Little Boxes
Yes, I know I’ve posted this before, but because we get new readers here every day, many will not ever have heard this Pete Seeger classic. Enjoy!
Tag Archives: HOA Stories
HOA Swingers! Ya Gotta Love It!
I don’t know much about swingers’ clubs. Yeah, I’ve been on a few vice raids in my career of such clubs. And one such raid was on a home in Greenwood Village, a super-ritzy HOA just south of Denver. Even for a hardened investigative reporter it was pretty eye-opening. So this headline caught my eye.
Swingers Club May Be Forced to Produce Guest List
Seems that an HOA lawsuit against a Texas homeowner may lead to some interesting discovery, i.e., the guest list of all those who’ve attended swingers’ bashes in the past few years. One doesn’t usually think of HOAs as being bawdy. But as a former Texan, I can say that Texans can be just as raunchy as people in any other state.
Still, this could be an interesting case, especially if the guest list turns up any Congressmen, Senators or certain HOA management officials. Any names come to mind?
(Texas swingers’ club being sued)
A Reward For Turning In A Rotten Neighbor
Just amazing! Just in time for Christmas, counties in Florida are offering rewards for turning in criminals. Just look around your HOA and you can find plenty of board members and property managers who are stealing, bribing, defrauding and embezzling from homeowners. There’s your Christmas money.
Just take this advice from a long-time investigative reporter. Whenever the cops ask you to anonymously call an 800 number, the dirty secret is that you’re not anonymous. The Crimestoppers 800 number is a complete and total scam. Call from a phone booth.
(turn in Florida criminals for a reward)
Hiring an HOA Management Company
guest blog by Jill Schweitzer
As a Realtor in Arizona, I recently went to a class presented by an HOA property management company. The topic was the various ins and outs of HOAs hiring a management company. But as the class progressed, I thought it really would be better taught by an attorney and not somebody within the HOA industry.
Here are my conclusions after going through this class:
1. Absolutely, have an attorney review and make changes to the contract! Have the attorney tell you what items to add in to the contract items that are missing in the laws to protect the both the HOA and the individual homeowners…thereby holding the management accountable and responsible for any misfeasance or malfeasance. Also have the attorney remove the indemnification clause! Why pay to defend a management company for its bad actions?
2. Check court records online and in person to examine lawsuits the company may have been involved in.
3. Recommend that boards either eliminate or lower transfer and disclosure fees!
4. Recommend the board get a website independent of the management company. This would ensure that the HOA’s connection with homeowners survives any future change in management.
5. When hiring a management company, HOA boards should be careful of all the extra junk fees; printing, copies, coupon books, violation letters, etc.
6. Finally, mandate that any management company hired by an HOA certify that it has insurance against all misfeasance and malfeasance by management company owners, executives or employees.
Victories Are Rare!
It’s not often when a beleaguered homeowner gets a chance to beat up a bullying Homeowners Association, but I do love to see it happen.
I remember my own battles with a Homeowners Association in Morrison, Colorado. My wife had just been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. She had no visible symptoms whatsoever, but the president of the HOA said he would not allow ANY accommodations for a disability. He told us, “well, you’ll just have to move downtown.” I was blown away at his bluntness. But this HOA president, Hatch Wroton, told me, “You know, in a restaurant people just kind of lose their appetite around gimps. They don’t want to see them.”
That was my new awakening that HOAs were too exclusive for blacks, gays, Jews and ‘gimps’ like my wife. Wroton was the former Martin Marietta scientist who designed some of the spacecraft which were destined to land on Mars. But this neighborhood will never escape from the legacy of this anti-Semitic, anti-homosexual, anti-Negro board and its president. There are others to take their place, of course, and the hatred will wax and wane.
But the message is that the extreme bigotry of my HOA is NOT unique. It goes on everywhere.
The story linked below is about a disabled Marine pilot from California who was also treated horribly. They wouldn’t give him access to the community swimming pool. It apparently made the other residents uncomfortable. Never mind that the federal government found their actions illegal. There’s a settlement. The HOA insurance company will pay the elderly couple a hundred thousand bucks if they just take their disabled, disfigured military hero to some other neighborhood.
(link to story on disabled Marine)
