Army vet launches lawsuit against Tuckerton homeowners association that stripped out home

For Brooks Conner, a 78-year-old Army veteran who exited a two-month hospital stay in 2020 to find his Tuckerton home ripped up by his townhouse association, things got worse before they started to get better.

In September 2021, the Tuckerton Meadows Townhouse Association had a default judgment entered against Conner for $26,000 for the work it ordered to strip his home nearly bare while he was hospitalized. When Conner, displaced and living with a neighbor, failed to fill out a subsequent information request, a warrant was issued for his arrest.

Now Conner is fighting back.

With the help of an attorney, Conner had the default judgment vacated and the warrant rescinded. And he’s filed his own lawsuit against the townhouse association, seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

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"The homeowners association and its board of directors maintain duties to all homeowners," Brian Rader, the Hoboken-based attorney representing Conner, said in an email to the Asbury Park Press. "We allege that the fiduciary duties owed to Mr. Conner pursuant to applicable law, and the governing documents, have been violated. From obtaining a faulty default judgment that led to a warrant being issued for Mr. Conner's arrest, which we successfully had vacated, to the property damage claims, we look forward to pursuing our allegations in court, and seeking redress for Mr. Conner’s claims."

A widower who has lived in the development since 1988, Conner was hospitalized for a heart ailment in July 2020. When he returned home that September, he found the kitchen cleared out. His fridge, sink and dishwasher were gone. So was all the food in his pantry. The kitchen cabinets had been removed, leaving huge holes in the walls.

In the living room, a bunch of Conner’s belongings were piled up. Carpets throughout the house had been ripped up. The stair lift that Conner, who uses a walker, needed to reach the second floor was gone.

The overhaul was ordered by the Tuckerton Meadows Townhouse Association’s board, which later claimed in a letter to outraged neighbors that “the home was uninhabitable and presented an immediate and serious threat to the health and safety of others if immediate actions were not taken.”

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Conner denies that his home was a safety hazard. But at age 78, living off a fixed income and in poor health, he’s been unable to renovate and refurnish his home after the association emptied it. He continues to live with a sympathetic neighbor.

Rader’s brief supporting a motion to vacate the $26,000 default judgment against Conner contended the judgment was improperly served to him and the amount sought was misrepresented to the court by the townhouse association. This $26,000 figure was not for “mere maintenance fees” that had accrued over time, Rader wrote, but stemmed largely from the overhaul that Conner viewed as unauthorized and in breach of his homeowner’s contract.

“I note that none of these bills or invoices were attached to the application for final judgment,” Rader wrote.

Last month Ocean County Superior Court judge Mark Troncone agreed with Rader, overturning the default judgment and consolidating Conner’s lawsuit against the association with the association’s lawsuit against him.

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The Tuckerton Meadows Townhouse Association is being represented by Eric Mann of the Atlantic County-based law firm Hyberg, White & Mann.

"My client will be not litigating this matter in the press but instead will rely on the Superior Court to make a final determination on both the facts and the law," Mann wrote in an email to the Asbury Park Press. "Suffice to say my client is confident that its position will be fully vindicated once the matter is litigated to its conclusion. The vacation of the judgment was NOT based on the merits of the claim but solely on procedural grounds."

Rader said judge's decision resets the table after what he characterized as a period of poor communication.

“I represent a lot of homeowners associations, but I also represent homeowners and unit owners,” said Rader, whose firm Rader Law LLC specializes in common-interest communities. “There’s a way to deal with people. Sometimes (association board members) go on a bit of a power trip, they don’t communicate as well as they could with homeowners and unit owners. That’s why things like this tend to manifest.”

Jerry Carino is community columnist for the Asbury Park Press, focusing on the Jersey Shore’s interesting people, inspiring stories and pressing issues. Contact him at jcarino@gannettnj.com.

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Tuckerton HOA sued by Army vet after arrest, property damage