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.’
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.
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.
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.
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.
