Dearest Lueder, Larkin & Hunter, Thank you for keeping your clients informed about SB 406. I would respectfully note that your firm's clients are association boards and management companies, not the homeowners those boards govern. Your footer confirms this: "You are receiving this email because you manage or are on a board with an association that we represent." With that context established, I want to address each claim in your alert directly. ❌ "SB 406 will raise costs on all homeowners." The bill imposes a $100 annual registration fee on the association, not on individual homeowners. In a 50-unit community, that is $2.00 per homeowner per year. To put that in perspective, $2.00 is what a homeowner spends in the first 20 seconds of a conversation with an attorney at $350 per hour. That is currently the only option a Georgia homeowner has when their board violates the law. There is no administrative process, no independent body, and no low-cost path to resolution. SB 406 creates one for $2.00 a year. Your firm did not disclose what homeowners currently pay in contested fines, wrongful liens, misapplied payments, and attorney fees incurred in governance disputes that SB 406's oversight mechanism would prevent or resolve. A single improper lien costs a homeowner thousands in legal fees and credit damage. The $2.00 registration fee is not the cost story here. Your billing rate is. ❌ "SB 406 will weaken an association's ability to maintain communities." No provision in SB 406 limits an association's ability to collect legitimate assessments, maintain common areas, enforce reasonable rules, or manage its finances. The bill requires transparency, registration, and a complaint mechanism. None of those things weaken community maintenance. What they weaken is the ability to operate without accountability. ❌ "SB 406 imposes obligations on volunteer board members that already exist." If the obligations already exist, compliant boards have nothing to fear from registration or a complaint process. The argument contradicts itself. If boards are already meeting their legal obligations, SB 406 costs them $100 a year. If they are not, the bill gives homeowners a place to go other than your firm's billing counter. ❌ "SB 406 overrides long-standing private contracts." Georgia state law regulates private contracts across virtually every industry where a power imbalance exists or where consumers have no meaningful ability to negotiate terms. Consider what is already regulated by state law in Georgia: ✅ Residential mortgage agreements (Georgia Residential Mortgage Act) ✅ Consumer sales contracts (Fair Business Practices Act) ✅ Residential lease agreements (Georgia landlord-tenant law) ✅ Insurance policies (Georgia Insurance Code) ✅ Employment contracts (Georgia wage and hour law) ✅ Consumer loan agreements (Georgia Industrial Loan Act) ✅ Contractor agreements with homeowners (Georgia residential contractor licensing) ✅ Medical service agreements (Georgia healthcare regulations) ✅ Franchise agreements (Georgia Franchise Practices Act) ✅ Automobile sales contracts (Georgia Motor Vehicle Dealer Act) In every one of these categories, the state sets minimum standards that private contracts cannot override. The question is not whether state law may regulate private agreements. It clearly may and routinely does. The question is whether HOA governing documents should be the one category of consumer agreement exempt from any state oversight whatsoever. SB 406 says no. An HOA governing document is not a freely negotiated contract. It is a condition of purchase that homeowners had no meaningful ability to reject. The comparison to a private contract negotiated at arm's length is not accurate, and your firm knows it. ❌ "SB 406 is likely unconstitutional." This claim has never prevailed against comparable legislation anywhere in the country. Florida, Texas, Nevada, California, Colorado, and Virginia all maintain state-level oversight of community associations. Not one of those frameworks has been struck down on contract clause grounds. Calling SB 406 likely unconstitutional without citing a single supporting case is a scare tactic, not a legal argument. ❌ "SB 406 creates a duplicate registration system." Georgia currently has no HOA oversight registration. None. Existing nonprofit corporate filings with the Secretary of State establish legal existence as a corporate entity. They create no oversight mechanism, no complaint process, no financial transparency requirement, and no enforcement authority. SB 406 creates something entirely different. There is nothing to duplicate. ❌ "The complaints board has little authority and no identified funding." Sir, or Madam, you just spent the opening of this email arguing that SB 406 will raise costs on homeowners. That is the funding. The $100 annual registration fee that your firm characterized as a harmful cost to homeowners is precisely the revenue source that funds the Commission. You cannot simultaneously argue that the fee raises costs and that no funding has been identified. The Commission has the authority to investigate, adjudicate, and impose civil penalties of up to $1,000 per violation per day. It can issue cure orders and refer matters to the Attorney General. At $100 per association across approximately 11,300 registered associations in Georgia, registration fees produce $1.13 million annually. The funding is in the bill. Your alert omitted that. ❌ "The $4,000 foreclosure threshold dilutes the only serious enforcement tool." This framing is misleading in a way that deserves a direct correction. The $4,000 threshold limits when an association may foreclose on a home. It does not limit an association's ability to pursue a money judgment through the courts and collect that judgment through wage garnishment, bank account garnishment, or other lawful collection methods. An association owed legitimate fees and assessments retains every legal tool available to any creditor in Georgia. What SB 406 removes is the ability to seize a family's home as the first and preferred collection method before a meaningful threshold is reached. Georgia homeowners have lost their homes over amounts that consisted largely of your firm's own fees. The current $2,000 floor includes fines, late fees, interest, and attorney fees in the calculation. SB 406 attempts to raise that floor to $4,000 on qualifying assessments only, excluding the fees that inflate balances beyond what homeowners actually owe. Foreclosure is a serious remedy. Reserving it for serious delinquencies is not dilution. It is proportionality. And nothing in the bill touches the judgment and garnishment tools that remain fully available. Your firm specializes in community association law. That specialization generates revenue when boards enforce, litigate, and foreclose. SB 406 creates a lower-cost administrative alternative that resolves disputes before they reach the courthouse. I understand why that is unwelcome from a business perspective. I would ask that you represent it honestly to your clients rather than as a threat to their communities. Georgia's 881,000+ HOA homeowners have no law firm sending mass action alerts on their behalf. What they have is SB 406 and the House Judiciary Committee's willingness to pass it. Respectfully, Caroline Simmons CEO and Executive Director We the Homeowner, Inc. C. 404.333.8685 E. caroline@wethehomeowner.org #SB406 #wethehomeowner #thewatchproject #hoareform #hoaaccountability