The article linked below is stunning! Although this embezzler is not connected with an HOA, just consider this: if an undetected embezzler can steal $50 million from a small town, how much could an HOA management company steal from the 20 or 30 HOAs it oversees?
Unbelievable and stunning! Fifty million dollars! Watch your HOA like a hawk!
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/prosecutor-embezzlement-plea-warning-17721685
There’s a pretty good column in the Atlanta Business Chronicle about how the financial meltdown has impacted condo owners. Foreclosures and walkaways hammered the budgets of HOAs, not just in Atlanta, but all over the country. This columnist claims the market has turned around.
But wait! Wait! Financial news on the international and national scale is not good. In fact it’s somewhat bleak. The next decade could be a financial home wrecker. Pray for the best, plan for the worst.
Still, the column linked below is worth reading
For some odd reason, Homeowners Associations hate solar panels. The hate the idea of solar energy. They hate people who don’t hate solar energy and they’re willing to sue into oblivion any homeowner who dares put solar panels on his house.
In Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal signed an act permitting solar panels anywhere in the state. But the Azalea Gardens Homeowners Association in Shreveport apparently feels the law doesn’t affect them. They may be right, since they’re considered a private non-profit corporation. HOAs traditionally think that they’re above the law.
In any event, the link below from KTBS TV tells the story and shows video of the TV station being thrown out of the HOA meeting, even though it was an invited guest of homeowner Brian Salvatore.
http://www.ktbs.com/news/Man-Catches-Heat-Over-Solar-Panels/-/144844/17322526/-/dqcmx9z/-/index.html
There are thousands, possibly tens of thousands, of news articles about people who’ve been royally shafted in the American HOA system. There’s a very good article in today’s Fort Worth Weekly entitled “Hostage, Sweet Hostage.” It tells the story of a family who moved into a Texas HOA looking for security and safety. But an argument over a vehicle led to harrassment, fines, lawsuits and has cost this family their peace of mind.
This gated HOA has used a weapon against the family: locking the gate so they can’t reach their home, their guests can’t visit, the babysitter can’t enter to care for the kids. And when the family protests, HOA officials just flatly refuse to talk to them. Ah, but the HOA president finally talked to them. But only after joining hands with the family and praying before lowering the hammer.
What a world!
The Good Lord knows I don’t want to bore readers of my blog posts! But my feeling is that there are so many HOAs being victimized by embezzlers, that the name of every HOA crook ought to be publicized far and wide. These crooks are not only rotten people for stealing, but they’re stealing from neighbors who put them into positions of incredible trust. In many cases, they’re stealing from elderly retired people who just can’t afford to pay special assessments to cover the HOA’s losses.
Well, bore you or not, the latest embezzler to be sentenced to prison is 63 year old Nancy Walker. She managed the treasury of the Ballenger Creek Meadows HOA in Frederick County, Maryland. She stole more than 137,000 bucks. She claims she gave the money to an internet acquaintance she’d never met; a man who alternately claimed he was in a South African hospital, and later in a South African jail. It’s a great sob-story, but it doesn’t change the fact that Walker stole from neighbors who had trusted her.
She got a sentence of 18 months in prison and restitution. Why HOA thieves never get more than 18 months is a mystery to this blogger. But the restitution is no mystery. She’ll never pay it.
