A homeowners association in a Charlotte-area lake community tried to collect more than $12,000 in fines and a lien against one resident’s house over four vinyl windows the board had already approved in writing. Three legal rounds later, homeowner Sherry Loeffler still has not lost one.
Loeffler installed four vinyl replacement windows at her home in the Yachtsman on Lake Wylie community in 2019, working from a plan the association’s board had signed off on ahead of time, according to WSOC-TV’s reporting on the dispute. Neighboring units in the same building carry eight windows across that wall, and once Loeffler’s replacements were in, the board reversed course and demanded she redo them to match. She declined to pay a second time for windows the HOA had already cleared in advance.
A fine that hit the legal ceiling, then a lien
The association began fining Loeffler $100 a day in 2020 — the maximum daily amount allowed under North Carolina homeowners association law — according to Charlotte Observer reporting syndicated through AOL. Left unpaid, the tab climbed toward $12,000, and the board placed a lien on her house, putting her ownership itself on the line over trim work it had signed off on first.
Loeffler took the matter to arbitration first and won there, WSOC-TV reported. The HOA didn’t let it go, and the case moved into Mecklenburg County District Court.
The board loses in court, then settles for $75,000
District Court Judge Ty Hands ruled for Loeffler, ordering the HOA to strike the lien, cancel the fines outright and reimburse her $12,675 in attorney fees, according to the Charlotte Observer’s coverage of the ruling. The association paid that legal-fee judgment in September, per the Observer, but kept fighting the underlying window dispute rather than let her keep the installation outright.
That fight ended in a settlement reached in November 2024, five years after the windows went in. Under terms reported by the Observer, the HOA agreed to pay Loeffler $75,000, drop a confidentiality clause she had objected to, and let her keep the vinyl windows as installed. Board president Charlie Anderson and Loeffler’s attorney, Thomas Thurman, are both named in that coverage. Along the way, Loeffler has said she borrowed roughly $30,000 and refinanced her home at a higher rate just to keep paying legal bills.
An HOA fight that outlasted the fine cap
North Carolina’s cap on daily HOA fines didn’t stop the board from running the tab into five figures, and a board-approved building plan didn’t stop it from demanding a homeowner redo work on her own dime. Loeffler’s case went through arbitration, then district court, then a negotiated settlement, and the HOA came out behind at every stage. For a board that started the dispute trying to enforce window uniformity, the final bill ran well past the cost of the windows themselves.
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