August 31, 2025 Update: THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR DONATING!! Each time I receive a donation deposit (it automatically deposits), I transfer it to a savings account that only holds the go fund me funds. So far, I’ve spent $75 on an attorney consultation with an attorney who specializes in HOA law. The retainer is $5,000 so I plan the pay that when I reach my goal!

I am a law student who has $0 to spend on legal expenses associated with a lawsuit being threatened against me by my HOA due to me investigating serious concerns about the way that my condo management company and HOA were spending homeowner funds. I not only identified the overspending (by thousands), but I also suggested to my HOA board that we recover these expenses from the management company due to the management company’s breach of contract in managing our funds. After these concerns and solutions to recover homeowner funds were ignored, I suggested that the HOA board hire a new cleaning vendor that would have saved my neighbors/homeowners thousands of dollars per month. As an HOA board member myself, it surprised me when the board and management company continued to ignore my concerns via email and text. The condo manager even demanded via text that I “stand down.” When I finally got the chance to bring these concerns about the cleaning vendor to them in person, the majority of the board, along with the condo manager, demanded that we move forward. One board member emailed me after this conversation to tell me that we are not going to dig up issues just to re-bury them. They made me feel like I was crazy to have these concerns.

After this, I remembered that I recorded the conversation because my job is to take meeting minutes as the board secretary. I have to record conversations because I have profound sensorineural hearing loss along with ADHD. I typically use the recording to go back to anything I missed in the conversation when I finalize the meeting minutes, which is my duty to take as secretary of the HOA.

I took this recording and posted it to TikTok, which led to hundreds of thousands of people validating my concerns. While my intended audience was just a small group of Swifties who have followed my Taylor Swift-themed TikTok account, the story ended up becoming bigger than I thought.

I never used full names of the parties involved, I never named where I live, and I never named the management company. Despite my efforts to keep the parties involved confidential, the board and management company used homeowner funds to pay for a lawyer and threatened to sue me.

The lawyer and the board know that they will never recover financial damages given my status as a broke law student. Despite this, the board has stated that they will file a lawsuit and charge all of THEIR legal expenses to me and against my condo unit, which were incurred against my will. They have also threatened to sue me for the purpose of forcing me to explain this pending litigation on the character and fitness section of my bar application when I apply to the bar in the spring.

The sole purpose of this threatened lawsuit is to DAMAGE ME despite me revealing THEIR own documented actions, which damaged their own credibility and respect as a management company and member of the board of directors. In addition, they are planning to use an honor code that is not clearly defined to vote me off the board on August 7 @ 12:30 pm. This honor code goes against the bylaws and democracy of the voting process in my building.

A good number of people on TikTok suggested that I create a GoFundMe for legal expenses. If you feel inclined to donate, I will appreciate any penny.

I know that this is just a threatened lawsuit, so if the board agrees to settle this and not take legal action (with the sole purpose of damaging me given the documented evidence that they know I am a broke law student), then I promise to donate every dime of this GoFundMe to the Innocence Project and the ACLU.

If you provide an alternative organization to donate to in the description of your donation, I will donate that same exact amount to the organization of your choice (with the exception of political parties and politicians). If I end up using your donation on my own legal expenses, and if there are any leftover funds, I will donate the correlating excess to the organization of your choice. If you do not specify, then I will donate any and all remaining balance to the Innocence Project and the ACLU (a 50/50 split).

Thank you so much for your support!!