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

Stoopid HOA Buyers

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I have enormous sympathy for people who buy into an HOA. Heck, I was dumb enough to do the same thing. Three times! But in retrospect, I was STOOPID! I was a lamb among the wolves. Never had a clue.

The biggest unreported financial crime in America is embezzlement from an HOA. The following story isn’t even extraordinary, it happens in city after city, day after day. But homeowners (like me) are just too witless to ‘get it.’ The HOA scam is beyond any reasonable explanation. If you’ve bought an HOA property you’ve just donated your life savings to a massive national criminal enterprise that the government will never investigate, expose, or end. Kiss your life savings, ‘Goodbye.’

If you live in a non-HOA neighborhood, fall in love with those boat trailers, the purple front doors, the obnoxious lawn ornaments. Your life savings are protected. Your investment will continue to grow. And feel a modicum of pity for the ritzy people on the other side of the street.

(link to Tampa Bay News story on 300 million dollar fraud)

 

Sara Benson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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Egads! I’ve never met Sara Benson, never even talked to her on the phone, but I’d have an affair with her in an instant, if she’d agree! (Yep, I’m not very classy, but I’m sincere!)

This incredible Illinois Realtor has discovered that up to 80% of Illinois Homeowners Associations are unknown and untracked by the state! The implications are massive. It means that huge numbers of Americans have signed away their access to rights conferred by the U.S. Constitution by buying homes in private corporations where they’re lying naked in front of all their fellow homeowners. They think they’ve bought private homes, but what they’ve actually bought is shares in unregulated corporations in which they can be taxed, liened, sued and bankrupted with their life savings going into a common pot owned by all their fellow neighbors.

It’s the biggest transfer of private property wealth to government in the history of America. Seductive. Illegal. Subversive. There just aren’t words enough to express it. I thought I was pretty smart about the evils of Homeowners Associations. I hate to admit it, but I didn’t have a clue. Not a clue.

This should be the Number One headline in every news organization in America. Sadly, it won’t be. I love America, but Americans are fundamentally stupid. Like the frog in the pot we just enjoy the increasing heat. Until it’s too hot.

Sara Benson and Don DeBat, I hope you sell a zillion copies of Escaping Condo Jail!.

(link to Chicago Tribune article on Sara Benson)

 

Sigh. Another Day, Another Dollar.

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Or another thousand dollars. A couple of Homeowners Associations in Southern California are still trying to figure out how much was stolen from them. Fortunately, at least one of them had insurance but it’ll be a while before they find another insurance company. HOAs are getting a stinky reputation in the insurance industry because embezzling is so rampant. The seemingly massive theft linked below is just another average day of looting the HOA treasury.

(link to Ventura County Star story on HOA embezzlers)

 

 

Welcome To Your New Condo!!!

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Yes, welcome to your new condo. You’re going to love living here. The neighbors all get along and we don’t seem to suffer the kinds of problems felt in many other Homeowners Associations. You’re buying into a little bit of Heaven, your own private home. Welcome, welcome, welcome!

Oh, we’re sorry we couldn’t give you copies of the covenants, the budget and insurance papers in time for your real estate closing. At the time you requested them, the paperwork was tied up in some minor snafu. But it’ll all get worked out soon.

Ah yes, and ignore the story in the newspapers today. Those crooked reporters always make up their facts and get the story wrong. Everybody knows how warped and dishonest the media are. Just sit back and enjoy your new life!

(link to the neighborhood Welcome Wagon!)

 

 

 

 

Associa, CAI and Crooked HOA Transfer Fees

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Transfer fees are among the biggest scams in the housing business. North Carolina residents tried to get them outlawed. Colorado is trying. New Mexico is trying. Transfer fees are a ‘little’ item on your paperwork that pops up when you try to sell your home. If you live in a Homeowners Association of any kind you’re likely to learn that you have to pay the fee before you can sell to a buyer. Transfer fee. That means some property manager had to photocopy the HOA covenants, probably a hundred or so pages. But you don’t photocopy them one page at a time. No, they’re on his computer. Push one button and the printer spits them all out in a couple of minutes.

So, what do transfer fees cost? Well they can cost the buyer anywhere from 150 to 4000 bucks. For photocopies! And many a house sale has fallen through because someone in the transaction has to come up with that extra money.

Where does the money go?  Simple. It’s a transfer, remember? A transfer directly into the pockets of some board officer or the property manager. That’s why HOA giants like Associa and CAI fight like the dickens when state legislators start getting wise and drafting proposals to reign these crooks in. With those two phony organizations constantly lying about how they “represent homeowners,” it’s blatantly obvious they don’t represent the interests of homeowners. No, they just represent the dollars they can sneak out of a homeowner’s pockets.

(link to Albuquerque article on transfer fees)