Royal Oaks: four defences, none preserved for appeal
Royal Oaks: four defences, none preserved for appeal
2026-09-10 · Indiana · Courts
What happened. On 20 November 2025 the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed a $3,226.93 judgment for unpaid association dues, rejecting each of the homeowner's four appellate arguments. Almost none of the rejections were about whether he was right.1
The decision is Shea R. Alexander v. Royal Oaks Homeowners Association, Inc., No. 25A-CC-1652, authored by Judge Bailey with Judges Tavitas and Kenworthy concurring. It is a memorandum decision and is not binding precedent.
What the judgment covered
The $3,226.93 was not all assessments. It comprised unpaid assessments, late fees, a management fee, interest, $1,988.01 in attorney fees, and court costs — meaning the fee component was roughly the size of everything else combined. That proportion is ordinary in Indiana association collections and is the single most under-appreciated fact about them.
The four arguments, and how each failed
Due process. Alexander argued he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing rather than summary judgment. The panel could not evaluate the argument because he had not designated the association's summary-judgment motion in the appellate record. An appellate court reviews the record it is given.
Hearsay. He argued the affidavit supporting the association's ledger was inadmissible hearsay, but did not identify which statements he meant. A general objection to an affidavit is not a preserved evidentiary challenge.
The FDCPA. He asserted the association had violated the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, but designated no evidence of a violation. The assertion went nowhere for want of anything to support it.
Service of process. He argued service was defective. The panel found the record documented proper leave-and-mail service under Indiana Trial Rule 4.1.
Affirmed in full.
Why we are covering a case that decided nothing doctrinally
Because the pattern it illustrates is the most common way Indiana owners lose these disputes, and it has nothing to do with the strength of their position.
Three of Alexander's four arguments are arguments that can win in the right posture. Summary judgment genuinely is improper where a material fact is disputed. Ledger affidavits genuinely can be vulnerable on foundation. The FDCPA genuinely does reach some association collection activity in some circumstances. None of that mattered, because appellate review runs on a designated record and specific citations, and a self-represented litigant who does not know that loses arguments they might otherwise have won.
The FDCPA point deserves its own note
It comes up constantly in Indiana association matters and is widely misunderstood in both directions.
The Seventh Circuit, whose decisions bind Indiana federal courts, held in Newman v. Boehm, Pearlstein & Bright, Ltd. (1997) that association assessments can constitute a “debt” within the FDCPA. That is a real foothold. But two limits do most of the work in practice: the statute regulates debt collectors, which an association collecting its own assessments in its own name generally is not, and any claim requires evidence of the specific conduct said to violate it — the misrepresentation, the prohibited communication, the false threat.
“The HOA violated the FDCPA” asserted without either element is what happened here, and it is what usually happens. An owner who believes they have such a claim needs the letters, the call log, and the dates, and needs to put them in front of the trial court, not raise the theory for the first time on appeal.
What this means for a board
Nothing triumphant. The association won on record discipline: its motion was properly supported, its ledger affidavit was in evidence, and its service was documented well enough to survive challenge. Those are the three places association collection files most often fail, and they failed here for the owner instead.
Also notable is what the panel did not have to reach. Had the summary-judgment motion been designated, the due-process argument would have been decided on its merits. Nothing guarantees the next opponent will make the same omission.
The practical advice, for owners
- Contest the ledger at the trial level, in writing, line by line. That is the only stage at which the arithmetic is genuinely open. By the time it reaches the Court of Appeals the question is whether the record supports the judgment, not whether the number is right.
- Designate everything you intend to argue about. The motion, the affidavits, the exhibits, the transcript.
- Watch the fee clock, not the assessment balance. A $1,200 arrears becomes a $3,200 judgment through fees, and an appeal adds more.
- Indiana's 2026 amendments to IC 32-25.5 may matter to a new dispute — they eliminated record-search fees and capped resale statement fees, among other things — but they took effect on 1 July 2026 and do not reach a judgment entered in 2025.
What to watch
As a memorandum decision this is not citable as precedent. Transfer status was not stated in the opinion and we did not confirm it independently.
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