Mel Pittel has waged a years-long fight to bring transparency to his Meadow Creek Homeowners Association in a suburb of Minneapolis. Pittel was even voted in by fellow homeowners as a board member. But the board got a restraining order preventing him from even attending board meetings. Now, a judge has refused the board’s attempt to get the restraining order extended. “Free speech,” said the judge.
Pittel has worked long and hard to inform other HOA members of what he suspects is financial mismanagement by the board. The fight has taken a heavy toll on his finances. But this country has a long history of people who’ve sacrificed everything for their fellow man. The link below is worth reading.
Florida and Nevada are probably the worst states in the country for HOA abuse. There are a thousand ways to steal private homes from their rightful owners, and it happens many times each day, probably each hour. It’s a national tragedy that state and federal politicians are absolutely unwilling to examine. No, it’s much easier to turn your back in the direction of the proffered cash. A shame, for sure.
At least more and more members of the media are ‘getting it.’ The latest is Orlando Sentinel reporter Beth Kassab. Yes, if she Googles her own name, she’ll see this post!
This one happened right under my nose here in the Denver area. The Denver vicinity, as some of you know, is home to one of the biggest HOA embezzling cases in the country. A management company stole homeowners blind in a largely minority community. But these homeowners were smart enough to catch this jerk. The bitterness, though, never really goes away.
Now there’s another incident, this one in the same part of town. David W. Martin, PMG Enterprises Inc., has had to surrender his state license to manage Homeowners Associations. He may be the first to do so under Colorado’s new licensing law. The law isn’t perfect. It has very few teeth and some appointed state officials who are really out of their league.
For the record, here’s a link to the story in the Denver Business Journal.
Across the country, more and more major news agencies are either doing, or are planning extensive stories on the HOA mess. It’s more than a mess. It’s a national outrage. It perpetuates the outrageous lie that a Homeowners Association will protect your property values. Not in my experience!
Here’s the link to an excellent story beginning with the victimization of an innocent family.
Don’t ever tell yourself the world of Homeowners Associations can’t get any wackier. The stories are sometimes too outrageous to believe. Here’s another.
The president of the Coronado Place Homeowners Association in Tucson is handing out speeding fines and then threatening to shut off the water if those fines aren’t paid. Under Arizona state law, that’s illegal. But it took public exposure by a great reporter at KVOA News to embarrass this women into backing down.
