A neighborhood within Denver, Colorado’s Green Valley Ranch homeowners association, where HOA-initiated foreclosures inspired legislative change last year.
Photographer: Sarah Holder/Bloomberg News
When the Homeowners Association Comes for Your Home
A spate of foreclosures filed by HOAs in Denver illustrates the potential risks of an increasingly common homeownership model.
The woman on the phone wanted Jose Mendoza to know that she wasn’t “about throwing people out on the street.”
“We want to help you,” she said in a voicemail. Still, his family had to leave. “I want you to know your house has been foreclosed,” she said. She told Jose that the house his family had been living in for seven years — the house that he said he had never missed a mortgage payment on, and that he was almost done paying off entirely — had been sold. She said she was calling on behalf of the home’s new owners.