Why I started Protect Texas Homeowners.

My family built our home in Katy Lakes in 2022. At the end of 2024, I became unemployed and remained out of full-time work for approximately nine months. During that period, I drove Uber, accepted part-time consulting work through Upwork, and did whatever I could to keep the mortgage paid, the lights on, and food on the table.

After returning to full-time work in August 2025, I spent the next year digging my family out. I worked multiple jobs, brought our mortgage current without a remediation plan, and caught up our car payments and household bills. Then I turned to the HOA assessments.

I expected to pay the $1,850 I owed, plus reasonable late and collection costs. Instead, the balance had grown to $7,240.64. With the proposed payment plan, the total became $8,065.

I do not dispute the original assessments. I fell behind during one of the most difficult periods of my life. What I dispute is a system that can allow a relatively small HOA debt to be buried beneath thousands of dollars in legal, administrative, and collection charges.

The problem is bigger than one account.

Texas law allows HOAs to recover reasonable attorney fees and collection costs, but it does not establish a simple proportional limit. Homeowners can face charges several times greater than the original assessments before the dispute ever reaches a courtroom.

Challenging those charges can require hiring another lawyer and spending even more money simply to determine whether the first lawyer's fees were reasonable. For a family already recovering from financial hardship, that is not a meaningful protection.

Why this project exists.

Protect Texas Homeowners is collecting homeowner accounts to determine how widespread these practices are, identify recurring billing patterns, support public and legislative advocacy, and evaluate potential legal action. The goal is straightforward: legitimate HOA assessments should be collected, but collection should recover the debt, not bury it beneath disproportionate charges.

Texas homeowners deserve clear limits, transparent billing, proof that billed work was performed, and an affordable way to challenge collection charges that exceed the underlying debt.