{"id":78,"date":"2026-09-02T05:06:22","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:06:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fightmytxhoa.com\/home\/?p=78"},"modified":"2026-09-02T05:06:23","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T05:06:23","slug":"part-six-cares-act-and-same-day-threat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fightmytxhoa.com\/home\/part-six-cares-act-and-same-day-threat\/","title":{"rendered":"Pandemic Relief Money And The Same-Day Threat: When An HOA Collected Federal COVID Aid, Then Foreclosed Anyway"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n
\n Part Six of the HOA Foreclosure Series<\/strong> \u00b7 The previous parts documented unclaimed notices, a worthless collection letter, an inflated lien, a vague board meeting, and a resurrected fine. This part addresses what happens when an HOA accepts federal pandemic relief money on a debt it had no right to charge \u2014 then sends violation and intent-to-sue notices on the same day. Series index<\/a>\n<\/div>\n\n
\n\n

The Sixth Problem<\/h2>\n\n

The previous parts of this series told the story of a Texas homeowner whose house was sold at HOA foreclosure despite a cascade of statutory violations: unclaimed certified mail and a process server who knew the house was displaced (Part One); a Sec. 209.0064 collection notice that hid the debt and offered no real payment plan (Part Two); unsecured debt quietly converted into a secured claim (Part Three); a board meeting noticed with a vague agenda that did not name the property (Part Four); and a $200-per-day “fine” resurrected from a 2022 notice that had expired under the six-month rule (Part Five).<\/p>\n\n

This part is about the money that was supposed to end all of it \u2014 and the notices that followed anyway.<\/p>\n\n

In October 2022<\/strong>, a Texas state agency administering federal CARES Act relief paid the HOA on the homeowner’s behalf. The debt was satisfied. The HOA had been made whole with federal pandemic-relief funds intended to keep Americans in their homes.<\/p>\n\n

That payment \u2014 and the 2022 lawsuit it resolved \u2014 was based on unpaid assessments that were themselves the product of a fraudulent 2015 amendment vote.<\/strong> (See Part Seven.) The federal government, through the Texas Rent Relief Program, paid the HOA an amount the HOA had no legal authority to charge in the first place. The HOA accepted federal pandemic-relief money to satisfy a debt it had manufactured through a procedurally defective amendment that never lawfully authorized the dues.<\/p>\n\n

Then the HOA kept collecting.<\/p>\n\n

It sent another Sec. 209.006 notice and another Sec. 209.0064 collection notice, both dated the same day<\/strong>, and on that very same day, also sent an “intent to sue.”<\/strong> All three were returned unclaimed because the homeowner was still displaced. But the dates did not change what the HOA had done: it had informed the owner of a violation and announced it was going to sue simultaneously<\/em> \u2014 before any reasonable cure period had even begun. Whatever the homeowner owed in 2022 had already been paid. Whatever the HOA added afterward was a fresh claim on top of federal relief \u2014 and a fresh claim on top of the same fraudulent foundation.<\/p>\n\n

When an HOA accepts pandemic-relief money from a state agency, dismisses the resulting lawsuit, and then keeps accruing fees, sending notices dated on the same day, and ultimately forecloses on a debt that was paid two and a half years earlier \u2014 that is not enforcement. That is an attempt to convert federal COVID relief into a foreclosure engine. And when that foreclosure was based on assessments that were never lawfully authorized in the first place (Part Seven), the foundation under everything is rotten.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

What the Texas Agency Paid<\/h2>\n\n

In 2020 and 2021, the federal government \u2014 through the CARES Act and subsequent emergency spending bills \u2014 provided funds to states to help Americans cover housing costs during the pandemic. Texas administered a substantial portion of these funds through the Texas Rent Relief Program<\/strong> (TRR), operated by the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs. The program’s purpose was simple and explicit: keep households stably housed during the COVID-19 emergency.<\/strong> It paid landlords (and HOAs, where applicable) directly, on behalf of owners who could not pay because of pandemic-related hardship.<\/p>\n\n

When the Texas agency paid the HOA in October 2022, the underlying delinquency was, in the legal sense, paid in full by federal pandemic-relief funds.<\/strong> The HOA had the money. The homeowner had performed the only act the statute asks of them: cure the default, by means of a federally funded assistance program designed for exactly that situation.<\/p>\n\n

The HOA was then free, of course, to apply payments correctly under Sec. 209.0063 \u2014 first to delinquent assessments, then to current assessments, then to foreclosure-grade fees, then to fines and other amounts \u2014 and to issue a clean ledger showing a zero balance. Instead, the HOA treated the CARES Act payment as a partial payment, kept accruing additional charges, and used the unresolved “balance” to justify further enforcement. (This is exactly the problem Sec. 209.0063’s priority-of-payments rule was written to prevent \u2014 applying payments in a way that leaves foreclosure-grade debt outstanding while phantom charges accumulate.)<\/p>\n\n

Then in February 2023<\/strong>, the HOA dismissed the 2022 lawsuit \u2014 consistent with having been paid. The matter was, in any reasonable reading, over.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

The Same-Day Notices: Why “Jumping the Gun” Matters<\/h2>\n\n

Months later, the HOA produced another pair of notices as evidence in support of its claim. Both were dated the same day.<\/strong> Both were returned unclaimed.<\/strong> And on that very same day, the HOA also sent a letter announcing its intent to sue.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n

That sequence violates the enforcement framework in three independent ways:<\/p>\n\n

1. There was no reasonable cure period.<\/h3>\n\n

Texas Property Code Sec. 209.006(c) requires that the cure date in the notice provide “a reasonable period to cure the violation.”<\/strong> A cure period that begins and ends on the same day as the violation notice is not a cure period \u2014 it is a notice of intent to punish. The Texas Supreme Court has made clear that the cure-period requirement is meaningful, not formal: an owner must have a genuine opportunity to fix the problem before fines or litigation consequences attach.<\/p>\n\n

Sending an intent-to-sue letter on the same day as the violation notice means the cure period ran (or was offered) concurrently with the threat of suit.<\/strong> The owner was given the choice to cure and the threat of being sued simultaneously. That is not a cure period in any ordinary sense \u2014 it is a coercive offer.<\/p>\n\n

2. The 45-day window under Sec. 209.0064 was never honored.<\/h3>\n\n

The Sec. 209.0064 collection notice \u2014 the one required before a collection agent’s fees can be charged \u2014 must give the owner at least 45 days to cure<\/strong> before further collection action. The 2021 amendment to Sec. 209.0064(b)(3) increased that period from 30 to 45 days. If the HOA’s “intent to sue” was sent the same day as the collection notice, the 45-day clock never ran. Any “further collection action” the HOA took within that 45-day window was statutorily barred.<\/p>\n\n

3. Attorney’s-fee notice requirements under Sec. 209.008 failed.<\/h3>\n\n

A property owners’ association may recover reasonable attorney’s fees and costs only “if the owner is provided a written notice that attorney’s fees and costs will be charged to the owner if the violation continues after a date certain”<\/strong> (Sec. 209.008(b)). When the violation notice and the intent-to-sue notice are dated the same day, the “date certain” has not yet arrived \u2014 the violation cannot have continued past a date that has not passed. Attorney’s fees were never properly noticed.<\/p>\n\n

Together, these three failures mean that any fees, fines, attorney’s fees, or collection costs that the HOA assessed in reliance on those same-day notices were assessed without statutory authority.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

The Returned Mail Problem Compounds It<\/h2>\n\n

All three documents \u2014 the Sec. 209.006 notice, the Sec. 209.0064 notice, and the intent-to-sue letter \u2014 were returned to the HOA unclaimed.<\/strong> The homeowner was still displaced (Part One). They did not reach the homeowner. They did not trigger the cure period. They did not give the homeowner a chance to respond.<\/p>\n\n

Under Sec. 209.006(e), an owner who cures the violation before the cure period expires is entitled to have the fine not assessed.<\/strong> The same logic should apply when the notice never reaches the owner at all \u2014 a cure period that never began cannot have expired.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

The Pattern, Again<\/h2>\n\n

By this point in the series, the pattern should be unmistakable:<\/p>\n\n