Well, the patio and landscaping finished today and I couldn't be happier. Poorer, but happier! We wrote a check for the balance and called it a day. It was an ugly check writing day. We had some built-in bookshelves that were installed and finished today as well. This has been a couple month project and of course they finished at the exact time the patio did. Makes the house nice, but the checking account not so nice. Then, we got a nasty-gram from our home owners association saying that we were past due and they were about to put a lien on the house and we had an $80 late fee. This wasn't just some form letter. It was a hand written message on the top of the bill. My wife called and asked how many other notices had they sent. They said just the original was sent in December. She let them know we never got it (the one that was sent today had a March 29th date on it and shows up 3 weeks later). When we were out in the yard our neighbor comes over and asks if we got a letter from the HOA. He got the same one. We are the only 2 people in the neighborhood as it is just being built. Funny that the only 2 people living in the neighborhood both forgot to pay this bill that was supposedly sent out and had to be sent second notices. Needless to say, my wife plans on raising holy hell tomorrow with the HOA now that she really knows that they never sent the first bill. She is also going to conatct the builder. They just contract out the home owners association stuff, but she wants to make sure they realize what kind of incompetent company they hired. We always get people asking us if we like the neighborhood, etc... as they drive by and are looking at the lots. We plan on asking the builder if they want us to inform their potential home buyers of our lousy HOA the next time we are asked if we like the neighborhood. That might get a little rise out of them.
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