Category Archives: Duck Dynasty

New Website Numbers!!

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Folks, you’ve helped us blow right through another milestone. The 12 month running average shows that as of last night there’ve been 500,000 logins to this website, and those people have read 4.1 million pages of material. Those are fabulous numbers. So keep telling everyone you know about this site, and let’s get the word out to even more people.

If you have a friend who’s thinking of buying a new house or condo, tell them to read my book, Neighbors At War!  

If your friend or relative already lives in a nightmare HOA, buy him or her a copy of Neighbors at War! And (hint, hint) Christmas is coming.

I keep hearing of libraries that are carrying or re-ordering copies of Neighbors At War. I can probably thank our frequent guest blogger Nila Ridings for a lot of that. She makes regular visits to her library in the Kansas City area to find out how many people are checking the book out.

Speaking of guest bloggers, some of the country’s top thinkers are submitting guest blogs here. You won’t find a better treasure chest of must-read material dissecting the nightmare of living in a covenant controlled community.

Living in an HOA makes me think of an experience I had many years ago when my parents took my two brothers and me to see the cliff divers in Acapulco. These young men and women stand on this amazingly high cliff and inspect the waves as they noisily crash against the rocks below. They hook their toes on the edge, looking down, watching for the highest wave. Their timing has to be perfect. Diving into a trough means a chance of breaking your neck on the bottom. Hitting a crest might provide the diver two or three feet of deeper water and thus a safer dive.

“Only the experts can do that,” my dad said. “Only the experts and crazy people would risk it.”

I won’t state the obvious. That’s your conclusion to make.

 

HOA TV Interview in Denver

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Ward Lucas on HOA Madness

Ward Lucas on HOA MadnessHi Folks,

This interview got out to our network a little bit early, mainly because I was still learning how to embed videos directly on the Neighbors At War website. Now that I’ve learned how, I may be able to link to more interesting HOA related videos. One possible subject that comes to mind is videotapes of fights and assaults in Homeowner Association meetings! That might be educational for those who are skeptical about our claims of rampant abuse of homeowners in the HOA system. So feel free to send me links to such videos.

My interviewer this past weekend was Jon Caldara, a radio and TV fixture in Colorado and host of Devil’s Advocate, a PBS show in the Denver area. Caldara is also head of the Independence Institute, an activist conservative think tank. Many of those reading this blog are liberals or libertarians. This interview gives me another chance to emphasize that our cause is not liberal OR conservative.  It’s about the loss of Constitutional rights in neighborhoods which were built only because they were mandated by local government.

We have to continue spreading the word that real government institutions should never be allowed to mandate the formation of quasi-government or faux-government organizations that consistently deny Constitutional rights.

 

 

HOA War In North Carolina

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North Carolina is certainly a state where the HOA system has gotten way out of control. Fortunately, outspoken advocates like Ole Madsen (HEAR4NC.org) are articulating the insanity that’s disrupting the lives of so many homeowners around the country.

When you buy into an HOA, you’re essentially pledging all your personal assets to a group of partners, most of whom you’ve never met. Your assets become the de facto assets of a non-profit corporation which is potentially subject to liability lawsuits, damage from natural disasters, poor workmanship by developers, frivolous legal actions by overreaching board members, embezzlement by board officers and management companies. That’s a crazy kind of partnership, but it’s one that tens of millions of Americans have blindly accepted. And it’s one where HOA law firms are bathing in the mythical pot-of-gold.

In many HOAs homeowners are beginning to realize that they’ve entered a vortex that is spinning downwards, threatening property values and life savings.

The TV story linked below is worth watching. But as you do so, just be aware this isn’t an isolated incident. The HOA system in America is so badly broken it can never be fixed. It’s built to reward criminal behavior and those who bully their way to the top. When there’s a record of bad behavior by HOA officials and management companies, how do you persuade a potential buyer to take over your mortgage?

(link to WWAY TV story on missing HOA money)

 

HOA Controversies Finally Getting Media Attention

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I cannot remember a time in my 40 years as a journalist when so many broadcast stations were discussing abuse of homeowners by their own Homeowners Associations. Denver, Las Vegas, Houston, San Antonio, Florida, Virginia, North and South Carolina. Talk show hosts are inviting homeowners’ rights advocates to join them on the air, newspaper columnists are finally standing up to the incredible falsehoods being spread by those who profit from managing HOAs or supplying lawyers to sue homeowners over incredibly minor infractions.

Another shift I’m seeing, unless I’m fooling myself, is a change in attitudes among the talk show hosts, themselves. In past years many of them have been big defenders of the HOA system. But in at least a half dozen cases I’ve seen prominent talk show hosts changing their opinions and deciding that the kind of ‘democracy’ practiced in many HOAs is getting pretty outrageous.

This week I was in getting some medical tests done and the medical tech told me about some things he had witnessed in his own HOA. He hadn’t been through anything more significant than the occasional nastygram. Those nastygrams! We all get them. But they really do change the character of a neighborhood, don’t they? What makes a homeowner want to attend the 4th of July or Labor Day picnics when he’s constantly eyeing the crowd for the Nastygram Lady or the board members who sling the lawsuits? I’ve lived in neighborhoods both inside and outside of HOAs. And the block party, in my experience, was always better attended in the more traditional neighborhoods.

Anyway, I really do feel there’s a national shift occurring, probably because more and more people are speaking out about the abuses they’ve witnessed or experienced in their own neighborhoods. More and more people are feeling the sting of falling or static property values in HOAs which they presumed would protect their investments. This website is growing…I’ll have more on that in a few days. But people are spreading the word about HOA outrages on this and other forums.

Off topic, but even more important, I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving, hopefully with family…and with good neighbors.

“You Saved My Life!”

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

“Hey, Nila! How are you?” “Great, how are you?” “I’m great, too. I’m buying a condo!!!”

I’m not sure if my heart stopped or just skipped several beats. Janice said my face instantly drained of color and she thought I was going to faint. I remember feeling frozen in place and my mouth suddenly became as dry as a California river bed.

“Janice! You can’t do that!!!!!” I blurted out as she was bringing me a cup of water. Janice was planning to buy a condo because she didn’t want to mow grass or shovel snow any longer. I told her to hire that work out. And proceeded to educate her with my arsenal of information about HOA and condo living. She sent the Realtor a text message cancelling their Saturday morning appointment. The Realtor responded by questioning if there was a scheduling conflict. Janice wrote back, “No, I don’t want to buy anything with an HOA!”

Janice walked out from behind the cash register and gave me a big hug while telling me I had saved her life. I refused her offer to buy my groceries in exchange for “saving her life.” She literally was going to sign a contract for a condo in less than forty-eight hours.

Janice is the classic candidate for HOA abuse. She’s getting a divorce, over sixty, paying cash, and seeking maintenance-free living. Our loyal readers know just the thoughts of her buying that condo makes the board members salivate. Like lions on a fresh piece of raw meat they were hunkered down just waiting for her arrival.

Talk about timing! Today, I was in the right place at the right time. I’m so thankful another innocent person is not going to walk into the hell of HOA living. Education is a powerful thing!