Category Archives: Handicap

Is This The Future Of Your HOA?!?!

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I keep warning about the impending crash of the American Homeowners Association as we know it. You bought into your HOA because you thought it would protect property values. A few HOAs actually did maintain their value for a while. But just give it time. Throw a few lawsuits around, fine a few dozen homeowners for petty violations that could easily have been handled in a more genteel way. But there’s a moment coming when homeowners will just lease out their homes to get away from screaming board members.

A funny thing happens when the number of rental homes reaches a certain percentage: Mortgage companies quit lending. Then more homes are converted to rentals. More nastiness from the board. At some point your $200,000 investment becomes worth about twenty or thirty thousand. Then you have a neighborhood like the one linked below. Imagine owning a home in TymberSkan on the Lake.

From Florida to Overland Park, Kansas to Nevada and Crooked California a growing number of once thriving Homeowners Associations desperately need to be bulldozed.

(link to Florida’s TymberSkan HOA nightmare)

 

Another Wonderful Discovery

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I’ve concentrated far too heavily on the term “Homeowners Association,” using it as a generic term for HOAs, Condo Associations, Property Owners Associations, co-ops and all other forms of private government housing. But that means I’ve neglected to pay special attention to co-ops, the kind of housing agreements that are more common in New York than German Cockroaches.

(Sometime, remind me to tell you the story of how I was almost arrested for sex assault on a Times Square elevator! Yes, it involved a woman and a German Cockroach. Some things aren’t funny until much, much later.)

In  any event, Habitat Magazine is designed for New Yorkers who live in the parasitic environs of the ‘co-op.’ And they suffer along with the rest of us.

It seems that a New York prosecutor has suddenly discovered that fraud and embezzlement occasionally happen in New York co-ops. (Editor’s comment: “Duh.”)

They haven’t named the suspected management company, yet. But New Yorkers might someday discover what those of us in ‘fly-over’ country have known for years. YOUR ASSOCIATION IS CORRUPT!

Sad to say, but if you confer on some uneducated board member shmuck the ability to drain the co-op account, what in tarnation does that mean? It means your HOA board member is an embezzling shmuck! It’s the most unreported felony in the FBI crime stats! But New Yorkers are really just as stupid as the rest of us. They talk faster than we do. But they’re still just as stupid.

(Habitat Magazine’s article on co-op embezzlement case)

 

Oh! My Goodness…Imagine THIS Happening In A Condo Association

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
 
My title might have been the reaction back in the 1960’s.  Since then HOAs and COAs have come a long way in the development of dishonest business practices, deception, and embezzlement.
 
$81K was all they could charge the COA treasurer, Kostantina Gardner with stealing.  But they are sure it’s more than that.  Folks, I promise you it’s more…probably a whole lot more!
 
If not for the water bills being $55K in arrears this might have gone on for another twenty years. Clifford Albertson has been the board president since dirt was invented and he trusted this well-liked treasurer.  
 
I have some questions for Clifford: 
 
1) How did she get an ATM card on the BonAire Condominium One Complex bank account?  
This should have been established long ago that no one could walk in and acquire an ATM card!
 
2) Why was the board not reviewing the water bills? 
 
(a) And the other utility bills? 
 
(b) And most of all the bank statements?!?!?
 
 
Folks, we must change the way we think!  
 
We lock the car door when we get out.  We bolt the house shut, turn on the alarm, and illuminate the exterior.  We take steps to avoid being caught up in identity theft.  We teach our children about “stranger danger.”  We place lanyards on the elderly for a medical alert. We dance in circles and jump up and down warning our daughters about “date rape” drugs.  We cross the street and walk faster with our pepper spray ready when we see a teenager in a “hoodie.”
 
Yes, we do it ALL to protect ourselves YET we totally trust the people we should be the most suspicious of….the HOA board and the property managers!  STOP IT!  Stop trusting these people. They know you trust them by not paying attention and never asking any questions.  Stop giving them the freedom to steal, deceive, lie, and destroy your bank account and property values!
 
Think about it…If just one member of this condo association had asked to see the water bill or the bank statement this thief could have been caught long ago!  
 
Remember: the word TRUST and HOAs or COAs or property managers should never be used in the same sentence! 
 

 

Can They Really Do That?

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Can an HOA which dissolved itself really come back to life and start liening homes?

Can an HOA refuse to disclose its budget to homeowners?

Sadly, we get questions like these all the time. And the answer: An HOA can do whatever the heck it wants, whenever the heck it wants and there’s very little you as a homeowner can do about it.

Sure, you’ll read lots of ‘pablum’ like in the story linked below on how homeowners can ‘reclaim’ their neighborhoods. But it’s mostly junk information. The bottom line is that if you, as a homeowner can get screwed you probably will get screwed. Get used to it. It’s a fact of life. Of course there are laws on the books all over the country. There are laws against infidelity, too. But when’s the last time you saw anyone criminally prosecuted for it?

There really is an answer for homeowners who want their boards to follow the law. Create mandatory criminal penalties for board members or HOA managers who break the law. Throw them in jail. After all, these board members ran for office promising to be honest. Just like a Congressman who breaks the public trust, nothing will ever, ever change until we start filling our jails with public officials who refused to honor the public trust.

Jail!

Nothing else will work.

(link to nonsense article about getting HOAs to obey the law)

http://newstimes.augusta.com/news/2014-06-01/ivy-falls-home-owners-divided-over-revived-association

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Another Kind of Guest Blog

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(note to readers: This lady’s email request was so poignant that, with her permission, I wrote it up as a ‘guest blog’. Let’s help her with some suggestions)  

 

guest blog by Pippi

Hello! As many homeowners have likely done, we bought a place with an HOA. It was in 2005, and it was our first home. I would need 2 hands to count all the mistakes we made, and have nobody to blame but ourselves.

Our real-estate agent was also an owner here, and on the board, and quite pushy. Fast-forward 9 years – our condo that we bought for 96,900 is now worth about 40k! We pay “interest-only” on the loan (almost no equity at this point). We pay 417/mo. for HOA and utilities (no washer or dryer, no air conditioner, no tv in living room, etc).

The whole property is a dump. They are trying to pass a special assessment. Our portion of it would be almost 7k. They are “offering” a payment plan of 2 years, so about $280/mo on top of the $417. If I had $700/month extra, I wouldn’t be living here. In return for this assesment, we get nothing (and in fact, it includes the demolition, but not rebuilding, of our carport for insurance reasons).

Part of the reason we bought this home was that the dues included an exercise room, hot tub and car port, and now all 3 of those amenities will be absent.

I’m looking for advice on how to get out of this mess. We can’t sell, as we’re upside down, and one would have to be crazy to enter into any agreement with this HOA. We can’t even short-sell, as an older management company put liens the on every unit for non-payment of emergent repairs. Ugh, help! Do we just quit paying and save the dough to rent? Pay the bank but not HOA? Pay both and hang in there as long as possible?

This is the tip of the iceberg as far as our HOA issues go. I could write a book, too, unfortunately.