This is the kind of thing that blackens the eye of the typical Homeowners Association in HOA Amerika. Homeowners Associations seem to have a special fondness for seizing the homes of the elderly. Old people usually don’t have the money or the will to fight back. And a simple misunderstanding of a homeowner’s obligations leads, not to compassion, but to the kind of fascist actions that scare the crap out of American home buyers.
A 74 year old man in the Davis Lake Community Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, tried to get some family members registered at the local clubhouse and pool, and he was refused. He quit paying dues, and ‘sure as shootin’ his house was grabbed.
Yes, he’s going through kidney failure and frequent hospitalizations. But that’s all the more reason for Davis Lake to grab his home. Bam! They can auction it off, re-route huge legal fees to a favored law firm, and toss a few bucks into the neighborhood kitty just in time for the summer picnic.
Wow! From looking at blogs and comments from attorneys around the country, it looks like Joan Rivers may get her face slapped in her little HOA outrage in New York. She won’t look very good in front of a judge or jury. How could she risk taking the witness stand? So nasty!
It’s sort of fun as an HOA critic to follow the development of spy drones aimed at the consumer market. Here’s an amazing drone developed by the Japanese Ministry of Defense. All they need is buyers. These things are only 1400 bucks apiece and I know exactly where they can sell 335,000 of them.
That’s how many Homeowners Associations there are in this country. Heck, the price is low enough for each HOA board member and HOA management company to have one. That’s at least a couple of million sales.
The greatest drones, though, are still in the hands of the U.S. Military. They’re smaller than a hummingbird. But they’re all invasive and the typical HOA board isn’t bound by privacy laws. Or ethics.
It’s good to see when mainstream reporters start recognizing the massive and growing crisis involving American Homeowners Associations. Still, it’s frustrating when they only tell part of the story.
In the story linked below, a single mom in Charlotte, North Carolina bought an HOA home and suddenly started getting hit with daily fines because her fence was ‘warped.’ No question, she says, it had to be fixed. But by the time she got settled in her new home, the daily fines, fees and legal costs totaled nearly 11,000 bucks. Welcome to your new neighborhood, Lady!
In any event, the reporter for WSOC-TV gets most of the story right. But he talks about the fact that HOAs are like ‘little governments.’ He doesn’t add the critical information that governments of any kind have a court system, a system of last resort. Homeowners Associations don’t.
They’re really not like ‘little governments.’ Unless you add the word, ‘fascist.’ Some day reporters will start getting it right.
It won’t satisfy the families of the victims, but it’s just another chapter in the world of ‘HOA Amerika’. The killer of two HOA board members has committed suicide.
Dr. Mahmoud Hindi was a doctor and a homeowner in the Spring Creek Homeowners Association in Louisville, Kentucky. (Most news reporters are ‘goosey’ about using the HOA’s name.) The neighborhood is quite a high-end development, but Hindi’s next door neighbors were officers on the HOA board. And Hindi felt they were perpetually tormenting him over minor code violations. So he walked into a 2012 board meeting in a local church and gunned the two men down.
Hindi wasn’t shy about telling police exactly what he had done and his murder trial was set to begin next year. But a couple days ago, Hindi committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell.
There’s nothing that can excuse first degree murder. But the case does provide more insight into how constant torment by neighbors can drive a homeowners over the brink. It’s not the first time a homeowner has fired a gun and taken lives during an HOA board meeting. Sadly, it probably won’t be the last.
