Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC: Arizona HOA Superior Court Case Guide - Arizona HOA Transparency ProjectArizona HOA Transparency Project

Name: Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC
Uploaded: 2014-08-12
Description: Escrow payoff requests do not erase HOA liens absent a real transaction; paid assessments defeated foreclosure.

Assessment Liens & Foreclosure | A.R.S. § 33-1807 | CV2012-094261

In this Maricopa County Superior Court assessment-lien case, the court held that A.R.S. § 33-1807(I) does not let an escrow agent extinguish an HOA lien merely by requesting a payoff statement outside any pending escrow transaction. Later, the same court denied the association summary judgment on foreclosure under § 33-1807(A), rejecting the association’s argument that a foreclosure claim survives once filed even after the delinquent assessments themselves have been paid. The fee ruling treated the case in four parts: the association succeeded on unpaid assessments and Forange’s groundless-document claims, while Forange prevailed on foreclosure and the dismissed CC&R-violation claims.

Last updated July 2, 2026. Case: Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC, et al., Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2012-094261.

Download summary-judgment ruling

Scope note: This page covers Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC, et al. (Maricopa County Superior Court No. CV2012-094261) as a public Arizona superior-court HOA case guide. It is built from the court’s own filed minute entries, including the August 12, 2014 ruling on Forange’s payoff-statement lien-extinguishment theory, the November 24, 2014 ruling on the association’s foreclosure motion, the March 11, 2015 dismissal-stipulation ruling, and the June 9, 2015 fee ruling; the complete set of collected minute entries is available in the source-document index below. Currency caveat: the last collected minute entry is the June 9, 2015 fee ruling, which continued the case on the dismissal calendar to July 7, 2015 unless a proposed form of judgment was submitted first; any later docket activity is outside these records. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. This page is educational and is not legal advice.

The takeaway

The superior court read A.R.S. § 33-1807 in two different lien contexts. First, it rejected Forange’s argument that an HOA lien disappeared because an escrow agent requested a payoff statement and the association did not respond within ten days: the court held the escrow-agent penalty in § 33-1807(I) is meant to facilitate actual sale, transfer, lease, or other escrow transactions, not to give escrow agents a freestanding power to make liens disappear. Second, when the association later sought summary judgment on foreclosure, the court denied it under § 33-1807(A) because late fees and attorney fees do not count toward the foreclosure threshold and the delinquent assessment amount had been paid. The case later ended through a stipulation that found for defendants on foreclosure and through a fee ruling awarding Forange costs and $18,000 in fees while denying the association’s fee applications.

Case Participants

Petitioner Side

Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association (Plaintiff / Defendant in consolidated action)
Homeowners association that sued over unpaid assessments, lien foreclosure, and alleged CC&R violations; the court later found it succeeded on the unpaid-assessment claim and on Forange’s groundless-document claims, but not on lien foreclosure.
Lindsey O. Stearns (Counsel / Defendant in consolidated action)
Attorney listed for the association in later minute entries and one of the attorney defendants in Forange’s consolidated complaint; the August 2014 ruling granted summary judgment to the association and its attorneys on Forange’s claims.
Joshua M. Bolen (Counsel / Defendant in consolidated action)
Attorney listed for the association in multiple caption entries and one of the attorney defendants in Forange’s consolidated complaint.
Javier Delgado (Counsel / Defendant in consolidated action)
Attorney defendant named by Forange in the consolidated action, according to the August 2014 ruling.
Bradley R. Jardine (Counsel)
Attorney who filed the April 2015 motion for attorney fees on behalf of the association.

Respondent Side

4AAR Holdings, LLC (Defendant)
Entity defendant in the association’s action; its answer was struck in December 2012 because a nonlawyer could not represent the LLC.
Forange, LLC (Defendant / Plaintiff in consolidated action)
Entity that filed the consolidated action against the association and its attorneys, arguing that an escrow-agent payoff request extinguished the association lien under A.R.S. § 33-1807(I); it lost that claim but later prevailed on the association’s foreclosure claim and received fees and costs.
Michael D. Ripson (Defendant / LLC member)
Individual listed as a defendant and as a member of 4AAR Holdings, LLC in the early order-to-show-cause minute entry.
Scottsdale Community Association (Defendant)
Entity listed as a defendant in the association’s action; the collected minute entries do not show a merits ruling against it.
Citibank South Dakota N.A. (Defendant)
Lienholder defendant listed in the caption; the collected minute entries do not show a substantive ruling about it.
Johnson Bank (Defendant (dismissed))
Defendant dismissed with prejudice in August 2014 after no party responded to the court’s notice of possible dismissal.
Elijah W. Rosov (Counsel)
Counsel of record for 4AAR Holdings, LLC and Forange, LLC in the later minute entries and fee applications.
Andrew J. Van Loon (Counsel)
Attorney listed in several caption entries for the defense side before the later fee ruling noted that the court declined to award Forange fees incurred while represented by Van Loon.

Neutral Parties

Emmet J. Ronan (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who handled early order-to-show-cause and LLC-representation rulings.
Mark F. Aceto (Judge)
Maricopa County Superior Court judge who issued the key August 2014 payoff-statement ruling, the November 2014 foreclosure ruling, the March 2015 dismissal-stipulation ruling, and the June 2015 fee ruling.
Ruth H. Hilliard (Judge)
Judge who signed the March 2013 consolidation order for Judge Ronan.

What happened

Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association sued 4AAR Holdings, LLC and others in Maricopa County Superior Court over a planned-community assessment lien. The early minutes show an order-to-show-cause hearing where Michael Ripson appeared as a member of 4AAR Holdings, LLC, followed by a December 2012 ruling striking the LLC’s answer because a corporation or LLC cannot appear in court through a nonlawyer. In March 2013, the court consolidated this action with CV2012-018064, the related case brought by Forange, LLC against the association and attorneys Javier Delgado, Joshua Bolen, and Lindsey Stearns.

Forange’s consolidated complaint turned on a payoff-statement theory. The August 12, 2014 ruling says Forange moved for partial summary judgment on its claims, while the association and its attorneys cross-moved for summary judgment on all claims asserted against them. The court identified the undisputed facts this way: A.R.S. § 33-1807 creates an HOA lien for unpaid assessments; subsection I requires an association to furnish a payoff statement within ten days after a request from a unit owner, lienholder, or escrow agent; and the special penalty for failure to answer an escrow-agent request is extinguishment of the lien. Here, an escrow agent asked for a payoff statement, but the request was not made in the context of any pending sale, transfer, lease, or other transaction.

Judge Aceto rejected Forange’s statutory theory. The ruling framed the issue as whether § 33-1807(I) gives escrow agents a special power to make liens disappear simply because they are escrow agents, or whether the penalty provision is meant to facilitate actual escrow transactions by requiring prompt payoff responses. Applying a rational-interpretation approach, the court held the penalty provision was directed at real pending transactions. It denied Forange’s partial summary-judgment motion and granted summary judgment to the association and its attorneys on Forange’s claims.

The association then moved for partial summary judgment on its own foreclosure claim. On November 24, 2014, the court denied that motion. The ruling noted that A.R.S. § 33-1807(A) allows foreclosure only if the owner “has been” delinquent on the assessment for one year or in the amount of $1,200 or more, and that late fees, attorney fees, and costs do not count when deciding whether the right to foreclose exists. Because the delinquent assessment amount had been paid after the lawsuit began, the court rejected the association’s argument that a homeowner cannot avoid foreclosure once the complaint has been filed. The court expressly left open the association’s monetary claim for penalties and fees related to assessments.

A March 11, 2015 ruling accepted the parties’ stipulation regarding dismissal, vacated the scheduled trial, and found for defendants on Count I to the extent it sought foreclosure on the property. The June 9, 2015 fee ruling divided the consolidated case into four parts: the association’s unpaid-assessment claim, the association’s lien-foreclosure claim, the association’s CC&R-violation allegations, and Forange’s groundless-document claims. The court found the association succeeded on unpaid assessments and on Forange’s groundless-document claims, while Forange prevailed on foreclosure and on the dismissed CC&R-violation allegations.

The fee ruling made Forange the prevailing party overall. It awarded Forange $994.05 in taxable costs, denied the association’s fee requests under the CC&Rs and A.R.S. § 12-341.01, and awarded Forange $18,000 in attorney fees under § 12-341.01 to mitigate the expense of establishing just defenses. The last collected entry continued the case on the dismissal calendar to July 7, 2015 unless a proposed form of judgment was submitted first.

Video overview of the ruling

An AI-generated video overview of Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC (CV2012-094261 (Maricopa County Superior Court)). Escrow payoff requests do not erase HOA liens absent a real transaction; paid assessments defeated foreclosure. This plain-language summary was generated from the court’s filings; the court’s own ruling controls.

Listen: audio deep dive on the ruling

An AI-generated audio deep dive walking through the court’s reasoning and disposition in Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC. Generated from the case filings; verify against the linked ruling below.

Audio overview generated with Google NotebookLM from the case’s court filings.

Procedural timeline

Step 2012-09-12 At an order-to-show-cause hearing, the court gives 4AAR Holdings, LLC until October 12, 2012 to obtain counsel.

Step 2012-12-12 The court strikes 4AAR Holdings, LLC’s answer because a nonlawyer cannot represent the LLC in court.

Step 2013-03-01 The court consolidates CV2012-094261 with CV2012-018064.

Step 2013-08-26 The court denies the association’s motion to enforce settlement and request for Rule 11 sanctions, finding there was no enforceable settlement.

Step 2014-08-12 The court denies Forange partial summary judgment and grants the association and its attorneys summary judgment on Forange’s A.R.S. § 33-1807(I) payoff-statement lien-extinguishment theory.

Step 2014-11-24 The court denies the association partial summary judgment on lien foreclosure under A.R.S. § 33-1807(A), while leaving monetary claims for penalties and fees unresolved.

Step 2014-11-24 The court separately denies the defendants’ partial summary-judgment motion after finding they had not shown entitlement to judgment as a matter of law.

Type: Court order/minute entry

Court or agency order; this is usually the document that tells readers what changed next.

Download source file

2015-05-07_034_ruling.pdf

Source 35 2015-06-09

Ruling

Type: Court order/minute entry

Ruling awarding Forange $994.05 in taxable costs and $18,000 in attorney fees, denying the association’s fee requests, and continuing the case on the dismissal calendar.

Download source file

2015-06-09_035_ruling.pdf

FAQ

Did the escrow-agent payoff request extinguish the HOA lien?

No. The court held that A.R.S. § 33-1807(I)’s escrow-agent penalty was intended to facilitate actual pending escrow transactions. Because the escrow agent’s request was not connected to a pending sale, transfer, lease, or other transaction, the request did not extinguish the association’s lien.

Why did the association win the August 2014 summary-judgment ruling?

Forange’s theory depended on treating any escrow-agent payoff request as enough to erase the lien if the association did not respond within ten days. The court rejected that interpretation as inconsistent with the statute’s purpose, denied Forange’s partial summary-judgment motion, and granted summary judgment to the association and its attorneys on Forange’s claims.

Why did the association lose its later foreclosure motion?

The court read A.R.S. § 33-1807(A) to look only at the delinquent assessment amount when deciding whether foreclosure is available. Late fees, attorney fees, and costs may be part of a lien, but they do not count toward the foreclosure threshold. Because the delinquent assessments had been paid, the court denied the association partial summary judgment on foreclosure.

Did the ruling eliminate all claims by the association?

No. The November 2014 foreclosure ruling expressly said it was not suggesting the association’s monetary claim for penalties and fees related to assessments was not viable. The June 2015 fee ruling later found the association succeeded on its unpaid-assessment claim because Forange paid the previously unpaid assessments in July 2013.

Who received attorney fees at the end?

Forange did. The court treated the consolidated case as mixed, found Forange the prevailing party overall, awarded it $994.05 in taxable costs and $18,000 in attorney fees, and denied the association’s fee requests under the CC&Rs and A.R.S. § 12-341.01.

Is this decision binding in other HOA disputes?

No. Superior-court rulings bind only the parties and are not precedent. The case is still useful because it shows how one Arizona superior-court judge interpreted the escrow-payoff and foreclosure portions of A.R.S. § 33-1807 in a planned-community assessment-lien dispute.

Case Dossier

This generated dossier mirrors the structured data surfaced on the OAH/ADRE case pages. It is added from the curated court-case record and the custom page source package, while the hand-authored analysis below remains intact.

Case Summary

Case ID / citation	CV2012-094261 (Maricopa County Superior Court)
Court / tribunal	Superior Court
Decision / key date	August 12, 2014
Judge / panel	Hon. Mark F. Aceto, Hon. Emmet J. Ronan, Hon. Ruth H. Hilliard
Parties	Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association (Plaintiff; defendant in consolidated action) v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC, Forange, LLC, Michael D. Ripson, Scottsdale Community Association, Citibank South Dakota N.A., and Johnson Bank (Defendants or related parties); Forange, LLC also sued the association and attorneys Javier Delgado, Joshua Bolen, and Lindsey Stearns in the consolidated action.
Governing law	A.R.S. § 33-1807
Topics	liensforeclosureassessmentscc-and-rsattorneys-fees
Outcome / holding	The superior court held that A.R.S. § 33-1807(I) did not extinguish an HOA assessment lien when an escrow agent requested a payoff statement outside any pending escrow transaction, so Forange’s partial summary-judgment motion was denied and summary judgment was granted to the association and its attorneys. The court later denied the association partial summary judgment on foreclosure under A.R.S. § 33-1807(A) because foreclosure eligibility depends on the unpaid assessment amount, excluding late fees and attorney fees, and the delinquent assessments had been paid.
Primary public source	View source opinion/order

Parties, Court, and Research Coverage

Uploaded source package	35 PDFs
Step-by-step docket roadmap	9 roadmap entries
Video overview	Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association v. 4AAR Holdings, LLC
Study / briefing material	1 section
FAQ / homeowner questions	6 questions
Curated download aliases	1 download link

Key Issues & Findings

Case Summary

Troon Ridge Estates III & IV Homeowners Association sued over unpaid assessments, lien foreclosure, and alleged CC&R violations, while the consolidated Forange action attacked the association lien and its attorneys based on an escrow-agent payoff request under A.R.S. § 33-1807(I). In August 2014, Judge Mark F. Aceto held that § 33-1807(I)’s escrow-agent payoff-statement penalty applies to actual pending escrow transactions, not to a request made outside any pending sale, transfer, lease, or other transaction, and granted summary judgment to the association and its attorneys on Forange’s lien-extinguishment claims. In November 2014, the court denied the association partial summary judgment on foreclosure under § 33-1807(A), holding that late fees, attorney fees, and costs do not count toward foreclosure eligibility and that the delinquent assessment amount had been paid. The case ended through a dismissal stipulation and a fee ruling that awarded Forange taxable costs and $18,000 in attorney fees while denying the association’s fee requests.

Key Issues & Findings

On the payoff-statement claim, the court focused on the purpose of A.R.S. § 33-1807(I). The statute requires associations to furnish payoff statements within ten days after requests from specified actors and creates a lien-extinguishment penalty for an unanswered request by an escrow agent. But the court found the undisputed escrow request here was not made in connection with any pending sale, transfer, lease, or other transaction. Reading the statute rationally and in light of the policy behind it, the court concluded the penalty provision was meant to facilitate actual escrow transactions, not to give escrow agents a special power to erase HOA liens whenever someone asks them to request payoff information.

On the association’s foreclosure motion, the court applied A.R.S. § 33-1807(A) differently. It noted that foreclosure is available only if the owner has been delinquent on the assessment for one year or in the amount of $1,200 or more, and that late fees, attorney fees, and costs may be included in the lien but are excluded when deciding whether the foreclosure right exists. Because the delinquent assessment amount had been paid after the lawsuit began, the court rejected the association’s argument that filing a foreclosure complaint locks in the right to foreclose regardless of later payment.

The fee ruling treated the consolidated case as mixed. The association succeeded on its unpaid-assessment claim because Forange ultimately paid the overdue assessments, and it also defeated Forange’s groundless-document claims. Forange prevailed on the lien-foreclosure issue and on the dismissed CC&R-violation allegations. Weighing those results, the court found Forange the prevailing party overall, awarded it taxable costs and $18,000 in attorney fees, and denied the association’s fee applications.

Why It Matters

This case is useful because it cuts in both directions on HOA assessment liens. It rejects a payoff-request strategy aimed at extinguishing an HOA lien through an escrow agent when there is no real pending escrow transaction, making the statutory penalty in A.R.S. § 33-1807(I) depend on the transaction context.

At the same time, it gives homeowners and associations a concrete reading of § 33-1807(A): for foreclosure eligibility, the court counted only delinquent assessments, not late fees, collection charges, or attorney fees. Once the delinquent assessments were paid, the association still could pursue monetary penalties and fees, but it did not receive summary judgment authorizing foreclosure. As a superior-court ruling, it binds only the parties, but the reasoning addresses recurring assessment-lien and payoff-statement disputes.

← Back to Superior Court cases

Facebook Comments Box