It’s good to see when mainstream reporters start recognizing the massive and growing crisis involving American Homeowners Associations. Still, it’s frustrating when they only tell part of the story.
In the story linked below, a single mom in Charlotte, North Carolina bought an HOA home and suddenly started getting hit with daily fines because her fence was ‘warped.’ No question, she says, it had to be fixed. But by the time she got settled in her new home, the daily fines, fees and legal costs totaled nearly 11,000 bucks. Welcome to your new neighborhood, Lady!
In any event, the reporter for WSOC-TV gets most of the story right. But he talks about the fact that HOAs are like ‘little governments.’ He doesn’t add the critical information that governments of any kind have a court system, a system of last resort. Homeowners Associations don’t.
They’re really not like ‘little governments.’ Unless you add the word, ‘fascist.’ Some day reporters will start getting it right.
George Staropoli, one of the nation’s leaders in the homeowners rights movement, has an excellent blog post we should all commit to memory. If his five proposed legislative changes are ever enacted, this would be a far different country; a country of neighbors instead of embattled homeowners and power-tripping board members.
It won’t satisfy the families of the victims, but it’s just another chapter in the world of ‘HOA Amerika’. The killer of two HOA board members has committed suicide.
Dr. Mahmoud Hindi was a doctor and a homeowner in the Spring Creek Homeowners Association in Louisville, Kentucky. (Most news reporters are ‘goosey’ about using the HOA’s name.) The neighborhood is quite a high-end development, but Hindi’s next door neighbors were officers on the HOA board. And Hindi felt they were perpetually tormenting him over minor code violations. So he walked into a 2012 board meeting in a local church and gunned the two men down.
Hindi wasn’t shy about telling police exactly what he had done and his murder trial was set to begin next year. But a couple days ago, Hindi committed suicide by hanging himself in his jail cell.
There’s nothing that can excuse first degree murder. But the case does provide more insight into how constant torment by neighbors can drive a homeowners over the brink. It’s not the first time a homeowner has fired a gun and taken lives during an HOA board meeting. Sadly, it probably won’t be the last.
It never ceases to amaze me how blatant HOA embezzling is. Today’s case involves a board member at the Woodcreek Homeowners Association in Bixby, Oklahoma.
55 year old Gregory Horvath was arrested for stealing 18,000 dollars from his neighbors. Police say Horvath funneled excessive amounts of HOA money through his insurance company, then wrote checks to himself and his wife.
Note to homeowners everywhere: Study the books in your own HOA. You’ll find problems of your own. The very structure of American HOAs encourages cheaters.
I’ve long predicted that Homeowners Associations would soon be using drones to intrusively invade the privacy of homeowners. The mesmerizing video linked below was taken over Niagara Falls and it shows the incredible capabilities of the new drones and digital video.
As you watch this, keep in mind that these cameras and drones are now well within the budgets of all HOA board members and management companies. With the massive amount of abuse that happens in HOAs across America, you don’t have to work too hard to imagine how this technology could be used.
