Category Archives: Foreclosures

Ouch! Things Get Nasty!

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The latest neighborhood nastiness comes to us from Newport News, Virginia and the Kiln Creek Homeowners Association. Eight years ago Bill and Janeth Garlette built a koi pond in their backyard. And for eight long years the HOA has approved of their pond and their various gardening improvements. 

All of a sudden, a new HOA board has hit the couple with two dozen alleged violations of neighborhood covenants. The couple’s attempts at fighting the allegations were futile, so Garlette ripped out the koi pond and razed the backyard to bring it into compliance. But even that wasn’t good enough, and the HOA has filed a 300,000 dollar lawsuit.

Yes, there are allegations of death threats back and forth between the Garlettes and a neighbor who they think instigated the HOA lawsuit. And yes, the Garlettes say they are now officially out of money.

HOAs claim they were set up to protect property values. But this is one neighborhood where property is going to be very difficult to sell.

(click here for WVEC-TV story)

 

Council Member Shevawn Akers Kicks Off Her Heels…Says Come On, Let’s Fight!

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

    ~follow up to blog of November 15th~

HOA members across the country are outraged to hear the story of 75-year old Ingrid Boak, who lost her mortgage-free home in Lexington, Kentucky. And it was all over a minuscule amount of HOA dues owed to Masterson Station.

Nathan Billings, the HOA’s attorney, says they followed the CC&Rs and it was all legal. Okay, but had there been a mortgage for $135k would this same procedure have been followed??? Admission has been made that MOST foreclosures by HOAs include an unpaid mortgage. Sorry, Mr. Billings, but this case smells worse than a pile of race horse manure!

Kentuckians are now scared of losing their homes and panic has set in. The checks are stacking up with delinquent dues payments. But don’t be jumping for joy too soon! Thanks to this story, far more home buyers nationwide have now learned the nasty, ugly and ruthless truth about HOAs! And you can bet their Realtors are going to hear, “Don’t show me any property with an HOA!!!

Hearing that a City Council member is supporting Ms. Boak gives us hope that the end result will be what’s morally right. Shevawn Akers has a Facebook page. What do you say? Let’s encourage her with our support so she’ll fight harder to save Ingrid’s home.

If Stephen Collins Foster were alive today he’d probably change his 1851 song title to, “My Old Kentucky Home before The HOA.”

http://www.kentucky.com/2013/12/03/2967748/masterson-station-foreclosure.html

 

Newly-elected HOA President Exercises Power…Off To The Court House They Go!

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guest blog by Nila Ridings

Kenneth Torrence is a Palm Beach sheriff’s deputy. His best friend is his mixed breed dog, Sasha. But they both have the misfortune of living in the Whispering Woods of Palm Beach Homeowners Association. Kenneth and Sasha have lived there for two years with no problems.  

Suddenly, a newly elected HOA president, Maria O’Connell, says Sasha is a pit bull and has to go. In fact, a  letter sent by Castle Management LLC says, “If you do not take action to resolve this violation within (10) days of the date of this letter, the Association will have the work performed, with all costs charged to your account.”  
 
What are they planning???  To steal his dog?  Put her in the animal shelter? Euthanize her?  
 
Animal activist Maria Rivera says Sasha isn’t a pit bull. In fact, a DNA test showed she’s a mix of five breeds. Besides, Rivera says, other neighbors and their dogs like Sasha. The only one who doesn’t is Maria O’Connell.
 
Torrence says he’ll take it to court. Initial legal costs will be around $30,000.  But just wait and see what happens when the HOA pulls in its insurance-backed legal team to beat up on the deputy.  That 30,000 will be nothing more than seed money. 
 
I say, Kenneth, pack up Sasha and move!  Make a donation to the local animal shelter instead of paying for another vacation home for the HOA attorney!
 
 

Mama “Goes Grizzly” on HOA Bully

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
 
Just when I think I’ve read my craziest HOA story yet…here comes another!
 
Burl Fluharty, head of Westfields Condominium Association in Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania must be on some kind of power trip. He’s decided that kids from an adjacent HOA-free subdivision should be subjected to his dictatorship, too! The two neighborhoods share a street, and Fluharty demanded they quit riding bicycles there….or he’d call the police!
 
“BACK OFF BURL!!!”  
 
Dorene Akujobi pounced like an Alaskan Mama bear protecting her cubs.  If her kids ride their bikes on the shared street, she’ll protect them from Burl’s verbal abuse.  She growled and showed her teeth and maybe her claws, too. “Bully Burl” has no jurisdiction outside of his HOA fiefdom. And Mama Grizzly stood her ground.
 
Fluharty, realizing his threats to call the cops weren’t scaring Dorene, tried another tactic. He had his HOA attorney, Robert Stewart, write a letter threatening a lawsuit. Fluharty must have been thinking “if I can’t scare her with the threat of cops, I’ll scare her with the threat of going to court! If it works on my turf, it should work on hers!” (And how nice that his HOA gets to pay this guy’s idiotic legal bills!)
 
As Fluharty continued to press his case, he argued that the real reason he wanted the kids off the street was because elderly drivers in his condos might not see them! It apparently didn’t dawn on him that elderly drivers who can’t see kids on bikes probably shouldn’t be driving.
 
But there was a lovely followup to the story as related in one of the comments below from a fellow neighbor: It seems the Township’s attorney wrote a letter to Fluharty telling him to cease and desist flinging his threats around the neighborhood. Even if he is an HOA president, there are limits to his power.   
 
Back to Mama Grizzly: “Way to go, Dorene!”
 

Changing Times

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I think it was Mark Twain who advised people to buy land because God wasn’t making any more of it. He also said, “No man’s life, liberty or property are safe when the Legislature’s in session.” His last witticism may have been more accurate than the first. 

Look  around the country where condos and residential high rises are being bought up by foreign investors. In Florida, California, Texas, Colorado, and Pennsylvania, senior citizens are buying small retirement homes where they hope to be comfortably living out their years. But as more and more of these apartments are turned into rentals, property values have plummeted.
 
Teresa Fusco of Reading, Pennsylvania found herself in a stunning situation. Her condo at Deer Path Woods was initially appraised at more than a hundred thousand dollars. She was one of eleven families who owned their homes outright. Ninety seven other units were held by renters, but the appraisals all said the units were worth about a hundred-thousand each. 
Then, Teresa learned that an investor was buying up all those rental units for about $7200 apiece, essentially giving himself almost 90% control of the entire complex. 
 
It gets deeper, still. 
 
The investor said that now he had all the votes he needed to control the association he promptly dissolved it. Throwing his new found weight around even more, the investor announced he was putting the entire complex up for sale. He got himself a new bulk appraisal which said the complex was worth far less than anyone imagined and the condominium was suddenly on the auction block. 
 
Any guesses as to who the top bidder was? Yep, the same investor who bought up all the rental units he had initially purchased and put up for auction. Except he now owned all those units which were once in private hands. Hands like those of Teresa Fusco.
 
Those former homeowners are just shaking their heads in bewilderment. This kind of thing can’t happen in America can it?
 
Well, it happened in Pennsylvania.