reginald has rendered judgment and must now go yell at his own HOA about the approved fence colors list.
Lien Into The Unknown
Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.
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