Category Archives: Government

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

Rent out your Las Vegas Home, go to Jail

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Rent out your HOA Home, Go to Jail

So you thought your HOA home was such a sweet investment. After all, if you had to move to a smaller home in this economy, you could always rent out the HOA home to help pay the mortgage couldn’t you, Bunky?

After all, that’s an age-old way of diversifying an invesment and keeping its value high during a recession.

But many  HOAs are deciding that HOA rentals are cheapening the neighborhood so they’re arbitrarily passing rule that say, “You bought it, now live in it, damn it!”

Florida has been especially hard-hit. Tiana Patterson decided to sell her home. She has had to cut prices over and over again. Putting up a For Rent sign might save her investment until the economy improves, but the pushback from the Madison, Miss. HOA is so strong that she’s having to spend $36,000 a year for upkeep, andbut that money is now down the drain.  The HOA In Madison, Miss.HOA is so strong that she’s having to spend $36,000 a year for upkeep, but that’s money down the drain.  HOA Advocates say it’s an age old way to protect your investment, so why are HOAs threatening finds and foreclosures for people who rent their homes?

That’s a puzzling question.

The only real answer it that power-drunk HOA board members backed by power drunk HOA lawyers see money rolling into their pockets in the short term. They don’t give a flying fig about long term property values. They care about only the sort term. And that’s why you’re hearing so many nightmare stories abount unnessary fines ad foreclosures. When someone else’s money is at stake, you have very little incentive to protect your own property values.

And shame, shame, shame on the contrarians.

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.

Federal Judge: “You’re SCREWED In Las Vegas!”

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This blogger saw it coming last year when the indictments and highly suspect “suicides” first started happening. Now the federal judge in the Las Vegas HOA corruption case says he’s sympathetic. But he’s telling scammed homeowners, “Don’t hold your breath. You probably won’t be seeing any restitution.”

From the very beginning, I have been saying that homeowners who were shafted in the massive HOA scandal would never get their money back. Officially, federal investigators say the sum of 8 million dollars was stolen. Unofficially, more than 100 million dollars of homeowners’ money was funneled through to the lawyers, the police officials, the political figures, the businessmen who all took part in the fraud. Insurance companies lost scores of millions. Who do you think has to make that up? Yep, it’s the homeowners who’ll see their premiums rise, the contractors who’ll never be trusted again, the homeowners who’ll never see their defective homes repaired, and the elderly who’ll never be able to sell out and move.

Sadly, the real losses in this scam will never be truly calculated. Not only have homeowners lost millions through phony HOA elections, fake board members and secret bank accounts. But the value of all housing in Las Vegas has taken a huge hit in this economy. Did the HOA system protect homeowners?  That was always the promise. But investors would have to be idiots to sink any money into a home in a formerly scandal-ridden neighborhood.

So don’t believe it when you’re told the loss to homeowners is only 8 million dollars. No, the real losses to taxpaying, home-owning Nevadans will ultimately be in the hundreds of millions. All you can do is hope for more indictments. And lengthy prison terms. If that’s any consolation.

As always, reporter Jeff German from the Review-Journal remains on top of this story. The link to his story, today, is below.

http://www.lvrj.com/news/judge-might-be-difficult-for-hoa-scam-victims-to-get-restitution-171576391.html

A Completely Imaginary Conversation

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Imagine for a moment that your company has transferred you to California’s Central Valley. Lots of warm days are in your future, you get a chance to dry out from all the rain and snow in your old home town.

Your Realtor has been driving you around several neighborhoods in Angels Camp: Saddle Creek Resort, Copper Cove and the little community of Copperopolis. Suddenly you see it! The house of your dreams! The yard is nicely kept, the rooms are large, the last owner has really taken good care of the place. “What’s the neighborhood like?” you ask the Realtor.

“Oh, it’s pretty good,” she says. “The HOA likes to keep things in order. They make sure everyone knows the rules and keeps the neighborhood neat. There’ve only been a couple problems here.”

“Problems? What kinds of problems?”

“Ah,” she says. “A few years ago, one couple didn’t pay their $120 annual dues. The HOA popped them with a lien and then sold their house at auction. It cost the couple $70,000 to get it back. The couple won’t do that again.”

“Whew! What else?”

“Hmmm,” says the Realtor. “Oh yeah. There was this disabled guy who couldn’t get into his house. He got permission from the county to build a wheelchair ramp. But he didn’t ask the HOA first, so they popped him with a fine of $15,000.”

“Wow!” you say. “That seems a little harsh.”

“No, not at all. It keeps folks in line. Keeps up property values.”

“Anything more?” you ask.

“No,” says the Realtor. “Oh yeah, almost forgot. There was one thing that happened here a few months ago. The office manager of the Copper Cove HOA, the same one you’re in right now, stole about $25,000 from the neighborhood treasury. She embezzled 18,000 bucks and used the HOA credit cards to buy all her gas and groceries.”

“Who has to make all that money up?” you say as you raise your eyebrows.

“Well, after she gets out of jail, she might have to do some restitution. In the meantime, a special assessment from all the homeowners will be used to rebuild the treasury.”

You take a long last look at that nice house, the neatly trimmed neighborhood and the blue skies.

“I think I’m going to look elsewhere,” you tell the stunned Realtor. “I lived in an HOA once. Nah, don’t think I want to do that again. See ya!”

http://www.uniondemocrat.com/News/Local-News/Copper-embezzler-sentenced