Category Archives: lawsuit

Ten Million Dollar Kick In The Teeth!

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The HOA world is buzzing about a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed against the Henderson, Nevada Police Department. It’s a lawsuit that could throw a massive punch in the face of the American HOA movement, especially those which use coersive tactics to intimidate HOA critics.

This really is a wild case. Two elderly residents of Sun City Anthem HOA in Nevada, tried to warn other homeowners that the board was illegally stashing millions of dollars of excess dues instead of returning them to residents. Any organization that doesn’t report such excess collections can face heavy IRS fines.

The board refused to pay attention to the complainants, so the two ‘agitators’ reported the apparent tax fraud to the Henderson Police Department. Keep in mind that a Federal Grand Jury was already prosecuting massive fraud among Nevada Homeowners Associations.

According to the mens’ lawsuit, the Sun City Anthem HOA filed a complaint with Henderson P.D. accusing the two men of filing a false police report. The cops then busted the two men, stripped them, handcuffed the two men to a vertical bar in the city jail, and left them for four hours. The men, one of them a retired Air Force officer, were appropriately outraged.

Their outrage grew as the IRS agreed that the HOA was indeed operating illegally and levied some heavy fines.

Now Col. Robert Frank (ret’d) and Tim Stebbins are suing the City of Henderson for false arrest, false imprisonment and a number of other allegations. The reverberations from this lawsuit could be massive; and massively fun to watch.

Can’t you feel the squirming among HOA board members everywhere?

Wow! Great Article!

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There are thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of news articles about people who’ve been royally shafted in the American HOA system. There’s a very good article in today’s Fort Worth Weekly entitled “Hostage, Sweet Hostage.” It tells the story of a family who moved into a Texas HOA looking for security and safety. But an argument over a vehicle led to harrassment, fines, lawsuits and has cost this family their peace of mind.

This gated HOA has used a weapon against the family: locking the gate so they can’t reach their home, their guests can’t visit, the babysitter can’t enter to care for the kids. And when the family protests, HOA officials just flatly refuse to talk to them. Ah, but the HOA president finally talked to them. But only after joining hands with the family and praying before lowering the hammer.

What a world!

http://www.fwweekly.com/2012/11/07/home-sweet-hostage/

Do HOA Embezzlement Stories Bore You?

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The Good Lord knows I don’t want to bore readers of my blog posts! But my feeling is that there are so many HOAs being victimized by embezzlers, that the name of every HOA crook ought to be publicized far and wide. These crooks are not only rotten people for stealing, but they’re stealing from neighbors who put them into positions of incredible trust. In many cases, they’re stealing from elderly retired people who just can’t afford to pay special assessments to cover the HOA’s losses.

Well, bore you or not, the latest embezzler to be sentenced to prison is 63 year old Nancy Walker. She managed the treasury of the Ballenger Creek Meadows HOA in Frederick County, Maryland. She stole more than 137,000 bucks. She claims she gave the money to an internet acquaintance she’d never met; a man who alternately claimed he was in a South African hospital, and later in a South African jail. It’s a great sob-story, but it doesn’t change the fact that Walker stole from neighbors who had trusted her.

She got a sentence of 18 months in prison and restitution. Why HOA thieves never get more than 18 months is a mystery to this blogger. But the restitution is no mystery. She’ll never pay it.

Dumb and Dumber on Marco Island, Florida

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Homeowners in the South Seas Condominium on Marco Island, Florida, may soon have to pay a hefty special assessment because of a particularly boneheaded decision by their HOA.

The Feds have consistently said that service dogs are covered under the ADA. An HOA doesn’t get to claim they are pets, if the dog is actually performing services for a disabled person. But this particular HOA obviously doesn’t ‘get it.’ They will.

The South Seas Condominium has been harassing 56 year old resident Larry McKay over his 80-pound boxer. In 2008, McKay contracted MRSA, a mostly fatal staph infection that’s hit a number of people in the Southeast. McKay is confined to a wheelchair, and he says the service dog does a number of things for him, such as turning on the lights, and helping him get out of bed.

McKay’s dog helps him with other activities like getting on and off airplanes. The airlines recognize it’s a service dog. This HOA board is apparently too stupid to do the same.

In other parts of the country, such as California, Homeower Associations have been hit with huge fines by the ADA because they insist that all service dogs are merely ‘pets,’ prohibited by the HOA.

McKay has lots of supporters in his condominium. Doesn’t matter. When the FDA slams this condo with a massive fine, each and every condo owner is going to have to fork up some bucks to pay for the idiotic decisions by their HOA board.

A dumb waste of other peoples’ money. But it’s typical. So typical.

By Ward Lucas, author of Neigbors At War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

http://www.nbc-2.com/story/19728171/man-in-dispute-with-hoa-over-service-dog?clienttype=printable

Another Cop Pleads Extreme Stupidity in Las Vegas

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William Ronald Webb was a major player in the federal investigation into massive corruption in the Valley’s HOAs. His plea comes just a day or so after the federal judge in the case told victims they probably wouldn’t see any restitution in the case. That’s the problem with ponzi schemes, the Bernie Madoffs made off with your money and leave everyone else in the pyramid high and dry.

The Vegas HOA scandal wasn’t really a ponzi. It was just a run-of-the-mill insurance fraud, phony HOA election, bribery, swindle with some good old boys mixing the date-rape drug in the police lab thrown in for interest. Oh, I forgot, several dead cops, dead attorneys, and a lawyer with his knees bashed so far backwards that he actually had to work up a sweat before climbing a ladder in his brother’s barn to hang himself from a rafter.

Now that the judge has officially pronouced all those little old men and ladies swindled and broke, all the victims could hope for was that the scammers might get some extra time in the joint. Naw, they’ll spend more time smoking joints than sleeping in them. Web got six years. The swindled old ladies get to pay the penalty for the rest of their lives. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem fair.

More coming. But don’t expect any huge jail time.

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