Tag Archives: Realtor

So You Think You Don’t Live In An HOA?

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I’m all for neighborhoods in the dry West creating fire-safe homes and making firebreaks to help head off wildfires, but in the story linked below you have to read between the lines.

In Summit County, Colorado the Summit Park Homeowners Association is telling homeowners that the HOA’s covenants require homeowners to maintain wildfire breaks around their properties.

A number of property owners are saying, “Huh? This isn’t a Homeowners Association! I only moved here because there wasn’t a Homeowners Association!”

Somebody pushing to enforce wildfire advice went back into real estate records and discovered there actually were some covenants created back in 1959, but nobody told the homeowners, not even Realtors who originally sold the properties. Now those homeowners may be stuck with covenants never recorded in their deeds.

The lesson here isn’t that we’re mad at requirements to properly maintain your property. It’s that Homeowners Associations can suddenly pop up in neighborhoods where most folks thought they were HOA-free!

(click here for Park Record News)

 

Homeowner Association Disbanded….For Apathy!

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The story from Sebring, Florida shouldn’t be too much of a surprise to people who study the Homeowners Association Movement. The Highlands County Homeowners Association has decided it is going to cease to exist because nobody in the HOA even cares to show up for meetings. Speakers who were brought in to educate homeowners about things going on in the community found themselves mostly talking to empty rooms. Officials of the association blame widespread apathy.

Well, I remember my Psychology 101 classes in college where we discussed the kinds of things that lead to apathy. Unresolved conflict, frustration, a feeling of helplessness (being bullied), and finally the long descent into apathy.

It’s textbook. It happens to voters. It happens to Homeowners Associations. But it may also be an interesting peek into the future of HOAs.

The American Homeowners Association Movement has long been out of control, led by neighborhood bullies, agenda-driven people getting themselves elected to the board. Once ensconced they begin targeting personal enemies and start diverting money away from homeowners and into improper pockets. Even people who are never targeted by HOA bullies watch the abuse and then begin shrinking from neighborhood involvement.

Yes, apathy is a growing problem in private HOA communities. So is violence. People watch their neighborhoods decay from neglect and abandonment while property values plummet.

The HOA movement is a fifty billion dollar a year scam. And the word is getting out.

(news story from Highlands Today)

http://highlandstoday.com/hi/local-news/homeowners-association-disbands-20131216/

The Lawn Nazis Grab Another Home

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Each story I read disgusts me more: A Homeowners Association in the Colorado Springs area has foreclosed and auctioned off a 350,000 dollar home for about 11,000 dollars. And the homeowner never saw it coming.

Christopher Wright lived in the Woodmen Hills Filing Number 11 HOA. He thought he was fighting a fine for leaving the kids’ bicycles outside, but he discovered that the home was really taken because he hadn’t been paying his annual dues. His $900 nonpayment had turned into more than $10,000 worth of late fees, collection fees and attorneys’ fees. But non-payment of annual dues in most HOAs is a more serious crime than rape, armed robbery or burglary. Overstatement? No, rape and armed robbery usually net a less serious sentence than the confiscation of one’s home.

The management company is owned by Associa, which in turn is owned by an ethically-challenged Texas State Senator who has long faced criticism for his shifty dealings. Senator John Carona is a billionaire who owns or controls more than 8000 Homeowners Associations across the country, many of which are required to use insurance companies he owns, banks he owns, the list goes on and on. Media criticism of Carona’s ethics goes back years.

But none of that really impacts Christopher Wright’s case. He lost his house. And he’s dazed and confused about the Constitutional rights he thought he had.

Was Christopher Wright just stupid? Some would say so. But others would look with awe at the record of the Woodmen Hills Filing Number 11 HOA.

853 homes.

225 liens filed.

126 lawsuits filed.

4 foreclosures.

About his sky-high fees, the Woodmen’s HOA attorney, Hal Kyles, of the law firm Orten, Cavanagh and Holmes says, “I’m not cheap.”

No, you’re not cheap, lawyer Kyles. You’re not. But you are arrogant.

Shame on you for your arrogance.

(click here for KOAA-TV news story)

http://www.koaa.com/news/news-5-investigates-hoa-forecloses-on-home/

 

Powerful and Courageous!

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Whether you are for or against the protections of the Second Amendment, this short video of a former soldier and current police officer defending the Second Amendment is unbelievably powerful.

Wait! Before you view this link below, substitute the First Amendment, the Fourth, the Fifth or any of our other Constitutional Freedoms. Our Constitution and the Bill of Rights were created to protect us from government. As we American homeowners keep up our nightmarish slide into ‘government-by-corporation’ we are quickly losing access to any of our Constitutional protections.

Speech? Homeowners Associations constantly restrict it. Religion? In many places HOAs restrict it. Freedom of Assembly? Restricted time after time. Due Process? It doesn’t exist in Homeowners Associations. Restrictions based on against race or disability? The current core of this kind of illegal discrimination is in the heart of the American Homeowners Association Movement.

Of course, the ‘right to contract’ is also embedded into the Constitution. But there are limits to the right to contract. You have, for example, no right to sell yourself or your children into slavery. You have no right to ‘contract’ for a criminal act to be performed.

When it comes to your home and your fundamental privacy, should you really be allowed to contract away the very rights our founders tried to establish?
Do yourself a favor and watch the powerful speech linked below.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44zW84FKd50

 

HOA Embezzler Gets Prison

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One of the most bald-faced embezzlers in the country has been told he’ll be spending a little time in prison.

I wrote previously about Chris Barna, who swiped almost a million dollars from the California company where he worked as controller. His firm handles the finances of a number of Homeowners Associations in California. The parent company is Associa, the HOA management firm run by Texas State Senator John Carona.

Earlier this year Barna pleaded guilty to embezzling 980,000 dollars that came out of the accounts of California Homeowners Associations

This week, Barna was sentenced in Federal Court to three years and five months in prison and more than a million dollars in restitution. Judging from past white collar crime cases, though, he’ll only spend part of that time behind bars. And it’s highly doubtful that restitution will ever be made.

But that’s justice in America.

(click here for Justice Department press release)