Back-door fees for homes in Westbury raise eyebrows
Voluntary civic club uses fund for upkeep, security — but is it legal?
When real estate agent Charles Goforth was reviewing paperwork for a home under contract in Westbury, he noticed something that didn’t make sense to him. The title company said a $125 transfer fee — a mandatory fee sometimes charged by homeowners associations — was required for the sale to go through.
But Goforth owned investment properties in the neighborhood, located just outside of the loop in southwest Houston, and he knew there was no HOA. The closest the area had to an HOA was a civic club, which recruited local residents to beautify and improve the neighborhood.
“I got thinking: Wait a second,” Goforth said. “Westbury Civic Club is a voluntary organization. They have no authority to be charging mandatory fees.”
In Westbury, upwards of $30,000 is collected from homeowners every year in the form of fees when they sell or refinance a home — roughly one twelfth of its budget — according to association documents. The fees go toward neighborhood security, greenspace maintenance and payroll costs, among other expenses. But the neighborhood does not have legal authority to do so, according to property owners and a real estate attorney. Most of the neighborhood is a voluntary civic association, which has opt-in dues, as opposed to a homeowners’ association, which has mandatory fees.
“You can’t force people to pay fees to a voluntary civic club,” said Mitch Avila Katine, a partner at Katine Nechman McLaurin LLP practicing real estate law.
But homeowners who believe voluntary associations are illegally charging them fees have found themselves in a type of limbo. Mortgage lenders and title companies are unwilling to step in and determine whether a fee being asked for is legal, and will not close until associations are satisfied. Without an authority to appeal to, the only avenue left to homeowners is the courts, a process that would likely cost much
more than the fee.
Goforth emailed Cindy Chapman, president of the Westbury Civic Club, about the fees, and she responded that they had been mandatory for decades, pointing to the civic club’s website, which lists a $125 fee when a home changes ownership and a $75 when a homeowner refinances.
Jennifer Edmondson, the civic club’s manager, said in an email to Goforth that the club is acting as a property owners’ association and has “the right to charge a reasonable fee per Texas Property Code.”
Chapman and the civic club did not respond to requests for comment.
“I know they’re a large association and they try to do a lot with the little they get, but right is right and wrong is wrong,” Goforth said. “And it’s deceiving to say the least that they try to get in the back door and charge us these mandatory fees.”
When a home sells or is refinanced, explained Marcy Wolf, owner of Action Mortgage, the property must be checked for any liens — a type of debt backed by the home. A common source of liens are
HOAs, which are able to charge mandatory fees and foreclose on a home if they aren’t paid.
Because of that, title companies reach out to HOAs to make sure there are no delinquent fees that would prevent the home from being purchased or refinanced, and the associations often charge a fee for the paperwork.
“It’s a fee for the HOA to verify that the homeowner has paid their fees on time,” Wolf explained.
In Westbury, there were no mandatory fees for Goforth to fall behind on. The majority of the community — including the home his brokerage was selling — can choose on a year-to-year basis whether they want to pay dues.
Only homes in two sections of Westbury, known as Parkwest 1 and 2 — roughly from Willowbend Boulevard south to West Bellfort Avenue between Hillcroft Avenew and Atwell Drive — are required to be members of the civic club.
“What it comes down to is whether or not it’s a mandatory association,” said Eric Fontanot, president of Houston-based Patten Title Co., speaking generally about how title companies go about checking for liens and not about the Westbury Civic Association
specifically. “If it’s a voluntary association, then those fees are not mandatory.”
If a group has the right to charge a mandatory fee on homeowners, Fontanot explained, it will say so in county property records. “If it’s not filed in the property records, then it doesn’t exist,” he said. “There is no recourse or obligation.”
None of the property records posted on the Westbury Civic Association’s website, including deed restrictions and bylaws, indicate mandatory fees are due outside Parkwest 1 and 2.
Few, however, have questioned the transfer and refinance fee over the years. Bob Underbrink did not — even after he first bought a home in Westbury and later refinanced it — until he saw a post about the fees on Nextdoor.
He checked his refinance paperwork from 2020, and saw the $75 charge.
“I’m not going to get to the point where I’m going to fight someone for $75,” he said. “But — why? … It seems like they provide no value at all but are charging this fee from people.”