A Total Collapse of the American HOA?
The actions of a Florida law firm may be a sign of weird times ahead. Another real estate bubble, even bigger than the last? Track this subject and comment at my blog and website, NeighborsAtWar.com
Tag Archives: HOA Blogs
Oh What A Tangled Web We Embezzlers Weave
Yes, folks, it’s another million dollar embezzlement from trusting homeowners in California. At least the Feds are finally taking action. A Federal Grand Jury has indicted Chris Barna for stealing $950,000 from Homeowners Associations that once trusted him. Although he hasn’t been convicted yet, I have no problem calling him a dirtbag. Prosecutors say he misappropriated 342 checks, spent the money on nice things for himself, and manipulated the records for M&C Association Management.
He’s currently free on $200,000 bond, which is a crime all by itself. But heck, California is so broke they can’t pay to feed one extra prisoner. And with state finances in such bad shape, does anyone really think Barna will get any kind of prison term? Ah yes, it’ll be a federal prison, not a California prison. But then again, aren’t the Feds about to “go over the financial cliff” in the current parlance?
Mark my words, Barna will get to keep the 950,000 bucks, he’ll get little or no prison time, the court will order restitution, and Barna won’t pay back a dime. The homeowners will be on the hook, though. Each homeowner who lives in a Barna-swindled association will be hit with a special assessment to make up the stolen money. Ain’t California great?
Oh, and I almost forgot. The owner of Barna’s company is Associa. Who or what is Associa? Well, Associa is owned by Texas Senator John Carona. Ask anyone from Texas.
Or better yet, let me link you to Jan Bergemann’s website where he discusses Associa in detail. And God bless you, Jan Bergemann!
North Austin Homeowners Decide to Quit Being Stoopid!
Hallelujah! It took years, but members of the Sunchase Condominiums in North Austin have decided to quit being stupid. Sunchase homeowners have been paying dues for years, but their HOA board and the property manager, Nancy Thompson, refused to show them the books! Last time I looked, Texas law mandated that HOA members be allowed to see where their dues are going.
Homeowners have poured more than a million dollars down a black hole that hasn’t been audited in more than five years. Readers of this blog know that I’ve got a very low tolerance for the stench rising from tens of thousands of HOAs in almost identical situations. And Sunchase stinks to high heaven!
Investigative reporters from KXAN followed the skanky trail behind the property manager and found that it leads to some other HOAs in Austin where large sums of money vanished like some magic trick at Circus Circus. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of checks have been written to various members of Nancy Thompson’s family. Damn, those no-bid contracts sure are profitable.
Someone at Sunchase should consider calling the huge FBI unit that’s rooting out identical corruption in Las Vegas.
BTW, great investigative work by reporter Chris Willis and KXAN, Austin!
http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/investigations/homeowners-fight-back-against-hoa-board
Dear Lord God, I Love These Stories!
How could I live if I didn’t occasionally run across these stories and have the ability to mock them?
But God is good, and He sends me lots of links.
The Massapequa Park Village Board has decided that unmowed lawns are more of a safety hazard than letting child rapists roam the streets.
That’s right, folks. Let your grass grow an inch longer than your neighbors, and you could soon be slapped with a 10,000 dollar fine. Let’s spell that out, so there’s no mistake about the zeroes: A TEN THOUSAND DOLLAR FINE.
Sex offenders usually get off with a far lesser sentence than that.
But in the hoity toity village of Massaqua Park, New York, the ten thousand dollar law apparently passes muster.
Massaqua Park? A new reason not to live there. Stick with my Colorado double-wide. Be grateful.
http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2012/06/12/massapequa-park-passes-new-law-on-lawn-maintenance/
Katy Did! Katy Did!
Yep, I know that’s an insect, an annoying little insect. Wikipedia says katydids disguise themselves brilliantly as dead rotting leaves complete with holes in them.
I do strain for metaphors once in a while, but an HOA manager in Katy, Texas, disguised himself as a worthless piece of dead, rotting debris when he decided to steal a million dollars from his neighbors. 34 year old Taggert Mayfield pleaded guilty to money laundering, scoffing at his fiduciary dutues, and bald-faced theft from homeowners who profoundly trusted him.
Many of those homeowners were elderly and had saved all their lives to buy their retirement homes. Mayfield, who owned Arrow Management Company did lots of business in Fort Bend andHarris Counties. An Assistant D.A. says Mayfield was really “living the dream,” as a parasite sucking the life blood out of his neighbors’ financial dreams. He devestated a number of helpless homeowners, who will never again see the American HOA movement the way they once did.
Don’t think for a second, though, that Mayfield is alone. And don’t think that Las Vegas homeowners are alone as they struggle to recuperate from a hundred million dollar swindle the feds are still investigating in Nevada. No, folks, this kind of raw theft is going on in cities across the country. When an HOA demands total trust but refuses to install any safety checks, the HOA board officers are absolutely as guilty as the embezzlers. When lawyers are hired to suppress any protests by suffering homeowners, there’s something evil going on beneath the surface.
Just check it out.
