We haven’t heard much lately about the Las Vegas Homeowner Association scandal and the federal investigation which has already obtained ten guilty pleas against public figures for corruption. But, we may as well do this blog to keep Las Vegas criminality in the headlines.
The Mountain’s Edge Homeowner Association is being sued by investors who tried to snatch up foreclosed homes in the Vegas area. In the mortgage collapse, investors have taken a huge risk in trying to buy up homes which were abandoned by bankrupted homeowners. Those investors are just about the only financial thread keeping entire neighborhoods from going under.
But investors are now filing complaints or suing dozens of HOAs which they claim are gouging them with inflated liens and excessive dues, fines and collection costs. The old wisdom is “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Investors are pouring money into dying neighborhoods, but HOA boards are slamming them with fistfulls of phony fines.
The mortgage mess will take years to clear up. But many Las Vegas HOA boards don’t seem to “get it.”
Welcome the investors. Bring in the investors. Use their money to prop up your dessicated neighborhoods. But if you use your customary mob mentality against this new money, you’ll end up paying a high price.
The obvious message to investors is… “never buy a home in an HOA. Not in Las Vegas. Not anywhere.”
It could be the first of many; but the first actual indictment for corruption in the Las Vegas Homeowners Association investigation was handed down Friday, December 9th.
Dax Lee Louderman, a former employee of a construction company, was charged with stealing more than a half million dollars in a construction defect case. Louderman was charged with 13 counts of theft from the Stone Canyon HOA.
Louderman was charged in state court rather than in federal. But it appears to be a spinoff from the massive federal investigation of fraud and corruption in more than a dozen Las Vegas Homeowners Associations. In recent weeks, ten targets of the federal investigation have pleaded guilty to theft and corruption, and the stacking of HOA boards with officers who would direct construction and legal expenses to certain lawyers and construction companies. Presumably, those ten suspects will now testify against other targets in the case.
