Category Archives: drought

A Great Resource & Great Publicity

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guest blog by Jill Schweitzer

I’m a painter, and painting a picture: Imagine living in a neighborhood where you can’t have a bench to sit on in your front yard. Imagine a Board member tries getting the board to fix a drainage issue multiple times, the Board and HOA property manager do nothing, and the condo eventually floods. Imagine having a leak for 11 months in your dining room, HOA still has not fixed it. Imagine an HOA trying to get the Board to agree to sign a Code of Conduct giving all control to the President and property manager, the rest of the Board does nothing in between meetings. Imagine a property manager that is so bad that 12% of the owners sell and move out in approximately six months, and note that the management company makes $4800 in transfer/disclosure fees as their reward for poor management?

Also note that most of those new buyers probably weren’t too happy this week to receive notice there may be a 3-5 thousand dollars special assessment. Imagine a property management company trying to charge for coupons, charging for printing because they think it’s different from copies, and trying to pay the old company a ridiculously high termite warranty renewal fee and then pretending the new termite company only gave a two year warranty, when it’s actually five years…all these situations have happened.

“Buying into an HOA with your eyes wide open” is a 22 page report about HOAs in Arizona, but basically applies everywhere. The situations above didn’t make it into the report. This week the report is being released to the world…if everyone gives it to five people, with the ‘give to five people’ message, the information could spread. Send to friends, realtors, legislators, Association of Realtors, Real Estate Commissioner, judges, news stations..even leave copies in your Doctor’s office. How refreshing to grab this report rather than your typical waiting room magazine.

One piece of material educating people on many aspects of HOA living, with a multitude of examples, written to help buyers know what they need to look for when buying into an HOA. A real eye opener…change occurs one buyer and one HOA at a time.

Legislators need to make substantial changes to the law and can’t ignore this. If they do, lets hold a rally. Most real estate agents I know are disgusted and want this changed. Today it was made available to 4700 of them. Please help by giving this report to 5 people and ask them to give it out to five people.

(go to report, print this out and distribute)

(KPHO-TV news story about Jill Schweitzer’s brochure!)

Taps

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

The first time I ever heard Taps, I was at Girl Scout camp. We sang it when our eyelids were heavy and our sleeping bags were calling our names. It relaxed me at the same time it created a rush of excitement in anticipation of waking up to a new day of celebrating friendship and learning. After that time, I mostly heard it during televised burials. On that bitter cold day in March when my dad was laid to rest, the final sounds of the service were of the trumpet echoing over the lake as Taps bid him a final farewell. I will always cherish that send off to my hero.

Here we have a Tacoma, Washington neighborhood bidding the daily sun a good-bye with Taps all because of one man, their cherished neighbor, Don Brittain. In his heart, Don is playing those notes to honor those who serve in the United States military. But the notes he echoes across Puget Sound are bringing a sense of peace to all within earshot as well.

From the video interviews and the variety of homes and paint colors I tend to believe this is not a homeowners association. But I wonder, what if? What if someone blew Taps at every sunset in America’s HOAs would it bring peace and mellow out the war zones? Or would the HOA board decide it was a reason to fine, lien, and foreclose on the trumpeter’s home?

Is there anything humanly possible that will bring peace to these nightmare HOAs? Or will that only come when these dilapidated poorly-constructed townhomes are laid to rest in the landfill while the earth is being excavated for re-development? Perhaps thenTaps will be blown for the betterment of all.

I found these videos to be very special, I hope our readers will, too.

(another story on trumpeter by KOMO TV, Seattle)

 

Nevada Judge Finally Shows Some Guts

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Well, good old Las Vegas mobster Leon Benzer has finally met justice in his plan to steal millions and millions of dollars from Homeowners Associations. Not much justice, but at least federal judge James Mahan has now sentenced Benzer to 15 1/2 years in federal prison. With ‘good time’ he may end up spending seven years behind bars. Most of his 38 co-conspirators in the massive scam to take over Las Vegas Homeowners Associations got probation to a year-and-a-half in prison.

Of the other conspirators, a number have died, some of them by suicide. Benzer was the last to be sentenced in the long-running case.

How much did Benzer steal from homeowners? Untold millions. But this gangster’s damage has ripples that will go on forever. Home values in Las Vegas crashed, people lost their homes and all their retirement savings. Foreclosures spiked because so much money was bled out of HOAs. Investigators have said Benzer & Company actually stole somewhere beween 60 and 100 million dollars from homeowners.

But get ready for the real story: It hasn’t happened yet. Leon Benzer is very familiar with Mexico. A ton of money he stole ended up in a Mexican resort. There are links in the HOA investigation to a Mexican drug cartel. Benzer once owned his own Mexican tequila company. He doesn’t have to report for prison until November 6th. As fundamentally corrupt as this piece of trash is, what would stop him from crossing the border? Oh, that’s right. He might not be able to get across the ‘border fence.’

We’ll see.

(BTW, Benzer reads this website! How’s it goin’ Leon?)

(link to Las Vegas Review-Journal story on Benzer’s sentence)

 

N. Carolina HOA In Tatters

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guest blog by Andrea Barnes

HOAs across the country are begging local governments for help supporting their dilapidated “amenities”, roads and buildings.

Two issues:

1. Buyer beware. Most HOA contracts now have language that allows the sale of common land. All that lovely “green space” you paid a hefty price for may soon be public property.

2. Municipalities have relegated their “governmental” duties to private contracts. Since they operate as such and are being given the same powers to maintain infrastructure, manage neighborhood safety and health concerns, it’s long past time to acknowledge HOAs as mini municipalities.

The neighborhood group previously asked the town for help paying for maintenance, but was turned down because town officials didn’t want to spend public funds on a private pond. The town has turned down many neighborhoods that had similar requests, Frantz said.

But at Coronado Village, he said, “There are some concerns now that it’s potentially becoming a health problem.”

(link to News Observer story on Coronado Village)

(link to additional story in News Observer)

 

I’m Not Blacklisting Anyone!

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I’ve now heard from several NAW people that they either can’t log in or can’t comment on the website. Nobody is blacklisted from this site (except for excessive profanity). But there’s apparently some new anti-spam software on many servers that’s causing huge problems. If anyone on a big server is sending out spam everybody on that server gets blocked. My webmaster is working on the problem.

Ward