Tag Archives: HOA Embezzlement

Outlaw Gardens!

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It’s amazing to read the hundreds of stories about neighbors who’ve been fined, sued, liened or foreclosed for the simple crime of planting some vegetables somewhere around the house. HOAs hate any kind of plant that’s edible. And planting a cucumber or other veggie can actually end up costing you your house. Welcome to HOA Amerika!

So it’s kind of fun to see that there really is a growing movement called Outlaw Gardens. How to have a vegetable garden without the local lawn Nazi knowing about it.

I’ll link to one of the sites below, but please understand that this isn’t a be-all end-all solution for you. Some of these lawn Nazis are so intrusive that you still can get busted. And remember that most HOAs have approve of any and all of your landscaping changes. So have fun. But just be cautious!

http://tinyurl.com/m6mmfy8

 

Can They Really Take My Guns?

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Can my Homeowners Association really take my guns away even if it’s without any mention on my lease or CC&Rs? Yes, they can and do. Across the country HOA boards have denied homeowners their Second Amendment right to bear arms many times. As I keep saying, HOAs are not subject to the U.S. Constitution so they can ban just about anything they want.

In a recent case in Texas a homeowner was hit with fines and threats of foreclosure because he ran a website where he sold guns. Mind you, not a single gun ever came through this property because the homeowner never received any shipments. 100% of his guns changed hands on the Internet.

There was a kerfuffle last week in Colorado, when Ross Management, a company that manages a number of neighborhoods suddenly passed an anti-gun ban on all its properties. (Trayvon Martin effect?) Many retired military live in Ross developments and they hit the ceiling. There was negative news coverage across the nation and Ross has kind of, sort of backed away from the gun ban. For now.

It’s not the first outrage by this property management group, either. Among the rules residents have to sign is that they are forbidden from ever speaking ill of Ross Management. So, the next step may be evicting those homeowners who dared to speak to the news media about the ban on guns.

We’ll see.

http://tinyurl.com/n8xddgv

 

Are You A Sinner?

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That was just hypothetical. According to some religions we are ALL sinners. But what gives a Homeowners Association the right to determine who is a sinner and who is not?

I know, you think I’m just exaggerating again. But my regular readers know I NEVER resort to hyperbole, right?

Well, Bunky, take a look at the latest outrage in a Venice, Florida Homeowners Association. The Casa Di Amici Condo Association refuses to allow a condo sale to anybody it deems (in its own infinite wisdom) to be ‘living in sin.’ Now, if, as the Bible teaches, we are all sinners and no one is capable of judging one another, what in Hell is going on here?

Major life decisions, i.e., investing all your money in a home, is now up to a board of directors who take a vote on whether a prospective buyer is a sinner? Is there a point system? Would my war-widowed mother be deemed a sinner because she married again?  Would I be excluded because I was the second child of my widowed mother? Would a rape victim who chose not to abort a child be rated higher or lower on the Casa Di Amici Condo Association’s ‘sin scale’?

Give me a frickin’ break!

Losers, all of them. If I had their neighborhood address list I would publish it!

http://tinyurl.com/lju9hbt

 

Kid’s Play Before The Day of HOAs

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
  
This story took me back to my childhood. 
 
I spent hours in my little play house with my friends.  We took our dolls, coloring books, Play-Doh, and molding clay in there and completely lost track of time.  Every now and then my Mom would peek in the kid-sized door opening and deliver some lemonade or cherry Kool-Aid.  It was located under a big tree so even on the hottest days of summer there was a cool breeze coming through the windows.
 
It makes me sad that with the introduction of Homeowners Associations little girls and boys cannot have play houses and tree houses.  Nope.  Kiss that idea good-bye.  In many HOAs you can’t even have a basketball hoop.  And not long ago we learned about the ban on anything with wheels for kids to enjoy.
 
And then we complain that kids are bored, spend all their time on video games, electronic devices, and their cell phones.  Not to mention the incessant discussions in the media and politics about childhood obesity.
 
HOAs have not only robbed the enjoyment out of adult life and homeownership, we’ve robbed the kids, too!
 
 
 

Is It Possible You Are Not Really An American?

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OK, quick! Give me a definition of “United States citizen.” I really mean it, give me the shortest possible definition of citizenship. Hard?  It shouldn’t be.

In my mind, a U.S. citizen is one who owes his allegiance to the United States of America, one who is accepted and identified as a citizen by both federal and state government,  and one who is protected from the overreach of government through the limits of the U.S. Constitution.

Whoa! There’s a problem, here. Seventy million people over the past thirty years have signed private real estate contracts in which they disavowed their access to state and federal protections and have signed all their Constitutional rights over to private non-profit corporations known as Homeowners Associations.

Certainly, all citizens have the Constitutional right “to contract.” And you really can sign away individual Constutitonal rights. For example, if you make an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit, it may contain a confidentiality clause. That’s an enforceable contract in which you voluntarily gave up your right to Free Speech. In other words, you no longer have the freedom to speak about the terms of your confidential settlement.

It’s an awesome thought. Over the past thirty years, seventy million Americans gave up all their Constitutional rights by joining Homeowners Associations. The verbiage in most HOA contracts makes it clear that buyers must agree that they cannot defy any rules imposed by the board of directors. It doesn’t matter if those rules interfere with free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to bear arms, freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, due process, and a myriad of other freedoms.

But if half the definition of “U.S. citizen” includes someone who is protected by the Constitution, does that mean seventy million people erroneously think they’re American citizens, when they’ve actually stepped into an entirely new form of government?

Even citizens of other countries who are arrested in the United States for various crimes have rights under the U.S. Constitution. In many cases, illegal immigrants have far greater rights than homeowners in private gated neighborhoods.

So, again I ask: Are you really an American? Are you really a United States citizen? Or do you now belong to some kind of sub-class, for which we haven’t yet invented a word?