Category Archives: Foreclosures

To Hell With The Handicapped!

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It’s amazing to discover how few people know that Homeowners Associations routinely discriminate against the handicapped. Despite federal law against such discrimination, HOAs generally do what they dang well please. Once in a rare while HUD will file a lawsuit. Invariably that means a huge fine assessed against every member of the neighborhood. You can be a completely innocent homeowner and suddenly find tens of thousands of dollars assessed against your home because some idiot on the board did something stupid.  

This story is not about HOA discrimination, just the nastiness that routinely happens around families with disabled children.

Fountain is a small town on the outskirts of Colorado Springs. A family there has a 16 year old daughter with Cerebral Palsy. The City of Fountain gave them a permit to build a wheelchair ramp to their front door, but the neighbors are outraged. They say the wheelchair ramp could destroy their property values. The family says the next-door neighbors are threatening to sue.

If this actually was a Homeowners Association, the couple with the handicapped child would already be out on the street. It’s happened before.

It really has….happened before.

http://tinyurl.com/l7xhrkc

 

Killing the Deal!

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Ah, Bunky.

So you’ve finally gotten that wonderful new job in another city and you’ve gotta put your condo on the market. Well, get ready for some bad news. The boards of Homeowners Associations just love killing real estate transactions. And they’ve got lots ways to do it.

An article in Marketleader.com talks about a few of the ways a Homeowners Association can kill your deal to sell your home to a prospective buyer.

If your HOA has a history of filing liens and lawsuits against homeowners, you might as well donate your property to a charity. You’ll never sell it. And  a mortgage company will never let your buyer make the purchase.

If your HOA has any kind of legal history (think Trayvon Martin) then your contract with the new buyer is probably dead.

If there’s any history of discrimination or construction defect litigation, then you may as well kiss your home equity bye-bye.

The mortgage companies are getting wise.

Ladies and Gentlemen: Behold the monster you have created!

http://tinyurl.com/mhlvtc4

 

Outlaw Gardens!

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It’s amazing to read the hundreds of stories about neighbors who’ve been fined, sued, liened or foreclosed for the simple crime of planting some vegetables somewhere around the house. HOAs hate any kind of plant that’s edible. And planting a cucumber or other veggie can actually end up costing you your house. Welcome to HOA Amerika!

So it’s kind of fun to see that there really is a growing movement called Outlaw Gardens. How to have a vegetable garden without the local lawn Nazi knowing about it.

I’ll link to one of the sites below, but please understand that this isn’t a be-all end-all solution for you. Some of these lawn Nazis are so intrusive that you still can get busted. And remember that most HOAs have approve of any and all of your landscaping changes. So have fun. But just be cautious!

http://tinyurl.com/m6mmfy8

 

Can They Really Take My Guns?

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Can my Homeowners Association really take my guns away even if it’s without any mention on my lease or CC&Rs? Yes, they can and do. Across the country HOA boards have denied homeowners their Second Amendment right to bear arms many times. As I keep saying, HOAs are not subject to the U.S. Constitution so they can ban just about anything they want.

In a recent case in Texas a homeowner was hit with fines and threats of foreclosure because he ran a website where he sold guns. Mind you, not a single gun ever came through this property because the homeowner never received any shipments. 100% of his guns changed hands on the Internet.

There was a kerfuffle last week in Colorado, when Ross Management, a company that manages a number of neighborhoods suddenly passed an anti-gun ban on all its properties. (Trayvon Martin effect?) Many retired military live in Ross developments and they hit the ceiling. There was negative news coverage across the nation and Ross has kind of, sort of backed away from the gun ban. For now.

It’s not the first outrage by this property management group, either. Among the rules residents have to sign is that they are forbidden from ever speaking ill of Ross Management. So, the next step may be evicting those homeowners who dared to speak to the news media about the ban on guns.

We’ll see.

http://tinyurl.com/n8xddgv

 

Are You A Sinner?

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That was just hypothetical. According to some religions we are ALL sinners. But what gives a Homeowners Association the right to determine who is a sinner and who is not?

I know, you think I’m just exaggerating again. But my regular readers know I NEVER resort to hyperbole, right?

Well, Bunky, take a look at the latest outrage in a Venice, Florida Homeowners Association. The Casa Di Amici Condo Association refuses to allow a condo sale to anybody it deems (in its own infinite wisdom) to be ‘living in sin.’ Now, if, as the Bible teaches, we are all sinners and no one is capable of judging one another, what in Hell is going on here?

Major life decisions, i.e., investing all your money in a home, is now up to a board of directors who take a vote on whether a prospective buyer is a sinner? Is there a point system? Would my war-widowed mother be deemed a sinner because she married again?  Would I be excluded because I was the second child of my widowed mother? Would a rape victim who chose not to abort a child be rated higher or lower on the Casa Di Amici Condo Association’s ‘sin scale’?

Give me a frickin’ break!

Losers, all of them. If I had their neighborhood address list I would publish it!

http://tinyurl.com/lju9hbt