A Story of Misinformation and Deception.
On January 24th 2022 the former developer and current Home Owner Rick Byers held a meeting in which he made statements about the legal situation of Haciendas Palo Verde. We have an audio recording and a transcript of this session.
Rick Byers started to paint a picture of complete compliance with the law:
“And some of this I know for a fact ’cause I was, you know, 2004 and on I was. I was aware and we were complying with all the way up till now the last Revision is 2016.”
The incorporation was worked on “Long process of working every every day. This is 2007? 2007 yes by the time. By the time it’s all done 2008 two.”
“So 2008 the updated, updated rules of Baja California South that come out. They’ve basically changed.”
The facts show the Law became effective November 30th 2007, the Incorporation of HPV happened June 9th 2008. So, nothing has changed in 2008 with the law that was not known at the point of incorporation.
On another topic Rick Byers said this:
“..we you know we’re trying to just you know, odd our way through verifying that we are still a a residential tourism development.”
In fact HPV was incorporated as “Condominium de Terreno” and was never a tourism development.
Rick Byers then proceeds to talk about the two organizations, Home Owner Association and Condominium Regime.
“They were married so that the developer that was me accepted the homeowner association to represent and to be 1 entity.”
This is legally completely incorrect. Both entities continue to exist as two independent organizations under the respective Laws.
In regards to follow the Law with its regulations, this statement was made:
“Because we get to make our own bylaws.”, “It’s like you know your tourist development”, “Fine, knock yourselves out.”, “Everything is wrapped around the tourist.” “And and and the director of Tourism agrees that we are a tourism residential.”
That is an utterly false statement. HPV was incorporated as a “Condominium de Terreno”. The important difference here is, a Condominium de Terreno has no exceptions from the Condominium Regime Law. So, a false claim is raised to hide the fact, that the incorporation of HPV was done with partial illegal regulations.
Rick Byers makes this very clear why he did what he did.
“To do whatever we want, that’s it.”
He did not stop there. In his effort to cover up the illegality in which the HOA has conducted itself. He continued his efforts by hiring a lawyer who provided a pandering legal opinion that is riddled with falsehoods and misrepresentations of the law.
Another claim is HPV is “de facto” a tourist development. First of all this is not at all true, most residents of HPV are Mexican citizens or permanent residents of Mexico. And secondly if an organization claims to be something that it is not, it is usually called a fraud.
This exposed also the true loyalties of the current Administrator do not lay with the home owners that pay her salary. The Administrator adopted the problematic legal opinion letter as the official position of the HOA.
She clearly gets her directions from the former developer.
All this is part of the scheme of the Developer to have undue influence on the HOA to further his own interests over the interests of Homeowners.
2017 the developer introduced another illegal measure to change the distribution of the HOA expenses and shifted them unlawful to lots that have house build on them. In 2017 the developer was still holding a significant number of empty lots and had to pay HOA fees for them. By reducing these fees for empty lots he gained a significant illegal monetary advantage at the expense of Homeowners. This went on for five years during which time the developer has reduced the empty lots in his position to zero as of 2022.
It is the Administrator who is implementing these illegal measures over objections from Homeowners. And who harasses any homeowner who dares to question the legality of her actions.