Tag Archives: HOA Embezzler

HOA Embezzling Comes to Bakersfield

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Because it’s Christmastime, we usually expect a little more embezzling by employees of Homeowners Associations. Michelle Haughton, the accounts receivable employee for the Bear Valley Springs HOA apparently took the word ‘receivable’ a little more literally than her job description intended. The cops won’t say how much money was missing, but it’s greater than $2000. She’s now charged with embezzlement and grand theft.

It won’t matter much to homeowners. They’ll just see a special assessment come along and no one on the board will tell them them what it’s for.

(HOA embezzlement arrest in Bakersfield)

 

Backyard Chicken Wars

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So strange to think that a whole movement would begin around the subject of backyard chickens. In our American frontier, no one would give a second thought to a hen or two laying eggs for the family. But things have changed. Chickens are about as welcome in most neighborhoods as ticks on a picnic blanket.

Still, there really is a movement to convince city councils everywhere that chickens in the backyard can actually be a good thing. In fact, another small town in Colorado has just approved it.

Another strange thing is that chickens are often more frequently welcomed in city, not rural neighborhoods! They keep down pests, they supply eggs, and if there are no roosters around there’s not much noise. (Funny how it’s always the men who are life’s troublemakers!)

Ah! Don’t even think about chickens in the backyard if you live in a Homeowners Association. No, the neighborhood lawn Nazis want your lawn fertilized with strong chemicals, not natural things like chicken manure.

http://tinyurl.com/lyalg9q

The Drugging of an HOA

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There’s a new high rise luxury condo on Mission Street in downtown San Francisco. Built in 2009 with every classy aesthetic feature, it was high-priced and all the units on its 22 floors sold out quickly. It’s called The SOMA Grand. It’s governed by an HOA, of course.

Residents of the new building say almost immediately after they bought in, they started having problems with flooding during rainstorms, cracks in walls, and failures of sealant joints. The HOA has scrambled to get into court to sue everyone connected with the construction. “Going for the deep pocket”, as lawyers say.

The HOA is suing for four million dollars. And millions of bucks will be spent by both sides in legal fees. These brand new HOA residents will find their monthly dues are going to soar. If they win the suit, the biggest chunk will be taken by the lawyers. And if the residents get anything back, it’ll be pennies on the dollar.

The SOMA Grand.

You’ve gotta love the name.

What is SOMA?  It’s a high powered drug. It’s a drug that leaves you stoned and stupid. Then again, half of San Francisco is already stoned and stupid. And San Francisco sits on one of the largest earthquake faults in the country where they’re all waiting for ‘the big one.”

Soma.

Yeah, I do love the name.

http://tinyurl.com/laq5yp8

original source:

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2013/05/soma-grand-homeowners-file-lawsuit.html?page=all

 

About Doggoned Time!

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Never, never, never did I think this would ever happen. But the American Civil Liberties Union is finally taking a peek at the fascist practices of a Homeowners Association.

Like many other HOAs across the country, the Diamondhead Property Owners Association in Southern Mississippi forbids political signs and door-to-door campaigning. Suddenly, an ACLU lawyer thinks a de facto government like a Homeowners Association kind of, sort of, maybe, possibly, should recognize that the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution protects freedom of speech and political expression.

HOA board officers like Diamondhead’s president, Marshall Kyger, don’t like the First Amendment, or the Second through the Fourteenth, or any of the rest of those Constitutional thingy-ma-jigs. All that Bill of Rights stuff really restricts the power of HOA board members to act as lawn Nazis.

I’m just not sure the ACLU won’t chicken out.

http://tinyurl.com/lk5hyck

original source:

http://www.clarionledger.com/viewart/20130515/NEWS01/130515024/Diamondhead-Property-Owners-Association-under-ACLU-scrutiny–

A Las Vegas Reporter Who Just Doesn’t ‘Get It’

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A reporter for Channel 8 News in Las Vegas tried to help a homeowner in the Terra West Homeowners Association. It seems the woman, Esther Sardina, had inadvertently underpaid her HOA dues by twenty cents. The woman wrote a check to the HOA for a dollar but they started hitting her with late fees anyway. So this reporter swung into action, confronting a board member.

Terra West dropped the fine. But that’s beside the point. This HOA board simply doesn’t want this woman living in the neighborhood. They want her gone. No HOA puts a 42 cent stamp on a fine for 20 cents…unless they’re intentionally trying to provoke an expensive fight where both sides have to run out and hire lawyers.

Now that Terra West has been publicly shamed the HOA will go out of its way to torment this woman in perpetuity.

Has this kind of nuttiness ever happened before? Oh yes, as I document in my new book, Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association. A woman in West Boca, Florida had her house seized because she underpaid her dues by 78 cents.

Good Friends, there is no such thing as a benign Homeowners Association! Every one of the nation’s 335,000 Homeowners Associations is just one board election and one tyrant away from disaster.

When will the nation’s news reporters learn that? Someone tip off this reporter that he’s a fruitcake.

http://tinyurl.com/nqpnbkw

original source:

http://www.8newsnow.com/story/22383065/8-on-your-side-helps-woman-fight-hoa-charge