Category Archives: lawsuit

Scary Reason To Live In A Homeowners Association

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The news from North Carolina sounded horrible at first. Twenty-one people were standing on the deck of a rental home on the Outer Banks when the deck collapsed. Most were injured and taken to the hospital. It could have been far worse, of course, but the final chapters haven’t been written.

Trial lawyers will be all over these injured people like ticks on a picnic blanket. This beach home rents for 10,000 bucks a week. It’s obviously owned by someone who has deep pockets. It’s also in a private neighborhood of wealthy homes and the lawyers will be looking for every deep pocket in sight. And that means Homeowners Associations. HOAs take out insurance against calamities like this one, but every one of those policies has an upper limit. They also have exceptions for things like improper design and maintenance. The bottom line is that rich people in a rich HOA are legally bound to each other under the CC&Rs. Dang, that’s a lot of deep pockets! This series of lawsuits is going to put a lot of lawyers’ kids through college.

When you join a Homeowners Association you and your assets are community property. If you don’t believe that, then pay attention to property values in the Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman neighborhood. And watch property values in this nice HOA on the beach. Lordy, Lordy! Smell the money.

http://tinyurl.com/lyholza

Non HOA. But Incredibly Important!

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All most Americans want from the government is to be treated fairly. But in the perversity of today’s various legal ‘interpretations’, no American can read the law and find what’s legal and illegal. Perversity is a mild word.

Just read the following link and figure out how far the courts have strayed from the original intent of the founders of the country:

http://tinyurl.com/mopzgof

And if you still don’t believe you can be stripped and handcuffed to the bars of a police holding cell for four hours just for raising questions about the financial health of your HOA, just read this story about Col. Robert Frank and Tim Stebbins.

http://tinyurl.com/lf6p8jz

God help us!

Definition of an Arrogant Jackass?

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I always love to blog about, and link to, Darcy Spears and the HOA Hall of Shame feature she does for KTNV television in Las Vegas. She was one of the first television reporters in the nation to regularly investigate and expose the wrongdoings of Homeowners Associations. Of course, the criminal empire in Las Vegas generously provides her with lots of material. Nevada has some of the most notoriously felonious HOAs in the country, as evidenced by the dozens of indictments in the ongoing FBI/U.S. Attorney investigation.

In Darcy’s current expose’, she notes how federal FCC law gives homeowners the right to set up satellite dishes, and no HOA in the country has the power to supersede that federal law.

But then, we’re talking about the Pallatine Hill Homeowners Association in Henderson, Nevada. And its president, Barry Tedesco, is mind-numbingly idiotic about federal law. He’s sent out a flood of letters saying homeowners would be fined if they didn’t remove their satellite dishes. Even an appearance in front of the Pallatine Hill HOA board showed homeowners that Tedesco is in serious need of either a brain transplant, or a recall election. He apparently feels he’s above federal law. And he’s willing to risk ever last cent of this HOA’s budget to sue, lien and foreclose on all those homeowners using satellite TV. I honestly hope someone will walk my blog post door-to-door in this HOA.

Darcy Spears is too mannerly to call Tedesco a complete jackass.

But I’m not.

The president of the Pallatine Hill Homeowners association, Barry Tedesco, is a jackass.

(Note to KTNV General Manager: Darcy Spears deserves a raise. She’s getting you national publicity!)

http://tinyurl.com/kxqs5r6

HOA Crime In The California Legislature!

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Some really creepy legislation is making its way through the California Legislature. Both bills are sponsored by the Community Associations Institute, and as you’ll see in a moment they almost criminalize the right for HOA homeowners to vote, and the right for them to vote secretly.

The first bill, AB-1360, is sponsored by the almost clueless Senator Norma Torres. It would allow Homeowners in HOAs to vote by electronic voting. HOA voting has an amazing history of scandal, and organized crime corruption. However, Torres is having trouble getting her fellow senators on the Senate Judiciary Committee to go along. The conclusion is obvious. Her fellow senators are much smarter that Ms. Torres, because they recognize the danger.

The clowns at CAI are also sponsoring AB-1360 and they’ve gotten their favorite brain-dead Senator to sponsor this one, as well. You see, CAI has a client who sells voting machines, equipment and software, and hundreds of millions or billions of dollars would be pouring into the messy hands of CAI & Co.

The next bill of note isn’t just stupid, it’s almost criminal in nature. AG-968 would mean no more secret ballots. The Office of the Inspector of Elections would no longer exist, meaning that if voters have a problem they have to run to our favorite private organization, the CAI.

California is one of the few states that allows homeowners to sue their HOAs in Small Claims Court. But to win in Small Claims, you have to have evidence. In this bill, all evidence from an HOA election will be lost. Gone. The CAI has essentially become the de facto Inspector of Elections.

If this isn’t Las Vegas style HOA corruption, then someone tell me what is!

BTW, Assembly Member Richard Gordon’s phone number is 1-916-319-2024.

Money Grab In Florida Ruled Illegal

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The Supreme Court of Florida has slapped the pinkies of some municipalities that were trying make a little extra money from homeowners by trying to do what Homeowners Associations do all the time. When a homeowner buys a property in an HOA or CID or condo association, the buyer agrees to pay off his HOA dues before he makes a house payment. Thus the HOA actually has more power to punish miscreants by liening and auctioning off the house before the mortgage company gets its take. Thus, HOAs have a super-priority lien over the main lender on the property. The super priority. The ability to have super-priority status is built into the original developer’s Covenants Controls and Restrictions usually because that’s what the local municipality ordered.

The City of Palm Beach, seeing a chance to cash in on struggling homeowners the way Homeowner Associations did, passed local regulations giving themselves the same kinds of super priority status as HOAs. After all, weren’t municipalities charged with enforcing some of the same kinds of codes as the typical HOA?

Not so fast, said the State Supremes. Yes, the Florida Constitution gives broad powers to municipalities to take other people’s stuff…but only as far as what the state legislature allows. Still, this particular legislature has done some pretty goofy things to homeowners over the years. You just can’t predict when these parties will all be back in court over some ‘new’ taxing powers handed to them by lawmakers. “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe when the Legislature’s in session.” -Mark Twain

http://tinyurl.com/mx8b9r3

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