Legal Challenge, Higgins Lake Dam Special Assessment District
Dear Current or Past HLPOA member,
Roscommon County is moving forward to impose a Part 307 special assessment on Higgins Lakefront properties. You likely received a notice by mail from Roscommon and Crawford Counties. The Higgins Lake Property Owners Association has teamed up with the law firm of Outside Legal Counsel PLC to organize a coordinated legal challenge on behalf of owners who believe the assessment is unlawful—on apportionment, equity, amount, and need grounds.
What’s happening next
- Protest hearing: September 2, 2025, 6 PM at Roscommon High School. The County says written protests are required. We disagree with that legal position—but to take a belt-and-suspenders approach, we want as many written protests filed by Sept 2 as possible so the County can’t use that as an excuse later. Click on the Link below to file your protest.
- Roscommon County Board meeting: September 10, 2025, 10 AM where the Board will likely rubber stamp the assessment roll.
- Appeal window: If the Board confirms, a 15-day appeal period opens immediately. OLC intends to file in that window for participating owners.
Why This Matters
This smaller assessment appears to be a test balloon for a much larger, multi-million-dollar assessment expected to follow. If we don’t push back now—on the facts, the law, and the process—the financial and precedent impacts could grow substantially.
How to join the legal fight and submit your written protest (takes ~2 minutes):
- Click this page: https://www.olcplc.com/cases/HigginsLakeSAD/
- Fill out the form to sign up, indicate that you intend to protest (which OLC will file on your behalf), and that you want to join the later legal challenge.
What we’ll argue
- Apportionment & equity: The roll does not fairly or lawfully allocate costs across benefited parcels.
- Amount & need: The proposed dollars and claimed “needs” are overbroad and unsupported as required by law.
- Process & rights: We will preserve all procedural objections to protect your right to judicial review.
If you have friends or neighbors who may not be HLPOA members but would likely be interested in information about this tax, please forward this email to them. Strength in numbers matters—both legally and practically.
Questions? Reply to this email or call our office, 989-275-9181.
Thank you for standing up for your property rights and your community.
Your HLPOA Board
Marketable Record Title Act
At the April 2024 HLPOA Board meeting, Attorney Bill Carey addressed recent amendments to the MRTA (Marketable Record Title Act). The amendments deal with whether deed restrictions may become unenforceable if the restrictions are not rerecorded at least every 40 years. At this time, while the amendments have been adopted into law, the deadline for rerecording has been modified twice. A lengthy discussion was held about the legal aspects of preserving important building and use restrictions. There is currently a deadline for rerecording of September 29, 2025, for anyone intending to file a Notice of Claim under the MRTA. Some Higgins Lake associations and subdivisions may especially be impacted by MRTA changes.
In the Matter of: The Water Levels of Higgins Lake, Circuit Court, Roscommon Co., Case No.: 81-3003-CF:
The HLPOA and the Higgins Lake Land Conservancy (HLLC) together have filed the following Motion To Intervene in the above named matter on June 11, 2019. Additional information on this matter may be posted following the scheduled August 14, 2019 Court Hearing date: