I am not doubting what you were told. Even if everything you say is true they still have the right to charge you. You can take them to court and have them change, you might get damages from them, and you might get them to lift any charges they have levied as unreasonable. But they still have the right to charge you if you signed the deed covenant. Sounds like you have a crappy HOA. You might well be able to challenge them in court and win. But your right to challenge the things in court exists in tandem with their rights to charge you in the first place. You have this idea that covenants can't overide city or state laws but it is more complicated than just yes or no. Courts have found both ways on that. Courts have often upheld that both noncompete agreements and agreements to indemnify others are allowed, while at other times they have struck them down. Your HOA agreement probably has an indemnity clause in it, that prohibits you from taking action directly against HOA representatives acting on behalf of the HOA. Furthermore, your deed covenants may have already assigned certain rights to the HOA that would normally be assigned only to an owner. Those may be found to be unenforceable at court but will likely require a court battle. Even if you are correct that they don't have the right to come on your property in your state and any deed covenant stating otherwise has been judged unenforceable, they can still charge you for all kinds of things and if you refuse to pay they can just foreclose on your house. There is a difference between breaking the law and committing a crime. Their coming on your property to say mow it, may well be breaking the law but it would definitely not be committing a crime and would land you in civil not criminal court. I am not getting where your cop friend is arresting them and I doubt that doing so would be looked on favorably. The one thing that many people forget is that judges are rarely unreasonable, in civil proceedings if your HOA came on your property and mowed your yard because you wouldn't, they may well be breaking the law in your state, but the judge may dismiss the case and yell at you along the way. On the other hand if the HOA was passing rules that are causing your property damage the judge would overrule them and probably yell at them.

I am a Title attorney and have a lot of experience both abstracting and examining chains of title in several states and counties. For your own peace of mind I recommend you contact your realtor. All advice above is good, but may be incomplete depending upon your county. There are many types of liens and encumbrances which may affect title to your property: Federal tax liens, state tax liens, county liens, judgments, liens from bail, DEA seizures, UCC's, divorce judgments, EPA liens... These may not all be centrally indexed together. Some may be computerized, others may not be. Some may be more accessible than others. An experienced Realtor will have a good working relationship with your local title company(s) and should be able to get the information you need relatively quickly, probably at no cost to you. Yes, this information is all public record, but that doesn't mean it will necessarily be easy or intuitive for you to access it.

We hired a general contractor to do structural work putting in a couple of windows in a block wall, installing cabinet, tearing out fireplace and moving a.c.. Designer who works on the job with the GC suggested we could save money if we use Arbonne electrician when I had mentioned to them that I had a good backup electrician if they needed one. I found it odd that she offered hand told her what if he messes up. She said there's no need for him to mess up because he had a drawing to follow. I just figured I would save a few thousand and had already used him and being licensed, with everything he told me there should be no problems. Both the GC and electrician told me that electric did not need to be permitted. From my recollections recollection and I have it written down electrician said I only need to permit if we are adding 20 amps. Structure work was permitted. If electric is needed to be permitted whose responsibility was told the permit? Electrician or me acting as the DC in regards to Electric? If it needs to be permitted to my understanding we can permit still at anytime.

@A.M. Texas I am going to caution you against taking too much of the advice here, which I guess includes mine. Construction is governed by state laws and those laws may be vastly different from state to state. There are no statewide contractor licenses in Texas and so as Janni mentioned above supervision of home construction is a bit lax in Texas. Conversely, Texas has some of the strictest laws in the country on how contractors must handle payments regardless of what type of contract they are in. Texas is one of the few states that can and regularly does send contractors to prison for not paying subs. Because of these two things Texas construction law is a real mess and that means all advice here, again including mine, should be taken with a grain of salt. Some general thoughts though. Mechanic's liens are one of the few legal proceedings where there is a presumption of guilt. Therefore, there are strict guidelines for perfecting a mechanic's lien. In my home state, a subcontractor can get a mechanic's lien largely just by filing it, but must appear in court within a certain time period to perfect it or the lien will be dismissed with prejudice. In my state, regardless of the type of contract, a (sub)contractor can only file a lien for materials provided and services performed in a 3 month period before the lien filing. They also must communicate with the homeowner 15 business days before the filing. If you were in my area I would have the attorney draft a letter to the subs putting them on notice that their refusal to provide information on payment status is a forfeit of their right to file a mechanic's lien. I suspect a form letter sent to all subcontractors will be sufficient to grease those wheels. As for retainage, I can't think of any reason that a shortage in retainage can't be made up in later payments. However, you should check with your attorney before you do that and should think whether or not it will achieve the desired result. Unless your contract has a force majeure clause which your contractor has activated, there is a good chance that your contractor is already upside down on a fixed price contract. Suddenly withholding a large portion of a progress payment to make up for retainage may do more harm than good. Lots of contractors are undercapitalized and robbing Peter to pay Paul is not rare in the industry. Your goal isn't to fix that, your goal is to not be Peter. Good luck