Tag Archives: Las Vegas

PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Dear Friends,

Please, please consider signing the petition to restore Constitutional law to our private neighborhoods, HOAs, CIDs, POAs. This is not a radical petition. It’s only a request that our federal government allow homeowners access to Constitutional rights that they inadvertantly signed away while signing their mortgage papers.

As stated before in the blog, George Staropoli’s petition is not radical, it’s only common sense. Protect your rights. Restore your rights. Please read George’s letter COPIED below.

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From George Staropoli:

To the national advocate leadership:

Thanks for your efforts, now and in the past. This petition is for all of us!

We need only 150 signatures in order to have the petition appear on the We the People website for all to see. The turnout is dismal. Once we get on the site we can then expect a large response from those truly concerned about the state of our Constitution.

I need your help to get to those 150 petitions. Please urge the people on your lists to get busy and sign the petition. Tell them in your own words why we must get the FEDS’ attention. This is not democrat/republican or conservative/liberal! This our American system of constitutional government created by the Founding Fathers without reference to any political party! This support from Washington is a legitimate function of our Federal government, especially since the long history of state legislative failures to uphold the Constitution demands federal intervention.

We only have 30 days to get to 25,000 petitions, otherwise we have lost a very important inroad to Washington and the national scene. And CAI will be laughing its ass off if we fail. It is extremely important that you, the national leadership, urge support for the petition.

Please pass this on to others.

You’re STOOPID To Buy An HOA Home In Nevada!

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The Bank of America lawsuit against dozens of Nevada Homeowners Associations chugs onward. Earlier this Fall, B of A filed a federal lawsuit claiming that HOAs were illegally charging excessive collection fees and arbitrary fines against homeowners who committed minor infractions of HOA rules and covenants.

In one such case, a family in North Las Vegas moved out of their home and attempted to short sell it through the Bank of America. But the HOA in question decided the home in question had too many pine needles and weeds on the property, and they filed a lien against the home. Although the initial fine was only a few hundred dollars, the HOA dramatically escalated its fines and costs to more than $16,500. That made the home virtually unsaleable.

In another case (reported by Darcy Spears, KTNV-TV in Las Vegas), homeowner Char Vanderveen had her home seized by the Mountain’s Edge Homeowners Association. The HOA sold her $700,000 home for $7000, less than one percent of its true value.

There are hundreds, if not thousands or even tens of thousands of similar cases.

Bank of America says that kind of thing is happening all over Nevada and they want a federal judge to intervene. Any kind of major judgment against Nevada HOAs could cost them millions of dollars. HOA board members and their attorneys are now whining that if they lose the case, the costs will have to be assessed against all other homeowners.

To refer back to the headline of this story, would you buy a home in an HOA that’s potentially facing multi-million dollar judgments, legal fees and huge special assessments against all homeowners? Wouldn’t you be stupid to do so?

http://www.ktnv.com/news/local/174865911.html

Rent out your Las Vegas Home, go to Jail

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Rent out your HOA Home, Go to Jail

So you thought your HOA home was such a sweet investment. After all, if you had to move to a smaller home in this economy, you could always rent out the HOA home to help pay the mortgage couldn’t you, Bunky?

After all, that’s an age-old way of diversifying an invesment and keeping its value high during a recession.

But many HOAs are deciding that HOA rentals are cheapening the neighborhood so they’re arbitrarily passing rule that say, “You bought it, now live in it, damn it!”

Florida has been especially hard-hit. Tiana Patterson decided to sell her home. She has had to cut prices over and over again. Putting up a For Rent sign might save her investment until the economy improves, but the pushback from the Madison, Miss. HOA is so strong that she’s having to spend $36,000 a year for upkeep, andbut that money is now down the drain. The HOA In Madison, Miss.HOA is so strong that she’s having to spend $36,000 a year for upkeep, but that’s money down the drain. HOA Advocates say it’s an age old way to protect your investment, so why are HOAs threatening finds and foreclosures for people who rent their homes?

That’s a puzzling question.

The only real answer it that power-drunk HOA board members backed by power drunk HOA lawyers see money rolling into their pockets in the short term. They don’t give a flying fig about long term property values. They care about only the sort term. And that’s why you’re hearing so many nightmare stories abount unnessary fines ad foreclosures. When someone else’s money is at stake, you have very little incentive to protect your own property values.

And shame, shame, shame on the contrarians.

Nevada State Senator Upset at Blogger Coverage Of “Suicides”

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Nebraska Senator Mike Schneider is asking the governor to call a special session of the legislature to pass new laws against Homeowner Association fraud. He says he’s been reading a blog on the Las Vegas scandal and he doesn’t like the kind of comments being made about suicides committed by suspects indicted in the HOA scandal. (Hmmm, I wonder which blog he’s talking about!)

He does note that out of the first ten suspects named in the massive federal investigation of Las Vegas HOA corruption, four committed suicide. One of the suicides was committed by lawyer David Amesbury. Investigators say he hanged himself from a rafter in his brother’s barn. This was after he was severely beaten and his knees crushed on a street inside a gated Nevada HOA. His suicide seems horribly suspicious. His family doesn’t believe it. This blogger doesn’t believe it. In fact, this blogger is predicting more “suicides” among the increasing number of indicted suspects, especially those who work out plea bargains with prosecutors.

The “suicide” of lawyer Nancy Quon is another weird one. Her whole story is weird. Anyone just reading a few facts about Quon’s story could easily appreciate a new Clancy novel about the case. It’s great fiction, just great fiction.
But Senator Schneider says this kind of publicity is bad for Las Vegas because people think “the Mob” is back in the city killing witnesses. He thinks a new law against HOA corruption would improve the city’s image. He decries the fact that rigged HOA elections are egregious and that they amount to a legalized shakedown of insurance companies.

Senator Schneider is right about one thing. There absolutely have to be some legislative changes to fight this kind of corruption. But he doesn’t take into consideration is that Las Vegas HOAs are not unique. The same kind of corruption is endemic in HOAs across America. The very structure of Homeowners Associations puts them in a position where corruption by board members, managers and attorneys is almost encouraged. There are no double-checks, there are no controls, there’s nothing to stop corruption in most of these gated neighborhoods.

It’s sad, but any new state law against Homeowner Association corruption is simply not going to work. There are already statutes against organized crime. That’s what’s allowing the U.S. Attorney to bring these HOA indictments in the first place. The only new law that would have any kind of impact is a federal law that gives homeowners back their access to the Constitution’s Bill of Rights. The Constitution created all sorts of double checks on government excesses. But people who buy HOA homes sign away their access to the Bill of Rights. Give those rights back, take away the power of HOA boards to arbitrarily fine, sue and foreclose on homes for minor violations and you might actually see some real change.
BTW, credit is due reporter Nathan Baca of KLAS-TV 8 News in Las Vegas for interviewing Senator Schneider and getting this story out to the public.

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

Prominent Las Vegas HOA Figure Found Dead

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Nancy Quon, the attorney at the center of a Homeowner Association scandal in Las Vegas, has been found dead in her bathtub. Quon had been accused in an HOA construction defect litigation scandal that took in more than a hundred million dollars from insurance companies that represented Homeowner Associations in Nevada.

The FBI has been investigating up to a hundred Homeowner Associations in the Las Vegas area, and has staged several raids on the offices of HOAs and HOA management companies. The scandal has been in the hands of at least three federal grand juries over the past three years. At least ten prominent figures in the investigation have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges over the past five months.

Quon and her associates have been accused of arranging for ‘straw men’ to be elected to the boards of Nevada Homeowner Associations. Those newly elected board officers would then vote to file construction defect lawsuits against insurance companies. Those lawsuits were then funneled to construction companies affiliated with Quon’s law firm. The head of one of those construction companies is a prominent night club owner in Las Vegas who also runs a number of Nevada construction companies.

Police in Las Vegas say that foul play was not suspected in Quon’s death, and that she may have been drinking in her bathtub when she passed out.

A complicating factor, though, is that Quon and a Las Vegas police officer were accused of plotting to arrange her “suicide” more than a year ago, supposedly to collect insurance money for her children. The police officer allegedly arranged for the Las Vegas Police Department laboratory to manufacture a quantity of GHB, a drug frequently used at rave parties, to be used in her death. That officer’s conversation was recorded by a police informant and the officer is currently under indictment in connection with her attempted suicide last year.

During the alleged suicide attempt last year, Quon’s home caught fire and she was pulled from her burning home and revived by paramedics. She claimed at the time that she was not attempting suicide. Quon’s death will complicate the FBI’s investigation of the Homeowner Association scandal, since she was apparently the key target of the federal investigation.

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

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