Hoo-boy! I’m not exactly sure how to handle this one except to pass it along.
A former drug company executive who was fired years ago for trying to be a whistle-blower in his own company, is now trying to blow the whistle on his Fort Lauderdale Homeowners Association. The problem is that the HOA recognizes both Christmas and Hanukkah in the HOA clubhouse. Oh, for shame!
Christians and Jews have a long history of respect for each other’s religions. Sure, there have been occasional problems, but Christians revere Jesus who was Jewish. Christians have poured vast amounts of money into supporting Israel. And Jewish scientists have hired many Christian researchers in some of the most important medical discoveries in history. You’ll find many Jews and Christians working side by side at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.
In my mind it would be awful if a Homeowners Association didn’t respect both religions at this time of year, Kwanzaa, too, for that matter. How a neighborhood treats people from other religions has a profound impact on property values.
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.
The Illinois Supreme Court has handed down some pretty goofy decisions on behalf of Homeowners Associations. I loved the one last year, the ruling that gave untrained, private HOA security guards police powers, the ability to pull over motorists and hand out tickets.
This latest one is a humdinger. It makes any new buyer of a condo responsible for all unpaid assessments, fines and legal costs run up by the previous owner IF it fails to pay the first monthly assessment on time. Once again, ask yourself what financial organization in its right corporate mind would invest in an HOA? And if you can’t find lenders, what does that do to property values?
That’s Pennsylvania Dutch, and you can look it up if you’re interested.
But it basically means that a homeowner’s savings are all gone. And that’s exactly what’s happening as FEMA redraws its maps for flood zones. A couple of years ago 20,000 homes were damaged or destroyed in a devastating flood in Boulder, Colorado. I remember it well because a close friend and I spent 12 hours trying to find a way out of the flooded streets, the collapsing pavement and entire homes drifting down the middle of major boulevards. We survived, but we had to endure waves of water crashing over my 2001 Blazer. I can personally testify that Chevy Blazers actually float…at least for a little while.
The federal flood maps didn’t list any of those Boulder neighborhoods as flood zones and many homeowners discovered, to their horror, that as members of HOA corporations they didn’t qualify for federal emergency relief. If you own a home you get federal relief. If you’re in a Homeowners Association you are considered a stock holder, not a homeowner. Who knew?
Now, thousands of people around the country are discovering that their membership in Homeowners Associations won’t save them from future weather disasters as FEMA re-draws all the flood maps. What does that do to HOA property values? You get just one guess!
Just amazing! Just in time for Christmas, counties in Florida are offering rewards for turning in criminals. Just look around your HOA and you can find plenty of board members and property managers who are stealing, bribing, defrauding and embezzling from homeowners. There’s your Christmas money.
Just take this advice from a long-time investigative reporter. Whenever the cops ask you to anonymously call an 800 number, the dirty secret is that you’re not anonymous. The Crimestoppers 800 number is a complete and total scam. Call from a phone booth.
