Tag Archives: FBI

The Lawn Nazis Grab Another Home

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Each story I read disgusts me more: A Homeowners Association in the Colorado Springs area has foreclosed and auctioned off a 350,000 dollar home for about 11,000 dollars. And the homeowner never saw it coming.

Christopher Wright lived in the Woodmen Hills Filing Number 11 HOA. He thought he was fighting a fine for leaving the kids’ bicycles outside, but he discovered that the home was really taken because he hadn’t been paying his annual dues. His $900 nonpayment had turned into more than $10,000 worth of late fees, collection fees and attorneys’ fees. But non-payment of annual dues in most HOAs is a more serious crime than rape, armed robbery or burglary. Overstatement? No, rape and armed robbery usually net a less serious sentence than the confiscation of one’s home.

The management company is owned by Associa, which in turn is owned by an ethically-challenged Texas State Senator who has long faced criticism for his shifty dealings. Senator John Carona is a billionaire who owns or controls more than 8000 Homeowners Associations across the country, many of which are required to use insurance companies he owns, banks he owns, the list goes on and on. Media criticism of Carona’s ethics goes back years.

But none of that really impacts Christopher Wright’s case. He lost his house. And he’s dazed and confused about the Constitutional rights he thought he had.

Was Christopher Wright just stupid? Some would say so. But others would look with awe at the record of the Woodmen Hills Filing Number 11 HOA.

853 homes.

225 liens filed.

126 lawsuits filed.

4 foreclosures.

About his sky-high fees, the Woodmen’s HOA attorney, Hal Kyles, of the law firm Orten, Cavanagh and Holmes says, “I’m not cheap.”

No, you’re not cheap, lawyer Kyles. You’re not. But you are arrogant.

Shame on you for your arrogance.

(click here for KOAA-TV news story)

http://www.koaa.com/news/news-5-investigates-hoa-forecloses-on-home/

 

Powerful and Courageous!

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Whether you are for or against the protections of the Second Amendment, this short video of a former soldier and current police officer defending the Second Amendment is unbelievably powerful.

Wait! Before you view this link below, substitute the First Amendment, the Fourth, the Fifth or any of our other Constitutional Freedoms. Our Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created to protect us from government. As we American homeowners keep up our nightmarish slide into ‘government-by-corporation’ we are quickly losing access to any of our Constitutional protections.

Speech? Homeowners Associations constantly restrict it. Religion? In many places HOAs restrict it. Freedom of Assembly? Restricted time after time. Due Process? It doesn’t exist in Homeowners Associations. Restrictions based on against race or disability? The current core of this kind of illegal discrimination is in the heart of the American Homeowners Association Movement.

Of course, the ‘right to contract’ is also embedded into the Constitution. But there are limits to the right to contract. You have, for example, no right to sell yourself or your children into slavery. You have no right to ‘contract’ for a criminal act to be performed.

When it comes to your home and your fundamental privacy, should you really be allowed to contract away the very rights our founders tried to establish?
Do yourself a favor and watch the powerful speech linked below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44zW84FKd50

 

HOA Embezzler Gets Prison

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One of the most bald-faced embezzlers in the country has been told he’ll be spending a little time in prison.

I wrote previously about Chris Barna, who swiped almost a million dollars from the California company where he worked as controller. His firm handles the finances of a number of Homeowners Associations in California. The parent company is Associa, the HOA management firm run by Texas State Senator John Carona.

Earlier this year Barna pleaded guilty to embezzling 980,000 dollars that came out of the accounts of California Homeowners Associations

This week, Barna was sentenced in Federal Court to three years and five months in prison and more than a million dollars in restitution. Judging from past white collar crime cases, though, he’ll only spend part of that time behind bars. And it’s highly doubtful that restitution will ever be made.

But that’s justice in America.

(click here for Justice Department press release)

 

What Were They Thinking?!?

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Las Vegas is the nation’s home for Organized Crime posing as Homeowners Associations, with more than two dozen felony guilty pleas and nearly a dozen federal criminal trials pending. Las Vegas may have more Homeowners Associations than any other metropolitan city. Las Vegas has so many HOA horror stories that writing a blog like this is almost effortless. Home buyers everywhere are beginning to tell their Realtors, “Don’t show me anything in an HOA!”

Now, here comes a major real estate company saying it’s going into the HOA management business! Hard to believe, but Shelter Realty, Inc. says it’s ‘pleased’ to announce that it’s creating a sister company which will provide management services for Homeowners Associations.

Realtors make their living by being respectable. Realtors live or die on their reputations and client referrals. Of course there are plenty of people living in Nevada Homeowners Associations. But HOA management is a stenchy business with neck-deep corruption. For a realty company to suddenly say it’s going to clean up HOA mismanagement and corruption is beyond laughable.

I’ll have to say it again.

What were they thinking?

(click here for Digital Journal story)

http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1638433

 

Council Member Shevawn Akers Kicks Off Her Heels…Says Come On, Let’s Fight!

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

    ~follow up to blog of November 15th~

HOA members across the country are outraged to hear the story of 75-year old Ingrid Boak, who lost her mortgage-free home in Lexington, Kentucky. And it was all over a minuscule amount of HOA dues owed to Masterson Station.

Nathan Billings, the HOA’s attorney, says they followed the CC&Rs and it was all legal. Okay, but had there been a mortgage for $135k would this same procedure have been followed??? Admission has been made that MOST foreclosures by HOAs include an unpaid mortgage. Sorry, Mr. Billings, but this case smells worse than a pile of race horse manure!

Kentuckians are now scared of losing their homes and panic has set in. The checks are stacking up with delinquent dues payments. But don’t be jumping for joy too soon! Thanks to this story, far more home buyers nationwide have now learned the nasty, ugly and ruthless truth about HOAs! And you can bet their Realtors are going to hear, “Don’t show me any property with an HOA!!!

Hearing that a City Council member is supporting Ms. Boak gives us hope that the end result will be what’s morally right. Shevawn Akers has a Facebook page. What do you say? Let’s encourage her with our support so she’ll fight harder to save Ingrid’s home.

If Stephen Collins Foster were alive today he’d probably change his 1851 song title to, “My Old Kentucky Home before The HOA.”

http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/03/2967748/masterson-station-foreclosure.html