Consumer complaint received 2023-04-01
Product: Debt collection — Other debt
Issue: Threatened to contact someone or share information improperly — Contacted you after you asked them to stop
Company: Altitude Community Law P.C. (CO)

Debt Collector : Altitude Community Law ; Debt Amount : {$1400.00} ( consisting of {$200.00} in disputed fines, {$920.00} in Debt Collector fees related to these disputed fines and {$320.00} in property lien, late and other fees also related to these disputed fines ) ; Creditor : XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ( HOA ) ; Creditor Board President : XXXX XXXX ; Creditor XXXX : The Creditor will not disclose the current members of the XXXX XXXX XXXX for the HOA ; XXXX XXXX XXXX : XXXX, XXXX ; XXXX Community Manager : XXXX XXXX ; XXXXXXXX XXXX XXXX : XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX ; Complainant XXXX XXXX : Former Chairman and member of the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX HOA for over 10 years ; Complainant XXXX XXXX : Former volunteer heavily involved in the Creditors consolidation of filings and of the current Protective Covenants for the Creditor HOA ; Debt Collector Partner : XXXX XXXX of Altitude Community Law ( formerly XXXX XXXX of XXXXXXXX XXXX ) advised Complainants and the Creditor regarding the Creditors covenant consolidation and ACC function ; Debt Collector Litigation Partner : XXXX XXXX of Altitude Community Law threatened us with harassment if we continued to contact the XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX ; Let us begin by notifying the authorities of what we learned about the current reputation of the Debt Collector. On XX/XX/XXXX at XXXXXXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX described Altitude Community Law as a shakedown law firm that he is very familiar with pulling scams on homeowners in HOAs. He made these statements during his well-known, long-running consumer advocate radio broadcast called The XXXX XXXX airing on station XXXX XXXX. We do not want other homeowners in our HOA to be mistreated as we have been. We have been seeking for the XXXX XXXX, XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX the Debt Collector to act in a manner that is both legally compliant and representative of homeowners. As a first step, the Creditor finally acknowledged in Board of Directors Meeting Minutes for XX/XX/XXXX that its policies in areas we have been disputing are not in compliance with current Colorado state statutes governing HOAs, such as HB22-1137. This Debt Amount would not have been incurred if the Creditor and Debt Collector had acted in a legally compliant, ethical manner. 

The Debt Collector and Creditor extracted a payment from us of {$1400.00} in disputed charges paid under protest. We sent a check for this amount by courier on XX/XX/XXXX to stop the Debt Collector from acting on its threat of creating more debt charged to our account and to expedite release of a lien the Creditor had filed against our home. The Debt Collector, the Creditor Board President and the XXXX XXXX XXXX were first advised by us in writing on XX/XX/XXXX that the Creditors unwarranted lien was interfering with a financial transaction. The XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXX XXXXXXXX filed this lien on our home one day BEFORE the date of a letter from them reporting that we had 30 days before a lien would happen. Most egregious, that lien was filed while we were waiting for a response from the XXXX XXXX XXXX Accounts XXXX ( which never happened ) to their instructions ( which we followed ) to notify them if we disputed the validity of the debt. We have been denied access to any fair two-way dispute resolution process. We have written documents indicating the Debt Collector would have known of, and participated in, this situation before it processed our payment of the Debt Amount we made under protest. 

When we submitted full payment of our disputed account balance by the deadline stated in the Debt Collectors validation notice, our communications to the Debt Collector, XXXX XXXX XXXX Community Manager & Accounts Receivable and Creditor Board President included these unambiguous statements : Email dated XX/XX/XXXX : We ask that Altitude Community Law stop sending us information that shows you owe the debt. 
Letter dated XX/XX/XXXX : We ask Altitude Community Law to refrain from sending us any more information that shows you owe the debt. 

In defiance of our demand to stop contacting us and AFTER receiving payment in full on our disputed account balance, the Debt Collector immediately resumed sending us unproductive troubling letters, two dated XX/XX/XXXX. XXXX of these letters threatens that we incurred additional legal services that would create more debt on our account. In it the Debt Collector falsely accused us of outstanding covenant violations related to the Debt Amount that do not exist and stated a compliance date in the past year. The other letter was sent to collect and justify a small part of the Debt Amount ( that had already been paid as of the date of the letter ) and to submit a severely delinquent ( and incorrect ) itemization of the Debt Amount. The Debt Collectors justification for the debt in this letter, consistent with all of its prior communications, fails to address any of the points of dispute that actually caused the Debt Amount. HOA records contain extensive written communications from us, mostly backed up by Certified Return Receipt mailings, reporting these disputes and requesting access to a fair two-way dispute resolution process. 

The Community Manager denied our request for a Board hearing on these erroneous Debt Collector letters dated XX/XX/XXXX ( that threatened us with additional costs ) consistent with the Creditors denial or disregard of all our previous dispute resolution requests. The Creditor Board President did not respond to our request for his confirmation that we would not be charged for these letters ; he has not responded to any of our communications. Additional compelling support is submitted with this complaints documentation as to why we want both of these erroneous letters to be retracted by the Debt Collector.

The Debt Collector did not submit an itemization of the current amount of the debt of {$1400.00} with its validation notice to us dated XX/XX/XXXX. They waited until after the XXXX XXXX XXXX Accounts Receivable had complied with our request to post the missing Debt Amount detail to our online HOA account and after they received our check payment on XX/XX/XXXX. We did not receive an itemization of the Debt Amount from the Debt Collector until XX/XX/XXXX. The Debt Collector prepared an ( incorrect ) itemization of the debt as an enclosure to one of the legal letters dated XX/XX/XXXX. This letter is postmarked XX/XX/XXXX. The Debt Collector and Creditor should not be allowed to charge us for this severely delinquent, meaningless communication.

Particularly troubling is whether it is legal and/or ethical for a Debt Collector to also act as a major cause and creator of the debt it is collecting. This Debt Collector also serves as advising attorney to the Creditor HOA. The Debt Collector assisted the Creditor in denying us access to impartial covenant-compliant XXXXXXXX XXXX and to fair dispute resolution alternatives. Before the disputed fines and fees thereon comprising the Debt Amount began, a Debt Collector Litigation Partner at Altitude Community Law unfairly threatened us with a harassment action if we continued to contact the Creditor as we had been to resolve our disputes and to agree on our mitigating landscaping changes. This suppression tactic severely delayed and complicated our involuntary, expensive, extensive landscaping project ( which is still unfinished ) to mitigate adverse HOA community changes permitted by the Creditor. HOA records document that the effect of this Debt Collector/Creditor tactic was to dissuade us from requesting a board hearing when the first disputed fine leading to the Debt Amount began. We waited until a new Creditor Board President was elected. He has not threatened us with harassment for seeking dispute resolution required of the Creditor. His tactic instead is to ignore any communication from us.

In lieu of participating in any of our dispute resolution requests, the Debt Collector sent us unwanted letters and emails that exacerbated the disputes due to errors, omissions, threats and wasteful legal costs. The Debt Collector would not acknowledge legal advice previously provided by the above named Debt Collector Partner directly to us ( in our respective former capacities volunteering for the HOA ) and codified by her in our HOAs Protective Covenants regarding the Creditor HOAs Architectural Control Committee. Our reliance on that codified legal opinion was another key cause of the Debt Amount. Neither the Debt Collector nor the Creditor would honor compliance deadlines they established, which resulted in the first disputed Debt Collector letter charge of {$580.00} in the Debt Amount, additional disputed Debt Amount charges and the pending Debt Collector letter charges ( referred to in # 2 above ). Both of these parties refused our requests for an inspection of the damages to our property and its enjoyment. The Debt Collector also may have reason to know the Creditor Board President and Community Manager refuse to respond to our requests for HOA records and for other information critical to our reparative landscaping plan decisions.

It is troubling that, after receiving fees for blocking access to our homeowner and other rights, the Creditor states in HOA minutes that the Debt Collector will be paid to update our HOAs obsolete policies that caused the Debt Amount. Based on language in a Debt Collector letter to us, we are also concerned that the Debt Collector may have presumed to act as an Impartial Decision Maker. This in effect denies us any fair dispute resolution option in this matter. In addition, the Creditor HOA and Altitude Community Law have kept the identity of the Impartial Decision Maker anonymous, thereby eliminating our ability to evaluate the impartiality of said Impartial Decision Maker. 

We can provide documentation of these and additional issues related to conduct of the Debt Collector and Creditor if relevant to any agencies handling this complaint.