The payment has a clause: By accepting this payment, I acknowledge and accept the following terms:I am the property owner (or an authorized agent for the owner) of the above-referenced property and I am authorized to receive payments.

Now, three years later, the community is complete, and an official HOA board is in place.

Great idea to get in on the ground floor in that market, meeting with officials.

Check out Cost Segregation Authority. 

The agent is generally not authorized to provide a buyer with any confidential information on the seller or seller's financing.

You could turn the matter over to a collection company (including law firms that do collections on contingency), but normally, they charge a very high percentage of what they recover, and you normally have to authorize them to settle for any amount the want to.

Officially, for crime to count, it has to go thru the courts and end with a conviction.

I feel like they stole over $2000 from us, and acted on our authority with our tenants after we canceled.

Here's the situation:I hired my PM in February and officially signed the contract in March.

From there call the sec8 authority in that area and ask if they need more properties, and prepare for the laugh.