Two boards claimed to run a Delaware HOA. Chancery picked one and sent the rest elsewhere
Two boards claimed to run a Delaware HOA. Chancery picked one and sent the rest elsewhere
2026-08-09 · Delaware · Courts
When a Delaware homeowners association ends up with two groups each claiming to be the board, the Court of Chancery's answer is not to decide quickly who is right. It is to keep somebody in charge and send the question of legitimacy to the proceeding built for it.
Billings v. Hickory Hollow Homeowners Association, C.A. No. 2025-1265-JRB, decided February 20, 2026 by Magistrate in Chancery Jessie R. Benavides, denied a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction and entered a status quo order restoring the board as constituted on December 5, 2025 pending final resolution.1
What is alleged to have happened
A member alleged that in June 2024 the board amended and recorded amendments to the community's covenants, conditions and restrictions without notice to the community and without owner approval. The amendments, on the allegations, imposed weekly non-compliance fees and stripped voting rights from members with outstanding architectural-review violations and fines.
In October 2025 a second amendment was recorded, asserting that the first had been properly noticed.
Then, amid the litigation, a member-run “Special Election” purported to remove the sitting board. Both sides claimed to be the lawful board.
Why the injunction failed
The court applied the ordinary Delaware standard: a colourable claim or reasonable probability of success, imminent irreparable harm as a necessary element, and a balance of equities.
The claim was colourable — the court said so. What was missing was imminent irreparable harm. A generalised assertion that members' votes are being ignored does not supply it, and the disputed general election had already been postponed by agreement, so nothing was about to happen that an order needed to stop.
The equities then ran the other way. The incumbents showed the community would be harmed without a functioning board: the management company was resigning.
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