Silver Lake may take over HOA in Eagle Mountain

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 recently with Steve Jones — whose son, Bob Jones, was the initial developer — to see how they can take over the association. Steve Jones said he would consider a takeover.

Residents asked for financial information about the association at the 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 Trust 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 for safety reasons started filling in basement holes 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 are 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 when the secondary market quit buying mortgages, only 10 homes were actually sold, he said.

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

While homeowners blame Bob Jones for the homeowner association failure, he blames the economy and the homeowners who stopped paying their monthly homeowner assessment fees. As a result, he couldn't afford to pay for services such as keeping up the lawns. Homeowners got all the services they paid for, he said.