East Texas, Big Woods Springs HOA is a relatively small community of 85 homes, with low assessment payments of $35 per month. They need the money to maintain their road, a small bridge, and a dam for their lake. Homeowners have just been “blindsided” by the theft of $31,000 from their HOA.
The theft allegedly occurred over a 26-month period, by their neighbor and former Treasurer, Letha Anna Thomas. Owners became suspicious when their repeated requests to see financial statements were ignored.
The new Board members vow to operate with transparency, and intend to conduct background checks on all future Board candidates.
Note that $31,000 represents about a year’s worth of assessment payments for the Association. Most of the residents are on fixed incomes.
Just because the community is small and assessments are low, don’t assume that the HOA cannot be a target for embezzlement.
7 on your side: HOA theft victims say, “We’ve been kept in the dark for years.”
Anybody who’s seen the ugly insides of the national HOA scam knows that Homeowners Associations are lawsuit machines. In most lawsuits and criminal actions Americans have access to the Due Process clause of the U.S. Constitution. In the typical Homeowners Association each member unknowingly contracts away that access. Bam! In Pennsylvania Dutch, “there goes the egg money!”
Throw away your access to Due Process and every lawyer within spitting distance knows there’s money to be had. Free money. Your money. Paint your door the wrong color and you get fined, liened, sued and you pay all the HOA’s legal expenses. Lawsuit machines. No other possible description.
In Arizona, a prominent HOA law firm is all upset by a court ruling that says lawyers can’t tack on extra legal fees they rack up trying to garnish the wages of a losing homeowner.
Rest assured, though, this law firm has a number of sneaky plans to hijack this decision. The lawyers win. The lawyers always win.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it in the future. When you’re investing your life savings in your home, don’t trust anybody. Don’t trust the Realtor. Don’t trust the county’s master plan, and above all do not trust your HOA. Homeowners in Chula Vista, California are learning about what all west coast residents know as ‘Californication.’
They bought into a peaceful valley where traffic was minimal, wildlife was everywhere, no smog was in the air. Life in the Eastlake III Homeowners Association was Heaven on Earth. The master plan showed their pristine way of life would last forever. But that kind of promise evaporates the minute land developers start knocking on doors. All of a sudden builders began jamming high density neighborhoods all around, packing in low quality homes like sardines in a can.
Eastlake III is no longer the promised land. The Homeowners Association is embroiled in legal disputes, recall elections, charges of corruption, violence threatened. Police are being hired to maintain the peace in HOA meetings.
Promises are like…. no, discretion says “don’t go there.” Let’s just say that promises are hollow. And promises made by a Homeowners Association are especially worthless.
The astounding thing about this four minute video is the level of ignorance among city council candidates in Hopkins, Minnesota. That’s the home of one of the nastiest HOA disputes in the country. But most of these candidates are clueless about what goes on in these gated communities.
Yes, that’s pretty much the new code word for Homeowners Associations: Gentrified or Gentrification. And it’s the word of the day in Denver where brand new HOAs or condo associations are trying get rid of some homeless shelters and rescue missions. The missions have been in the lower downtown Denver area almost forever. But Coors Field changed everything.
The now-famous home of Colorado Rockies baseball was built where land was cheap, right at the intersection of skid road and the nation’s central railroad hub. The rescue missions continued to do their work but suddenly the ‘gentrified’ wanted to live near the ball park. Century-old slaughter houses were turned into luxury condos. A two-bedroom setup where cows were once butchered can now cost millions of dollars.
The bums still lie around on the streets where they always did. The City of Denver issued a permit for one mission to improve its homeless shelter. But the ‘Newly Gentrified’ went nutz and took the whole mess to court. The judge issued his order this week. Gentrification is in. Bums are out.
