Silver Lake homeowners may want to take over HOA

EAGLE MOUNTAIN — Residents of Silver Lake Village, a private subdivision on the northeast side of town, may want to take over the defunct homeowners association after they say the rules have not been enforced under the developer.

Abandoned cars and unsightly conditions prevail in the community, in violation of the rules, homeowners say.

Typically, developers hold the reins to homeowner associations until the homes are sold before turning the management function over to residents. Homeowners met Monday with Steve Jones, whose son, Bob Jones was the initial developer, to see how they can take over the association. Steve Jones could not be reached for comment.

On Monday residents asked for financial information about the association at a private meeting with Steve Jones. They can't make a decision until they learn who owes what, real estate agent Michelle Koch said. Koch represents Washington Mutual Bank, which hired her to sell 14 homes and five lots in the subdivision.

The subdivision has 92 owners, including several vacant lots, about 30 partially finished and vacant houses and 28 homes that are lived in, she said. Already, she said, Washington Mutual has started filling in basement holes for safety reasons that were left open when work stopped.

"I'm just volunteering my time trying to help straighten out the HOA," she said.

Currently she is determining who the owners are and subsequently their votes, which is needed to take over the association if the developer relinquishes it.

The work site was shut down when the secondary mortgage market collapsed last year, Bob Jones said. About 19 properties have been foreclosed.

"I went from 50 sales a month to zero in a day," he said.

His company, Sundance Homes, had 249 presold contracts in its 18 subdivisions throughout the state, but when most of his buyers lost their source of funding, only 10 homes were actually sold, he said. Many of his buyers apparently were folks who couldn't qualify to buy homes under the best loan scenarios. But they could qualify under less stringent secondary funding, often with teaser interest rates that adjusted up, usually within two to five years.

When the market was robust, Bob Jones said he had $135 million in construction loans and was paying $400,000 monthly in interest alone.