HOA Forced Elderly Man to Provide Free Power for 2.5 Years

The mahogany rails of the courtroom felt cold under Walter’s trembling hands. At eighty-two years old, Walter Abernathy should have been enjoying his retirement, tending to his roses and reading mystery novels on his porch. Instead, he was sitting before the Superior Court, clutching a cane in one hand and a stack of overdue electric bills in the other. He wore his best suit, a navy blue wool number that smelled faintly of mothballs and hung loosely on his shrinking frame.

Seated at the plaintiff’s table was the Cypress Creek Homeowners Association board. They looked less like neighbors and more like a corporate acquisition team. Leading them was Mrs. Patricia Sterling, the HOA president, a woman who wore her pearls like a weapon and viewed anyone with a net worth under seven figures as a zoning violation.

Judge Harrison Thorne presided. He was a man known for his distaste for frivolity and his sharp eye for injustice. He peered over his glasses, looking from the frail old man to the polished legal team of the HOA.

The proceedings began with the usual legal posturing, but the air in the room grew heavy when Walter was called to the stand. He moved slowly, the silence in the room punctuated by the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of his cane.

“Mr. Abernathy,” his lawyer, a young public advocate named Sarah, said gently. “Please tell the court why we are here today.”

Walter cleared his throat, a dry, raspy sound. “Your Honor,” he began, his voice shaking but gaining strength as he spoke. “For two and a half years, the HOA forced me to supply electricity to their pool every single day without payment. I built my life here thirty years ago. I thought this community was my home. And yet, they bled me dry to heat water I wasn’t allowed to touch.”

He gestured to the stack of bills. “My pension is small. I stopped buying my heart medication some months so I could pay the electric bill. If I didn’t pay it, the power company would cut me off, and then the pool pumps would stop. Mrs. Sterling told me if the pool pumps stopped, the HOA would fine me five hundred dollars a day for ‘disrupting community amenities’ and put a lien on my house.”

A murmur went through the gallery. Judge Thorne’s eyes narrowed. “Wait,” the Judge said, interrupting. “You are saying your personal residential meter was powering the community pool?”

“Yes, sir,” Walter said. “When they renovated the clubhouse three years ago, they claimed there was a wiring issue with the main grid. They trenched a line to my garage panel as a ‘temporary measure.’ They said it would last a week. That was thirty months ago.”

“And you asked them to disconnect it?”

“Every week,” Walter replied, tears welling in his rheumy eyes. “I begged them. My bill went from eighty dollars a month to six hundred. I couldn’t afford heat in my own bedroom in the winter because I was heating a twenty-thousand-gallon pool outdoors.”

“And were you allowed to use this pool?” the Judge asked.

Walter looked down at his hands. “No, Your Honor. I tried once, on a hot day last July. Mrs. Sterling had security escort me out. She said my membership tier—Standard Resident—did not include pool privileges. Those were reserved for ‘Executive Members’ who paid higher dues or served on the board. They wouldn’t even let me sit poolside to watch my grandkids swim when they visited. They said I wasn’t important enough.”

Judge Thorne turned his gaze slowly to the defense table. It was a look that could have withered a cactus. “Counsel for the defense,” he rumbled. “Is this true?”

The HOA’s lawyer, a slick man named Mr. Darrow, stood up and adjusted his tie. He didn’t look ashamed; he looked annoyed that he had to explain complex business to a layman.

“Your Honor, let’s not get carried away with emotion,” Darrow said smoothly. “The facts are simple. The pool is HOA property, yes. However, Mr. Abernathy lives directly adjacent to the pump house. When the infrastructure required updating, utilizing the nearest power source was the most logistical solution to maintain property values. It is a shared community. He benefits from the high property values the pool brings.”

“He benefits?” Judge Thorne repeated, his voice dangerously low.

“Indirectly, yes,” Darrow continued, oblivious to the temperature in the room dropping. “Furthermore, it is reasonable to expect him to provide utilities in the spirit of community cooperation. As for the access, membership rules clearly state that only certain members may access amenities. Mr. Abernathy is in a lower tier. He didn’t pay the upgrade fee. He cannot expect Executive privileges on a Standard budget.”

“So,” the Judge said, leaning forward, “your argument is that you can steal his electricity to heat a pool, threaten him with liens if he stops you, and then ban him from the very water he is paying to heat because he is poor?”

“It is not theft, Your Honor,” Darrow insisted. “It is an easement of necessity. And the ban is simply policy enforcement.”

Mrs. Sterling nodded beside him, whispering, “It keeps the riffraff out.”

The microphone caught it.

Judge Thorne sat back. He took off his glasses. He looked at the ceiling for a long moment, then back at the HOA table.

“In my twenty years on the bench,” the Judge began, his voice booming without the need for a microphone, “I have seen banks foreclose on widows. I have seen corporations poison rivers. But I have rarely seen such a disgusting display of petty, aristocratic tyranny as I have seen today.”

He picked up a file and slammed it down.

“You argue that it is ‘reasonable’ to force an eighty-year-old man to choose between his heart medication and your heated pool? You argue that he is a part of a community that treats him like a serf? You wired his home like a battery for your leisure and then kicked him out for not being ‘important enough’?”

“Your Honor, the bylaws—” Darrow started.

” The bylaws are trash!” Judge Thorne shouted. “They are a contract of adhesion used to abuse a vulnerable senior citizen. You have committed utility theft. You have committed elder abuse. You have engaged in a systemic campaign of harassment and extortion.”

The Judge turned to the court reporter. “Record this judgment clearly.”

He looked at Mrs. Sterling, whose smugness had evaporated into pale terror.

“I am dissolving the current HOA board immediately,” the Judge declared. “An independent auditor will be appointed to review every cent spent in the last ten years. But for Mr. Abernathy, reimbursement is not enough.”

The Judge scribbled furiously on his docket. “For the theft of utilities, you will reimburse Mr. Abernathy triple the cost of every bill he has paid in the last three years. But for the emotional distress, the financial terror, and the sheer malice of banning a man from the facility he was keeping alive…”

He looked Walter in the eye. “Mr. Abernathy, you are going to be very important now.”

“The HOA must pay the resident one and a half million dollars for harassment and abuse of power involving utility theft and amenity bans,” Judge Thorne ruled. “Furthermore, Mr. Abernathy is hereby granted a lifetime, non-revocable Executive Membership to all facilities, free of charge. If you so much as look at him sideways, I will hold every board member personally liable for criminal contempt.”

“That verdict is final,” the Judge said, banging the gavel with a force that seemed to crack the very foundation of the HOA’s arrogance.

Mrs. Sterling gasped, clutching her chest. Darrow slumped in his chair.

Walter sat stunned. Sarah, his lawyer, squeezed his hand, beaming. “We did it, Walter.”

He stood up, leaning heavily on his cane, but feeling lighter than he had in years. He looked across the aisle at Mrs. Sterling. He didn’t gloat. He didn’t shout. He simply adjusted his coat.

“I think I’ll go for a swim this afternoon,” Walter said softly. “The water should be nice and warm. I paid enough for it.”

He walked out of the courtroom, the tap-tap-tap of his cane sounding like a victory march.