[Haloman1346]

I have lived in my condo for about 6 year now. It has one of them HoA's (Home Owners Association) which means I cannot do anything to the exterior of my house without permission and they are responsible for any outside maintenance and/or damages to the exterior of the house (example: Roof repair, termite damage, mowing, etc.) 6 years have gone by, and i haven't had any problems with the HoA.

2 weeks ago, my A.C. broke on a Friday night. I called a friend of mine to come out and fix the A.C., and he said he would come out the next day and take care of it. I told him I would be staying with my parents for the weekend and to use the key I left for him.

2 days go by (Sunday) and I head to my house after my friend told me the A.C. was fixed. Here is where it gets interesting.

I'm on the phone with my friend, and he also said that there was 2 guys outside my house, removing a tree. I asked him if he talked to them and all he said was "they drove up, cut the tree down, and left. They never said anything to me."

So I get home, and sure enough, there is a tree missing out of the front of my house. The tree used to be about 50-75 feet tall and the base was about 1 1/2 wide. The only thing left was a stump about a foot tall.

I didn't think anything of it. They trim my shrubs, mow my grass, repave the asphalt whenever it needs to be done. I thought maybe they removed the tree for some reason like it was dying or maybe it was pushing on my foundation, who knows... It's not like I liked the tree anyways, the bastard would drip all kinds of lovely's on my car on a daily basis. So I went on with my life, thinking they will come back out and grind a the stump with-in a week or so.

So today I go to the post-office and get a certified letter from the HoA's attorney stating that I am being liable for the tree and the debris that was left behind (Debris being the stump and saw dust) and are seeking payments and leans being put on my house and gonna fine me and blah blah blah....

Literally I was in my car, saying WTF because I had no idea WTFBBQ was going on. So I call up the place and they said they have a witness who saw me with some people who removed my tree. I tried to tell them that I have no idea about this tree and I was out of town when the said tree was removed. What proof do they have? Who the hell did they see removing the tree? How much wood would a woodchuck chuck?

So I'm here, asking if anybody knows anything about HoA's and what I need to do to try to get this settled.

1) I WAS NOT home when this tree was removed.
2) How can they prove that I was responsible for the tree being removed?
3) How can they already get a attorney involved without even speaking to me.


I just worried because I have to somehow prove something for something I HAVE NO IDEA anything about. /end rant