Tag Archives: Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

HOA Reform: Conservative? Liberal? Or Libertarian?

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As discussed recently in this forum, it’s mystifying why neither the political left nor the political right has taken a stand on the state of “HOA America.” Sixty million homeowners live in one of the country’s 300,000 Homeowners Associations. The number of HOAs is exploding with government jurisdictions around the country turning over lower government responsibilities to the HOA Movement.

As a private non-profit corporation, a Homeowners Association has incredible power to harass, fine and foreclose. Housing discrimination is still common in many areas. Violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is ongoing. Free speech is restricted, religion is restricted. Due process is rarely, if ever, followed. Almost every one of the protections that Americans think they have in the Bill of Rights is trampled on daily.

Where’s the ACLU? Missing.

Where’s the outcry from conservatives and Consitutional originalists? Non-existent.

With such a large and growing population ending up in these private government corporations, a reasonable observer would think that some political faction ought to grab onto the anti-HOA issue as a cause celebre.

Well, here comes the Texas chapter of Eagle Forum, a very conservative group, with a strong editorial called “Legalized Extortion.”

http://texaseagle.org/april-2011/302-legalized-extortion.html

It’s an excellent look at an industry that passes out equal abuse to homeowners all over the political spectrum.

It took the illegal abuse of a Texas family (Michael and May Clauer) to generate this strong an outcry. But who knows? Maybe the various political factions in the country will wake up and finally recognize that the HOA Movement is helping the U.S. Constitution to pass into irrelevancy.

And that’s not a left or right issue.

It’s an American issue.

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

A Bad Case Of HOA Insensitivity

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There are many ironies in the country’s HOA quagmire, but the one that really stirred anger among American families was the 2010 confiscation of the home of an Army Reserve Captain named Michael Clauer.

Clauer and his wife, May, lived in the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association in Frisco, Texas. They had two young children, one of them just a toddler. They owned their 300,000 dollar home free and clear, a gift from May’s parents.

But when Michael was transfered to command a unit in the war in Iraq, May Clauer allowed what she thought was junk mail to pile up. Sadly, among the items in the growing stack of mail were the couple’s HOA dues, about 877 dollars, and the threat to foreclose.

One day, when May answered the door, a visitor told her that he now owned the home and that she and her family would have to vacate. It seems that Heritage Lakes HOA had done a non-judicial foreclosure, meaning no judge ever heard a foreclosure case against the Clauer family. The HOA had just reached out, snatched the home, auctioned it for $3500 to an investor who sold it again for $135,000.

Federal law prohibits civil actions against service members who are on active duty overseas. But many Homeowners Associations consider federal law just a minor annoyance.

Michael Clauer says not a single person from the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association ever visited his home, despite the fact that board members live just a short distance away.

The Clauer’s finally got their house back after a federal judge ordered all the parties involved to work out a settlement. Details of the settlement are confidential, but it’s hard to imagine that the experience was not extremely costly for the family.

Clauer now lives in Virginia. He says he’ll never again live in a Homeowners Association.

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

The Dictatorial Power of the Homeowners Association

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Negative experiences continue making national headlines, as HOA homeowners share stories of almost incomprehensible conflict. A homeowner who loses her home because she underpaid her dues by 78 cents! (Florida) Homeowners fined because they put up some Halloween decorations.(multiple locations) Christmas decorations banned in neighborhood after neighborhood. An HOA president who orders a board member to poison cats with anti-freeze! (Arizona)  What is going on? Have people just gone crazy?

Kim and Ed Hartnett owned a nice condominium at Spinnaker Run 1, but their Homeowners Association has levied so many fines against them for late payment of dues, that they just can’t catch up. They’ve abandoned their nice condo and are now living in a motor home.

Homeowners Associations are theoretically supposed to improve property values, but the actual experience by many homeowners is that home values are being crushed by the presence of a Homeowners Association. Too hard to believe?

Well, would you want to buy in an HOA where the president has just pleaded guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the neighborhood budget? (multiple locations)  Would you buy into a condo where a grandmother is foreclosed on because she accidentally underpayed dues by $4.70? (Venetian Village, FL)  Would you (or could you) get a loan to buy a place in Clinton, CT, where the FHA and HUD have decided they will no longer offer federally backed loans? And would you buy a home in a neighborhood where you are prohibited from having your grandkids stay the weekend?

When faced with allegations like these, HOA officials almost universally refuse to comment. That’s obviously the advice they’re getting from legal firms that represent the HOA quagmire.

But really, do HOAs protect home values? Ask homeowners in Las Vegas, where some homes have dropped 80 percent in value. Or look at Florida where homeowners can’t even give their homes away. Just ask a Realtor if more and more clients are asking to see only non-HOA homes.

Are there good HOAs? Of course. But it just takes a single election for an HOA board to turn from gentle to rogue. And how difficult is it for a neighborhood to ‘unelect’ a rogue board?

HOA officials across the country are told by attorneys and property management companies, “Don’t worry. The odds are practically ZERO that the voters will ever rise up and remove you from office. You’re safe. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” They do. And the value of homes in gated communities continues to fall.

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

Where Is The Justice?

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Every time I read of a homeowner who’s lost his or her home to a bank foreclosure, it breaks my heart. HOWEVER, every time I read of a Homeowners Association which has done the same thing to a homeowner, it infuriates me.

Homeowners Associations can foreclose on a member of an association in a matter of hours for even the pettiest violation of the covenants. Yes, I agree that all homeowners should be required to pay their HOA dues ON TIME! No exceptions. HOAs need those funds to operate and to maintain the common areas. The problem is that many HOAs and management companies are abusing that power.

Take for example, the case of Stephanie Bonefont, a member of the South Pointe Homeowners Association in the Tampa area.

In 2008, this single mom’s house was foreclosed on because of unpaid HOA dues. Cut and dried case, right? She should be tarred and feathered and run out of town strapped to a rail, right?

Hmmm, let’s take a closer look at her case. It turns out Bonefont’s bills for her dues were apparently being sent by the HOA to the wrong address and she had no idea she was in default. But that didn’t matter. The HOA snatched her home and sold it to a bidder, Pasto Angula, for $7400, the amount of her missing dues and legal expenses. A judge saw through the property grab and ordered the home returned to Ms. Bonefont, after she reimbursed Angula for $7400.
But the South Pointe HOA claimed it had no evidence she had paid Angula, despite the fact that her attorney produced a copy of the check.

And now the HOA is moving forward with the lawsuit until the woman writes THEM a $7300 check. “Double dipping,” Ms. Bonefont calls it.

This is America, the model for the entire world, where people are supposed to be able to seek and find justice. But our litigiousness has made America the laughing stock of the world.

How is it that cases like this slip through the cracks? Why can’t a judge just lock all the parties in a room and say, “I love you guys, but I’m not going to let you mock the American justice system. You’re staying right here in this room until you figure out how to settle this case in a way that will make all parties believe that they were able to find justice in an American courtroom!”

Some of these cases have an obvious solution, but it requires forcing all parties to mull over their own mistakes, and emerge from the room when they have a solution. Before the PC movement, some moms used to do that with their kids! “No lunch until you solve your own problem.” These days, that kind of thing is called “child abuse.”

What’s the solution? How can you solve a case like this without trashing the Constitution? Ah, and no lawyers allowed! They just seem to gum up the system!

Here’s an incentive: “Hey folks, if you DON’T go to court, you’ll be saving about thirty thousand bucks worth of attorneys fees. So let’s throw that same amount of money into a common pot, and let the warring parties decide who gets to split the pot and how evenly.”

The lawyers would never let that happen, of course. Not in a million years, would they let that happen. Hmmm, maybe THAT’s the problem.

“I don’t think you can make a lawyer honest by an act of the Legislature. You’ve gotta work on his conscience. And his lack of conscience is what makes him a lawyer.”
-Will Rogers

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

The Handicapped and the HOA

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One of the tragic stories we come across time and again is how the Homeowners Association Movement discriminates against the handicapped. Yes, we know it’s illegal. Yes, we know the handicapped are a critically needed resource in this country. Yes, it’s common sense not to discriminate against them. But the Homeowners Association Movement was created for a reason. It’s very structure was designed to weed out anyone who doesn’t fit the “official profile.”

As explored in my upcoming book, “Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association,” that “profile” is devious and absolutely designed to weed out blacks, orientals, the handicapped, the single moms, gays, and anyone else who doesn’t match the cookie-cutter, bleached-beige stereotype of HOA life.

A member of the military, disabled by an I.E.D.? Begone!

A single mom trying to raise child? Foreclose on her house!

A black family in a white bread neighborhood? Outrageous!

While most HOAs seem to operate well and keep their neighborhoods at peace, we are all unfortunately defined by our extremes. And in recent years, a growing number of Homeowners Associations have been taking advantage of their ability to be extreme.

HOAs have learned how to profit by foreclosing on homeowners who make petty mistakes. An incredibly small violation of neighborhood covenants can lead to outright seizure of a home. Are all HOAs doing that? Of course not. Should all HOA members be concerned at how often it’s happening. Absolutely.

“A nation’s greatness is measured by how it treats the least of its citizens.” -Mahatma Ghandi.

How true, how true!

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