Letter To The Editor: Heads-up To Quemazon Homeowners

By CHRISTINA CAUDILL
Los Alamos
 
I want to give my former neighbors in the Quemazon communities a heads-up about some exorbitant fees you may be unaware that you will face when/if you decide to sell you home within the Quemazon Master Association or its Woodlands Homeowner Association (HOA). I suspect the other HOAs within Quemazon have similar fees. 
 
We recently sold our home on Sinuoso and much to our surprise we were hit with an additional $800+ expense from the management company of the Quemazon Master and Woodlands HOAs added to our closing costs.
 
Following is the text of a message I sent June 13 to the person listed as president of the Master Association on the Quemazon website; I have not yet received a response. We also communicated our surprise and displeasure to the president of the Woodlands HOA; he said the Board of Directors would be discussing these fees.
 
Please beware of what can happen to you if you decide to sell your home.
 
 

Message sent June 13:

 
“We are unsure whether you are still the president of the Quemazon Master Homeowner’s Association (HOA), but trust that you will direct us to the appropriate person if this online info is out-of-date.

We are currently in the process of selling our Quemazon home at 1858 Sinuoso. The New Mexico Homeowners Association Act requires that HOAs provide disclosure documents for each resale of property located within the association; the Act allows HOAs to charge reasonable fees for providing copies of these required documents. 

 
Our realtor requested and has received the required documents from the Quemazon HOA via HOAMCO along with a bill for $410.02 for providing the documents. 
 
A separate set of disclosure documents is also required for the Woodlands HOA; those documents have also been received from HOAMCO accompanied by another bill for an additional for $403.14. 
 
We were unaware of these exorbitant fees prior to beginning the resale process for our townhome and we suspect many of the other Quemazon owners also do not know to expect these fees in their futures if/when they decide to sell their homes.  

While we acknowledge that there is expense involved in providing the necessary documents and that HOAs should be able to recoup these expenses, we find the fees charged by HOAMCO extremely excessive for these legally required documents. 

 
It is difficult to imagine how a document fee that is equivalent to almost 3.5 years of our annual Quemazon HOA dues can be considered “reasonable.” Combined with the Woodlands fee, we now must pay an additional $813.16 in closing costs. That also does not seem to be reasonable.

Unfortunately we are required by law to provide these documents to the new buyers so we cannot just walk away and try to find a more reasonable vendor to provide this necessary service.

 
We do wish to document our objections and our displeasure with these exorbitant fees. We have also discussed this matter with the president of the Woodlands HOA.”
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