U.S. Soldier In Iraq Loses Home Over Unpaid $800 HOA Fee

NPR May 28, 2010 http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/05/us_soldier_in_iraq_loses_home.html

Some stories just cause you shake your head in astonishment. The following is one of those stories.

A Texas home owners association seized the $300,000 home of an Army captain as he served in Iraq because of $800 in unpaid dues and auctioned it off for $3,500. The story appears to have been initially reported by WFAA-TV in Dallas/Ft. Worth.

Capt. Michael Clauer's wife May, apparently suffering from the stresses of being on the homefront as her husband conducted dangerous convoy-protection duty abroad, failed to stay up with the bills, including the home owners association fees. She even stopped opening the mail.

So she and her husband say she missed the certified letters the HOA sent. The HOA officers, her not so neighborly neighbors who didn't phone her or ring her doorbell to advise her of the dangers she faced, seized the couple's house, legal under Texas law, and sold it.

Fortunately for the Clauers, a federal law, the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act, appears to give them legal recourse.

The law protects members of the military from a range of legal actions, including judgments against their property, related to their financial obligations. The legislation was signed into law in December 2003 by the Clauers' fellow Texan, President George W. Bush.

Again, just an amazing story. (H/t Mother Jones via Huffington Post.)