Tag Archives: HOA Nightmare Stories

HERE COME THE LAWYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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When the American Disabilities Act was approved in the 1990’s, it was designed to help disabled people have access to the same amenities as non-handicapped people.

But the big laugh, at the time, had nothing to do with the disabled. It was that the new law was a full-employment plan for lawyers.

Now comes the Jeffrey and Judi Weiss family of Palm Beach. Several years ago their son was paralyzed. His only moments of joy were when his family took him to the beach. So his family bought a condo right on Palm Beach just a few steps away from the ocean.

The Sloans’s Curve Homeowner Association blocked the family’s access to the beach, supposedly to preserve sand at the high water mark.   The HOA’s solution was to build a huge A-Frame of stairs.  To reach the beach, the family now as to carry 62 pound Justin UP THE STAIRS, and DOWN THE STAIRS, over the high-water mark. It’s extremely difficult and an obvious violation of the ADA law.

And the circling creatures, the gray masses in the water, folks….they are lawyers, each wanting a piece of the action.
Ah, and the people really losing all their money are the innocent homeowners who thought that by buying into a Homeowners Association, they might protect themselves from such legal costs.

Floridians! Open up your wallets. You’ve been screwed again by a Homowner Association movement that lied to you from the beginning about protecting your investment behind the shield of a convenant protected community.

You really have no protection. In fact, in the colorful verbiage of the insurance industruct: You’re practicing naked.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Don’t Trust The Management Company!

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HOA managers just don’t seem to get it. Handicapped people have a special privilege under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). It’s federal law. It can’t be monkeyed with.

Marcus Cook lived in the Jewell Lake Condominium Association west of Denver. He’s a disabled war veteran who needed a handicap parking spot so he could get his equipment out of his van.

Turns out management didn’t see it the same way and painted over his special parking area obliterating the part that contained the wider parking space. Management mocked him. Forrest Scruggs, of the property management company, Realty One, Inc, said “this crazy guy is asking for a parking space in the new fire lane.”

But the repainted parking lot was not in a fire lane. The Fire Department confirmed it.

War hero Marcus Cook, by the way, suffered a broken back while a paratrooper. He also has cancer and diabetes.

He did take his case up with Colorado’s Civil Rights Division.

Guess who won? The handicapped guy.

Guess who lost? Every family who lives at Jewell Lake Condominium Association in Lakewood.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

The Very Last People We Should Screw Over are the Handicapped!

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We see it in state after state.  A family in McNary Estates, Marion County, wanted to install a privacy screen to keep their Down’s Syndrome kid from wandering off into the golf course. The youngster was once hit by a golf ball.

McNary Estates lawyers screamed “It’s not in the law. Besides the kid isn’t even a member of the family. He just stays there a lot!”

Well, the son stays in the home all the time now.

The court fight was waged, thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars were spent. The homeowners of McNary Estates, of course, will get hit with a special assessment to pay for the meanness of their lawyers and their Board of Directors.

McNary Estates, Oregon, of course, has lost a little prestige in the eyes of the community.

But a little boy now has privacy screens to protect him.  A Circuit Judge said so.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

The Short Sale Trap

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For those of you wanting to make a short sale on your house, you’d better keep an eagle eye on your good old Homeowners Association. They’re starting to get pretty crafty in keeping the neighborhood operating budget full.

For homeowners who are suffering through the housing mess and living with underwater mortgages, working out a short sale might help you save some of your retirement nest egg. The banks take a well-deserved loss, but you’re happy because you’ve found a buyer and you’ve escaped your nightmare of a mortgage.

But wait!  Your HOA has superior rights over your bank. If it moves quickly, it can snatch your home and foreclose on it before your short sale can go through. Just about any violation of HOA covenants can make your home a nice grab.  If you were a little behind on dues, if your grass became a little brown during those months you failed to water the lawn, if you got fined for leaving the trash can outside, once you add fines, collection fees, legal fees, late fees and all the other fees that can be conjured up, your HOA can actually claim you owe it tens of thousands of dollars.

Like a rat trap, the HOA springs shut on your pending short sale. You lose, the bank loses, your potential buyer loses.  Ah, but your HOA wins. It gets to put your house on the auction block. Sweet, huh?

Ward Lucas

Author of

Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Pool Inspections Way Behind in Nevada

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This one’s almost too funny to comment about.

Nevadans turned over their official pool inspections to the government. As a matter of fact, Homeowner Associations ARE de facto governments.

But now the tiny handful of workers in the Southern Nevada Health District just don’t have the time to inspect all those thousands of Nevada swimming pools. Some HOAs are being told by the inspector they’ve got the wrong drain system installed. They spent thousnads to create the supposedly “accepted” drain system, only to be told the old drain was correct, the new one is wrong, and now thousands more have to spent on digging up the new drain and installing the old.

It’s government, Baby. And because you’re now a big HOA, YOU ARE the government. In your new role, you are not aggrieved citizens who ought to be treated as if you have any special rights. You signed those rights away when you bought a dream home in “covenent-protected” America. Welcome to RealVille.

And by the way, that’s another of the many reasons your house values are plummeting. More and more people are getting gunshy about buying a new home in “Government Housing.”  They’d prefer the strength and power of being able to stand in front of a bureaucrat and say with confidence, “Hey, I’m a real citizen you’re dealing with here, Buddy!”

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association