Tag Archives: HOA residents

Justice Department Fights for Homeowners. Feel better?

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The big news this week is that the U.S. Department of Justice, Eric Holder & Co., has reached a mass settlement in the housing bubble scandal.

It’s a settlement of more than $25 billion dollars. That’s to pay for all the phony loans, the robo-signing deals by phony bank officials who never ever looked at your real estate closing documents. Attorneys General across the country are hailing it as a landmark settlement, a massive achievement,  to help cash-strapped and bankrupted homeowners. They’re holding news conferences and talking about how hard they fight for the average consumer.

Hmm, let’s see. You got crushed in the Fannie/Freddie housing debacle. You lost your house in the mortgage slamdown. Your wife left you and went back to her parents in New Jersey. Your credit is crap. You’ll get to see your kids maybe one time a year. The settlement is for 25 billion dollars. That means at some point in the future, you might… you might, get a check say, for $2000.

That means IF you qualify for a settlement payoff, you COULD get a reimbursement of $2000.

Gosh, I suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy… just warm. And fuzzy.

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

Homeowner Associations a Social Disease?

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Just like a social disease that keeps coming back, some Homeowner Associations never let a patsy out of their grip.

The latest “sucker” is some poor fellow in The Times Condominium At Sweetwater Del Webb Master Homeowner’s Association (Whew! Where do these names come from?)

Anyway, resident Larry Murphree thought he knew what was meant when GW Bush signed the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act” in July of 2006. Muphree planted two little flags in flower pots outside the door of his condominium.

Along comes the HOA and starts whacking him with fines of a hundred bucks a day, liens, threats of lawsuit and foreclosure.

Murphree is now in federal court in Jacksonville, Florida. He notes that the flag act specifically says “A condominium association… may not adopt or enforce any policy, or enter into any agreement, that would restrict or prevent a member of the association from displaying the flag of the United States on residential property within the association with respect to which such member has a separate ownership interest or a right to exclusive possession or use.” Hmmm. Sounds moderately clear.

Whichever way it goes, Murphree will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The HOA will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The stature and marketability of the neighborhood will fall.  The lawyers, of course, will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. It always seems to come back to that, doesn’t it?  The lawyers. They just keep coming back.

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

SOMEBODY’S GONNA BE IN TROUBLE!

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Residents of the Laural Hills Condominum on Tennessee’s Renegade Mountain have been arguing over the price of water for the past six months. The property association, not the homeowners association controls the water. But those danged hillbillies up at Laurel Hills kept up the argument.

Now the property owners association has raised the ante. They just flat-out turned off the water to 84 homes. Turned it off! And that, my friends, is against the law.

Monkeying with someone’s water is almost a shootin’ offense. In fact, a lot of people have been shot during the water wars of the past three hundred years.

Hopefully, we won’t see any of that. But laws are being broken! Can’t you just smell the perspiration of all those lawyers trying to climb Renegade Mountain to solicit clients?

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

Gunfight in the “Not OK Corral?”

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Some desperate homeowners in the underwater mortgage markets of California, Nevada and Florida may be turning to a garish, and undoubtedly illegal way of keeping up with the mortgage. They’re allowing their homes to be turned into giant billboards.

Reuters News Service is reporting on a family in Buena Park, California who permitted a marketing firm to convert its home into a giant “Brainiacs From Mars” billboard. Some neighbors are furious, even to the point of threatening gunfire. Others are looking at their own underwater mortgages and wondering if they should take a second look at accepting a second stream of income.

The marketing firm says it has about 38,000 applications from eager homeowners around the country. The campaign will generate lots of publicity for “Brainiacs,” but it’ll be a rare billboard that stands for more than a month.

Although homeowners have been promised up to a year’s worth of mortgage payments, city codes and HOA covenants will soon come crashing down on advertising that doesn’t conform to local laws.

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

A Smackdown in Texas

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Increasing numbers of homeowners associations across the country have learned there’s profit in being confrontational. Lots of profit.  HOA attorneys advise their clients to attack every violation of the covenants with a vengeance. Insignificant fines often turn into tens of thousands of dollars in fees, fines, collection costs and attorneys’ expenses. Some of those confrontations defy common sense.

Ted Faraz of Irving, Texas, found that out the hard way. He installed some solar panels on his roof. His intent wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t doing it to intentionally anger his HOA. He actually invested $15,000 in an effort to be more environmentally responsible.

His solar panels couldn’t be seen from the street. In fact, only one neighbor could see them and that neighbor said they didn’t bother him at all.

But the Ranch Valley HOA felt differently. They began fining Faraz $50 for each day the solar panels remained. It got worse. The HOA filed a lien and began to foreclose on Faraz’s house.

Faraz felt it was a blatant case of extortion. There was no real point for the HOA to prove. It was always about publicly slamming down a homeowner who strayed outside the rules.

The Homeowners Association has proven one thing, though: that young starry-eyed prospective homeowners would be wise to avoid the Ranch Valley HOA.

Avoid it like the plague.

With homeowners associations across the country taking a nose-dive in real estate values specifically because of this kind of community fascism, homeowners would be well-advised to look elsewhere for a new place to live.

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