@madison @Captain80s @tyler It's frustrating that they will get away with doing this to you all. This behavior should be illegal (like death penalty illegal). But this is America's legal system.

My parents went through something similar, because they opposed replacing a tennis court with a basketball court in their HOA. They claimed the basketball court would lead to a higher crime rate (it did) and so the HOA said they did "reputational damage" and sued them. Then they dragged the case out as long as they could, basically hoping my parents would run out of money before a judgment could be made, and then they could take their house in the settlement. At one point the HOA president even sent a letter to my fathers work, claiming that my dad sexually assaulted me which effectively ended his career (he was military at the time), and spread "anonymous letters" to our neighbors saying my mom strangled someone's pet cat. Even after my parents sued for libel and won, and also won the lawsuit against the HOA, they never recovered all of the money they spent on the case, which was over 100K, or undid the real reputational damage they caused for my parents, and the whole thing nearly led to my parents getting a divorce due to the stress. The only good thing that came from the whole thing was that the lawyer representing the HOA was disbarred, but she was also like 1000 years old so it didn't matter at that point.

The fact that the US government allows this to occur makes me so mad. Our legal system is a complete joke, and people have no idea how bad it is until they experience something like that.