{"id":75,"date":"2026-09-02T04:37:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T04:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fightmytxhoa.com\/home\/?p=75"},"modified":"2026-09-02T04:37:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T04:37:13","slug":"part-five-the-zombie-fine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightmytxhoa.com\/home\/part-five-the-zombie-fine\/","title":{"rendered":"The Zombie Fine: Resurrecting a 2022 Notice to Justify a 2025 Penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n Part Five of the HOA Foreclosure Series<\/strong> \u00b7 The previous parts documented unclaimed notices, a worthless collection letter, inflated lien amounts, and a vague board meeting. This part addresses the “fine” itself \u2014 resurrected from a 2022 notice that should have expired long before 2025. Series index<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n
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The Fifth Problem<\/h2>\n\n

The previous parts of this series told the story of a Texas homeowner whose house was sold at HOA foreclosure without them ever knowing a lawsuit existed: unclaimed certified mail and a process server who recommended the same failed method (Part One), a collection notice that was legally worthless even if delivered (Part Two), unsecured debt quietly converted into a secured claim (Part Three), and a board meeting noticed with an agenda so vague it identified no property (Part Four).<\/p>\n\n

This part is about the violation itself \u2014 or rather, the violation that was supposed<\/em> to justify everything, and the paper trail the HOA used to claim it.<\/p>\n\n

The HOA produced a Sec. 209.006 notice from 2022<\/strong> and used it to argue that the homeowner committed such an egregious violation that it had to be punished with a $200 per day fine<\/strong> under Texas Property Code Sec. 202.004.<\/p>\n\n

Three things were wrong with that argument.<\/p>\n\n

First,<\/strong> Sec. 202.004(c) does not authorize an HOA to levy a fine. It authorizes a court<\/em> to assess civil damages. The HOA was using a litigation damages statute as if it were a self-help fining power.<\/p>\n\n

Second,<\/strong> a Sec. 209.006 notice only “covers” the HOA for six months<\/strong>. To fine an ongoing violation across 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025, the HOA had to send a fresh notice every six months. It did not \u2014 and it never sent the current notice required to collect the alleged fine at all.<\/p>\n\n

Third,<\/strong> the same violation was the subject of a 2022 lawsuit the HOA settled and dismissed in February 2023<\/strong>. Relitigating that violation in 2025 was barred by res judicata \u2014 and using it to inflate a foreclosure was an attempt to collect, through the back door of the lien, a claim the HOA had already been paid to walk away from.<\/p>\n\n

This is the zombie fine: a penalty that should have died in 2022, kept being wheeled out as if it were alive, and ended up buried inside a foreclosure amount.<\/p>\n\n

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What Sec. 202.004 Actually Says<\/h2>\n\n

Texas Property Code Sec. 202.004 governs the enforcement of restrictive covenants. Subsection (c) reads:<\/p>\n\n

“A court may assess civil damages for the violation of a restrictive covenant in an amount not to exceed $200 for each day of the violation.”<\/strong><\/blockquote>\n\n

Note the actor: a court.<\/strong> Not “an association may assess,” not “a board may levy.” The statute authorizes a judge \u2014 after a lawsuit, after findings \u2014 to award damages. It is a litigation remedy. It exists precisely because HOAs are not supposed to be able to self-assess $200-a-day penalties against their own members without a judge looking at it.<\/p>\n\n

The HOA in this case flipped the statute. It treated Sec. 202.004(c) as if it were a fining power the association could invoke through its own enforcement letters \u2014 a $200-per-day “fine” derived from a statute that says a court may assess damages. That is the wrong actor, the wrong process, and the wrong amount.<\/p>\n\n

There is an additional wrinkle: even if the HOA had been in court seeking Sec. 202.004 damages, it had already been in court \u2014 in 2022 \u2014 and had dismissed the case as part of a settlement. The window for asking a court to assess those damages had closed.<\/p>\n\n

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The Six-Month Rule: A 209.006 Notice Expires<\/h2>\n\n

Under Texas Property Code Sec. 209.006(d), the notice-and-hearing requirements do not apply to a violation if the owner was already given notice of the same violation “in the preceding six months.”<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

Practitioners describe this as a six-month “look-back” period. What it means in practice:<\/p>\n\n