The HOA world is buzzing about a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed against the Henderson, Nevada Police Department. It’s a lawsuit that could throw a massive punch in the face of the American HOA movement, especially those which use coersive tactics to intimidate HOA critics.
This really is a wild case. Two elderly residents of Sun City Anthem HOA in Nevada, tried to warn other homeowners that the board was illegally stashing millions of dollars of excess dues instead of returning them to residents. Any organization that doesn’t report such excess collections can face heavy IRS fines.
The board refused to pay attention to the complainants, so the two ‘agitators’ reported the apparent tax fraud to the Henderson Police Department. Keep in mind that a Federal Grand Jury was already prosecuting massive fraud among Nevada Homeowners Associations.
According to the mens’ lawsuit, the Sun City Anthem HOA filed a complaint with Henderson P.D. accusing the two men of filing a false police report. The cops then busted the two men, stripped them, handcuffed the two men to a vertical bar in the city jail, and left them for four hours. The men, one of them a retired Air Force officer, were appropriately outraged.
Their outrage grew as the IRS agreed that the HOA was indeed operating illegally and levied some heavy fines.
Now Col. Robert Frank (ret’d) and Tim Stebbins are suing the City of Henderson for false arrest, false imprisonment and a number of other allegations. The reverberations from this lawsuit could be massive; and massively fun to watch.
Can’t you feel the squirming among HOA board members everywhere?
I’ve said it before and will say it again. One of the upcoming heroes of the fight against rogue HOAs is Rodney Gray, from Texas. He’s now got a rough cut of his upcoming documentary, “The HOAx.” It’s wonderfully filmed and edited, and Rodney is an expert movie maker. He’s got an update on the documentary, and I’ve linked his site below.
The article linked below is stunning! Although this embezzler is not connected with an HOA, just consider this: if an undetected embezzler can steal $50 million from a small town, how much could an HOA management company steal from the 20 or 30 HOAs it oversees?
Unbelievable and stunning! Fifty million dollars! Watch your HOA like a hawk!
There’s a pretty good column in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about how the financial meltdown has impacted condo owners. Foreclosures and walkaways hammered the budgets of HOAs, not just in Atlanta, but all over the country. This columnist claims the market has turned around.
But wait! Wait! Financial news on the international and national scale is not good. In fact it’s somewhat bleak. The next decade could be a financial home wrecker. Pray for the best, plan for the worst.
There are thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of news articles about people who’ve been royally shafted in the American HOA system. There’s a very good article in today’s Fort Worth Weekly entitled “Hostage, Sweet Hostage.” It tells the story of a family who moved into a Texas HOA looking for security and safety. But an argument over a vehicle led to harrassment, fines, lawsuits and has cost this family their peace of mind.
This gated HOA has used a weapon against the family: locking the gate so they can’t reach their home, their guests can’t visit, the babysitter can’t enter to care for the kids. And when the family protests, HOA officials just flatly refuse to talk to them. Ah, but the HOA president finally talked to them. But only after joining hands with the family and praying before lowering the hammer.
