By Tabitha Evans Moore
Editor & Publisher

GRUNDY COUNTY, Tenn. — More than 40 homeowners have filed a lawsuit against Chip Hayes, the Franklin businessman behind the Retreat at Whiskey Creek in Lynchburg, alleging he and three of his companies failed to deliver promised amenities, mismanaged homeowner association funds, and let property taxes go unpaid at another Hayes-controlled development in Grundy County.

The lawsuit, filed Monday in Grundy County Chancery Court at Altamont, does not involve the Whiskey Creek property. It centers on The Retreat at Waters Edge, a 202-lot tiny-home and vacation community on Fiery Gizzard Lake that Hayes developed starting in 2019 — the same business model he has used at Whiskey Creek and at least one other Tennessee development.

Plaintiffs include homeowners from six counties, including several from Grundy County itself. They are suing Retreat at Water’s Edge, LLC; Retreat Vacations, LLC; Oakstone Land and Capital, LLC; and Hayes individually. The complaint asks the court to award up to $5 million in damages, along with treble damages, attorneys’ fees, and a court order forcing the defendants to hand over Association records, funds, and control.

Hayes has not filed a response in the Waters Edge case as of this writing.

{Editor’s Note: This article is based on the original Complaint for Declaratory Relief and Damages filed June 29, 2026, in Grundy County Chancery Court, Case No. 7097, and related exhibits including tax records and Tennessee Secretary of State filings attached to the complaint.}

NEW LAWSUIT MAKES SIX MAJOR CLAIMS

According to the complaint, Hayes and his companies marketed and sold Waters Edge lots as part of a community with a private lake, hiking trails, docks, kayak access, a pool, a pool house, cabanas, and other amenities. Plaintiffs say many of those amenities were never built. The pool was never constructed, trails were not completed, and a promised pool house and cabana never materialized, the lawsuit states.

The complaint also alleges:

Hayes and his companies collected annual assessments from homeowners but failed to pay property taxes on common areas owned by the development. According to tax records attached to the complaint, back taxes are still owed on common areas in two of the development’s five phases for tax years 2022 through 2024. Those unpaid taxes nearly led to a court-ordered tax sale of the common areas in March, the complaint states, until homeowners coordinated with the property management company to pay the back taxes themselves the day before the scheduled auction.

Public records show that Retreat at Whiskey Creek in Lynchburg also owes Moore County close to $4,000 in unpaid 2025 property tax including interest and penalties.

According to the filing, Retreat at Water’s Edge, LLC was administratively dissolved by the Tennessee Secretary of State on August 1, 2024, but the complaint alleges the company and its affiliates continued to incur obligations and exercise control over the development after dissolution.

The lawsuit states that Hayes used his ownership of multiple companies — the developer LLC, Retreat Vacations, and Oakstone Land and Capital — to require or strongly incentivize homeowners to use those same companies for home purchases and short-term rental management, which the lawsuit says violates Tennessee’s antitrust laws by restricting owners from the open market.

The documents state that the developer extended its period of control over the homeowners association in 2021 by adding new phases to the development. Plaintiffs allege that extension was invalid because the added properties were not contiguous to the original development, as Tennessee law and the development’s own governing documents require. If the court agrees, an amendment Hayes signed in 2022 — requiring homeowners to buy tiny homes exclusively through Oakstone — would also be invalid, the complaint argues.

Additionally, the suit claims that for years, homeowners requested financial records and an accounting of how their assessments were spent. The complaint alleges those records were withheld or delayed, and that the homeowners association entered into transactions with Hayes-owned companies that benefited Hayes at the expense of homeowners.

The lawsuit asks the court to determine when Hayes’s period of developer control legally ended, to declare whether his later amendments to the development’s governing documents are valid, and to decide whether Hayes can be held personally liable — rather than only his companies — for the conduct described in the complaint. Plaintiffs argue the companies were so intertwined with Hayes personally that the court should disregard the corporate structure entirely, a legal theory known as piercing the corporate veil.

PART OF A PATTERN

This is not the first time Hayes has faced this kind of lawsuit. Homeowners at The Retreat at Deer Lick Falls in Monteagle — another Hayes-developed tiny-home community in Grundy County — sued Hayes and his companies in 2024 over allegations that closely track the Waters Edge complaint, according to a summary published by Cedar Management Group, a homeowners association management company. That account states the Deer Lick Falls lawsuit alleged Hayes extended developer control by adding non-contiguous properties, that he paid a company he owned nearly 80 percent of the HOA’s lawn care budget, and that he charged rent for use of a community pavilion through his vacation rental company without homeowner approval. The Lynchburg Times has not independently reviewed the Deer Lick Falls complaint or docket and is working to obtain and verify those court records directly.

If confirmed, the Deer Lick Falls case would mark at least the second time homeowners in a Hayes-developed Tennessee community have accused him of the same core practices now alleged in Grundy County: extending developer control through legally questionable means, steering homeowner money to his own companies, and failing to deliver on promised amenities.

Hayes is also the developer behind the Retreat at Whiskey Creek in Lynchburg. In June, The Lynchburg Times reported that a bridge safety assessment submitted to Metro Moore County for the Whiskey Creek development was signed by Kassam Beghani, an engineer who is not a licensed Professional Engineer in Tennessee, and that the Tennessee State Board of Architectural and Engineering Examiners has since opened a complaint against him for unlicensed activity, set to be heard in August.

The Times reached out to Mr. Bhegani via phone and email on June 11 to determine whether or not he performed the Whiskey Creek work under the supervision of a Profession Engineer as is required. He did not respond as of the original publication of that article.

The following day, Bhegani Engineering issued a written statement claiming the assessment was performed under the direct supervision and responsible charge of licensed Professional Engineer Jonathan Clark, identified as the firm’s principal and Engineer of Record under Engineering Firm Registration #10463, held by Independent Consulting International LLC.

The Lynchburg Times undertook independent efforts to verify that claim. State records confirm Clark holds an active PE license — #122640 — and is listed as Engineer in Responsible Charge for Independent Consulting International LLC. However, Bhegani’s name does not appear anywhere in those firm records, and no state document independently connects Bhegani or Bhegani Engineering to Clark’s licensed authority.

Attempts to reach Clark directly have been unsuccessful. A primary phone number listed for Clark with TDCI has been disconnected. A secondary number provided by TDCI went to a voicemail box that was full and could not accept messages. The Lynchburg Times sent both a text message and an email to Clark requesting confirmation of his involvement in the Whiskey Creek assessment. The firm’s registered address on file with the state is currently occupied by an unrelated business. Clark’s involvement in the specific Whiskey Creek bridge assessment remains unconfirmed by any source independent of Bhegani’s own statement.

The Lynchburg Times will continue to follow the Grundy County case as it develops, including Hayes’s forthcoming response to the complaint. •

About the Lynchburg Times: The Lynchburg Times is Moore County’s locally owned, independent news source and the only Lynchburg media source own by a Lynchburg native. We are also one of the few women-owned media organizations in the state. Our reporting is supported by readers, small business partners, and underwriters who believe community journalism matters. If this story was valuable to you, consider becoming a supporter at lynchburgtimes.com.