MAN WHO SOLD POKÉMON CARDS FOR A HOUSE FACES $11K HOA BILL
Pokémon card seller Carter Eck, a North Carolina homeowner who sold a big chunk of his collection to cover the down payment on his first house, is now selling more cards to pay a lawyer after his HOA said he owes about $11,000. Eck told reporters he assumed his HOA dues were rolled into his monthly escrow payment, and he admits he never paid them separately.
The fine has nothing to do with the card sales themselves, games.gg reported. It does mean the trick that got him into the house is the one he is back to using to keep it.
Eck, who lives in the Turnberry neighborhood of northeast Charlotte, according to WSOC-TV Action 9, was 23 when he bought the home, Dexerto reported. He was 26 when the dispute went public in August 2026.
The dues he thought he was paying
According to UNILAD Tech, Eck believed escrow had the dues handled. WSOC-TV reported that the HOA claimed he owed more than $10,000, mostly in dues and late fees, plus charges tied to a fence and another issue.
Eck disputes how that number adds up. In a Reddit post quoted by Dexerto, he wrote: “Out of the $11k they’re claiming I owe, only about $840 is actual dues. The rest is fines.”
He said some of those fines showed up with “no notice, no warning, no time to fix it.” He also said he was told in person that he was being fined over weeds in his flower beds. Dexerto reported the HOA also said he had to deal with a fence issue, and Eck told WSOC-TV he took care of the property problems once he learned about them.
He said he tried to do the right thing on the payment side, too. “When I reached out to the management company to figure out where I was even supposed to be sending my HOA payments, they told me they couldn’t help me and to call their attorney instead. I have that in writing,” he wrote.
“I’m not someone that would just let something this big just kind of snowball and just surprise me like that,” he told WSOC-TV. He also said he is not eager to pay: “I don’t really want to pay it because it’s not something I don’t believe I was in the wrong.”
WSOC-TV said it contacted the HOA’s management company and lawyer by phone and email from July 22 through August 17, 2026, and got no response before its report ran.
Cards, round two
The first sale was well timed. Games.gg pointed to the pandemic-era card boom, when pack-opening videos exploded and Logan Paul wore a PSA 10 Pikachu Illustrator card, which the outlet valued at more than $5 million, around his neck at a boxing match.
Prices have cooled from their 2021 peak, though games.gg said most vintage and rare cards still sit above pre-pandemic levels. For scale, a first-edition Base Set Charizard in PSA 9 condition can sell for well above $11,000.
Eck said he now faces foreclosure and has legal representation. To pay for a lawyer to help him keep the house, he said, he is selling more of his collection.
He has a hearing scheduled for November 23, 2026. “There’s a lot that still has to happen between now and then, but things are moving in the right direction. More updates to come,” Eck wrote.
