If you live in a townhouse or condo this story is a must read. It contains details you may not have thought of. It raises awareness of how board members are not qualified to hire contractors and oversee construction rebuilds.
What it does not mention, unless I missed it, is the fact while you are displaced from your HOA property you are still paying for the mortgage, taxes, insurance, and HOA dues. All while you are paying for a place to stay unless your insurance provides coverage for temporary housing. And do they consider a year or two temporary?
Some of our readers may recall I grew up in the construction industry. My father was a custom home-builder and developer so I spent a lot of time on construction sites and have a very clear understanding of the process from dirt to dishwashers. I’ve been the general contractor on several of the remodeling projects I’ve done on houses I’ve owned, including one where a fire destroyed the kitchen. Coordinating sub-contractors, negotiating pricing, and choosing materials is a full-time job that requires tremendous organizational skills and the ability to anticipate the next step in the process so the job can move forward toward completion.
I shudder to think about a disaster rebuild in my HOA or any HOA that would be coordinated by board members who do not know beadboard from chipboard or quarter round from crown moulding which would promise a full scale fail as the end result from day one. Imagine moving back to a nightmare like these folks in the article below! Put yourself in their shoes because it’s not all that unlikely you could be wearing them someday.
A lot of sunbirds own second homes in Nevada. And, of course, the corruption in Nevada Homeowners Associations is a nationwide scandal that sent dozens of felons to the hoosegow.
The link below shows how folks in Cornwall in the south U.K. are raising money from vacationers. They’re placing a so-called ‘guilt tax’ on anyone who owns a second home.
A GUILT TAX!
Betcha Las Vegas is the first American city to impose such a tax!
At least four times over the past four months, I’ve listened to the TED Talk given by Monica Lewinsky. It’s a talk that brought a huge standing ovation. It’s the kind of talk that could change people’s lives forever. Her bravery is beyond description.
More than that, it has some very specific messages for those of us in this battle against the public shaming, humiliation and bullying that happens in Homeowners Associations across the country. It isn’t just the Internet that’s brought on public shaming. In my personal experience, there once was a time when neighbors actually talked to each other, brought each other dinners and birthday cakes, shared holidays together. If a neighbor to neighbor dispute arose it was most often settled quietly over the backyard fence.
I became so passionate about the homeowners’ rights movement after my family and I went through the most horrific public HOA shaming imaginable. Although I’ve finally sold my house in that neighborhood, even the thought of what a number of these ‘neighbors’ did still nauseates me.
It’s only when I started looking around this country that I discovered others were going through even worse pain and torment than what I had experienced.
I have to keep going back to a document I treasure: The U.S. Constitution. With a few exceptions, each line was written to preserve the rights of every citizen. It was written to prevent bullying and shaming. But in the past fifty or sixty years, we’ve written or adjudicated away so many of those protections that we may yet see a day when that Great Document is no longer relevant.
Please, please take the time to watch Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk. Then apply it to your own life. And keep up the battle against HOA bullies.
With all the corruption, mismanagement and misdealing by the uncontrolled boards of many condo associations, how can the FHA even dream of easing up borrowing standards to get more condo owners into these federal loans?
In light of all the recent problems with theft, corruption, deferred maintenance, condo conversions to apartments, and landmark defect awards, this is lunacy and a federal government out-of-control.
Before putting billions more taxpayer dollars at risk, it’s time for the feds to start investigating and solving some of the fundamentals.
WASHINGTON — Could the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) finally be opening its doors again to financing more condominium units? If so, that could be excellent news for young, first-time buyers and for seniors who own condo units and need a reverse mortgage to supplement their post-retirement incomes.
Here’s yet another story of a rotten Homeowners Association, this one is the Tower Oaks HOA in Gainesville, Florida. If you’re in the market for a home, that’s another good one to steer away from. It’s not hard to figure out why property values ARE NOT protected by an HOA. More and more people are getting wise to the scam.
