A Hamilton County judge has ordered a $2.2 million waterfront duplex in Fishers, Indiana torn down to the foundation after ruling that its builder knowingly ignored homeowners association rules during construction, according to WTHR’s 13 Investigates and confirmed by The Indiana Lawyer.
Hamilton Superior Judge David Najjar issued the order on November 24, 2025, directing builder MHM Investment Group LLC to “remove the entire two-residence waterfront structure on Lot 11 of the Watersedge community — including the foundation — and return the property to its original condition.” The duplex sits along Geist Reservoir in the Watersedge subdivision, a community governed by 2021 covenants that require architectural committee approval before construction begins.
MHM never got that approval. Court filings show the company built the structure without it and encroached on required side-yard setbacks by roughly 600 square feet. The HOA first intervened in November 2023, after the duplex’s footings were already in the ground, and warned the builder in 2024 that continuing construction risked exactly this outcome. MHM kept building anyway.
That decision is what shaped the judge’s language. Ruling on the harm to the builder, Najjar wrote that it was “almost entirely self-inflicted,” adding that allowing the violation to stand would render the HOA’s governing documents “moot.” HOA president Harold Warden put it more bluntly in comments to reporters: “It was obvious that it was not in compliance.”
The financial toll extends well beyond the value of the structure itself. MHM was ordered to pay the HOA’s attorney’s fees and costs — just over $70,000 — within 30 days of the ruling. Independent estimates cited in coverage put the demolition cost alone near $1.5 million, on top of the sunk construction costs and relocation expenses for two tenants who were already living in the finished units. Demolition can begin as early as 90 days after the November order, and residents in the surrounding community were required to be notified by December 4, 2025.
MHM’s attorney has signaled the fight isn’t over, arguing in court that full demolition creates “more harm than simply tearing down the entire structure which is over the setback by only a few feet,” and indicating an appeal is possible if settlement talks with the HOA fall apart. But the ruling as written gives the builder little room: a judge who explicitly frames the loss as the direct result of choices the builder made after being warned twice is not leaving an obvious opening for a sympathetic reversal on appeal.
For now, a nearly finished, multimillion-dollar property sits on Geist Reservoir under an active demolition order — a costly illustration of what happens when a builder bets that finishing a project will outrun an HOA’s ability to stop it.
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