guest blog by Bob Frank
The massive corruption involved with major over-charging of assessments and accumulating hidden slush funds from surplus assessments is still going on in Sun City Anthem, Henderson, NV with no end in sight. Neither the state nor the city leaders are willing to act to stop it. The facts are plainly documented–even this year with yet another board member who got it, and was ignored.
The total waste and abuse in this association alone is over $10 Million by now and growing every year. There has been no accounting for such fraud. Annual budgets cover up the issues, and assessments are never reduced by the prior year’s surpluses. After a decade of such openly illegal abuses, not a single dollar of over $10 Mil. of surplus assessments has ever been “returned/refunded” to the overcharged 7,144 unit owners. Those thousands of dollars denied to be refunded or credited to members amounts to grand theft–accordingly to criminal law.
But, the Administrative Laws of Nevada give the Executive Branch no authority to punish financially corrupt board members (and that is how the legislative and executive branches want it to be)–except to remove them from a board–which almost never happens. While board members can theoretically be fined $1,000 by the executive branch, it almost never happens (3 times in 10 years from 3,000 HOAs where there were over 1,000 unit owner complaints about law violations and gross board mismanagement) and when it does, the association is allowed to pay the fine and stiff the members for the second time!
Finally, after what happened to me with being falsely arrested, perp-walked, jailed for 4 hours, entered into the global criminal database, and finger-printed for daring to ask that such flagrant theft by the board be investigated and punished, others are understandably too afraid to file similar complaints with “law enforcement” in Nevada. So, there is never meaningful punishment for stealing from HOA unit owners–even if it causes the association to go bankrupt.
In case anyone is interested, I have some first person experiences with “tolerated corruption” relating to my 3 years on the NV HOA Commission. It is a fact that Administrative Law is knowingly and willingly unconstitutional by our federal and state legislators. The combination of ignorance and greed (dependence on development, HOA management, and real estate industry campaign donations) is totally out-of-control. It is hard to see through the fog of corruption to envision any progress in the future. The abusive system seems perfectly protected from all angles.
