Whoa! This doesn’t happen very often. But apparently there’s so much fraud and embezzlement from Miami condo owners that police are making a tentative attempt at cracking down. The link below shows an arrest by a special police squad formed to combat condo embezzlement.
Still, if Miami dedicated every one of its police officers to fighting fraud by the HOA Lawn Nazis, they’d barely put a dent in the problem. Homeowners Associations and Condo Associations are all fundamentally corrupt, every single one of them. Even if a rare HOA has escaped an embezzlement situation, they’re all just one vote away from disaster. From the very beginning, the rules governing Homeowner Associations were written by the lawyer to the lawyer from the lawyer. Developers were given government permission to build higher density housing as long as they enacted approved covenants and controls. Those controls were never meant to protect homeowners. They were built to protect developers, funnel money to lawyers, and obtain that money from the pockets of gullible home buyers. No homeowner can possible be in 100% compliance with all HOA rules. It’s not humanly possible. That means fines, liens and foreclosures…and lots and lots of lawyers’ kids are collecting their sports cars and their college tuition money.
Follow the money. Always follow the money. if you see a photo of some HOA treasurer getting busted for stealing, just look where the big money’s going. There’s always a cloud of vultures circling over the carrion.
(link to Miami Herald HOA bust!)