You don’t hear many stories about HOA nightmares in Oregon and Washington. Well, folks, that’s changing.
Here’s a story that claims 31 Homeowners Associations in Oregon were ripped off by their management company. Homeowners are facing huge special assessments to make up for the loss. The management company employee embezzled up to two million dollars. HOAs from Portland to Forest Grove are struggling under the weight of the financial disaster.
Stunned homeowners were heard saying, “Gosh, you just don’t hear about this kind of thing happening.” to which our only comment should be “HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!”
35 years in the slammer! That’s what a judge handed out to Taggert Mayfield, a property manager who stole about two million dollars from a number of HOAs he managed. Rarely, kind readers, rarely will you ever see this kind of a sentence given to someone who steals from his neighbors. More often, it’s a wrist slap and a restitution order that never gets paid.
But 35 years! Homeowners in Houston ought to be out in the streets celebrating!
Second, independent film maker Rodney Gray is working on a documentary, The HOAx. This kind of project is extremely expensive to produce, but we’d like to help him as much as we can A film like this can be an incredible catalyst for a movement that depends on mass education. On this site you can see his trailer, and help him raise the needed funds. If everyone in the fight would link to his website, his fund raising will be almost self-working.
The Oakhurst Homeowners Association says it’s going to start fining a local veteran $100 a day, because he doesn’t understand his responsibilities as a member of the Association.
Before buying his home in Cornelius, John Dillon was a proud member of the U.S. Marine Corps. So from his porch each day he flies two flags, the Red, White and Blue, and the Marine Corps flag.
“I served under these flags. They’re all about fighting for our freedoms as Americans.”
Now that I’m out of mainstream journalism, I can afford to occasionally get my hackles up at the kinds of things written by other journalists. Indeed, most reporters don’t write their own headlines, but this one got my goat. It was an article in Main Street, a real estate magazine, which discussed the Trayvon Martin shooting in Florida. The headline said, “Homeowners Association Could be “Eden” of Liabilities.
The headline writer was correct, of course. And the reporter, Jeff Brown, was also correct in saying that questions about legal liabilities could “wreck your worry-free Eden.”
