Category Archives: Handicap

Crap Flies Sky High Over Virginia Capitol

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It’s extraordinarily rare for a homeowner to win a lawsuit against a Homeowners Association. The most memorable victory last year was by a couple in Olde Belhaven Town Owners Association in Northern Virginia. As you may recall, the couple put up an Obama for President sign in their front yard. Their HOA ordered it taken down because it was four inches too wide.

After the dust settled from the lawsuits, the couple won when the judge ruled that an HOA board couldn’t create resolutions to assess fines unless the covenants contemplated such actions.

This HOA, by the way, declared bankruptcy to try to keep the couple from collecting a dime.

In any event, the Virginia Legislature, ever anxious to protect the cash flow to lawyers, is now contemplating a new state law which would permit Virginia Homeowners Associations to assess fines against residents without having to change their covenants.

As always, there are greasy fingers all over this legislation. The Community Associations Institute (CAI) is out in force lobbying for this awful law. CAI rakes in billions of dollars each year on behalf of lawyers and management companies who kick back dues to the CAI. 

As I’ve continued to say on this blog, you don’t have to be a Republican, Democrat, Tea Partier or Libertarian to be repulsed by this kind of anti-homeowner legislation. It’s all wrong.

But as long as you have cash in your pocket and equity in your home, someone is trying to take it.

(click here for text to proposed Virginia legislation, HB791 – LeMunyon)

After reading this bill, consider contacting your Representative or State Legislator.

 

Massachusetts Condo Boards Out Of Control

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I’m always happy to pass along a link to a blog where HOA members are discovering the tyrannies that are coming to dominate the controlled neighborhood scene.

Some folks in Massachusetts are beginning to realize the horrors of living in a community where hidden personal agendas are par-for-the-course among board members and property managers.

Home ownership is an incredibly personal and private thing, just as a marriage relationship is private and relationships with children are personal and private.

Yes, government can intervene when laws are broken. But to have your neighbors pry into your private affairs is universally disgusting and revolting. Official retaliation against a homeowner in an effort to force him or her out of the neighborhood is as nauseating as the racism and sexism that dominated housing trends over the past century.

With that in mind, here comes another blogger who deserves to be followed as Massachusetts HOA boards are put under the microscope:

(link to Massachusetts blog)

 

http://20140125.commentary-by-ms-condo-board-reform.condoboardreform.tel/

Say It Ain’t So, Joe!

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The biggest corruption investigation in the history of Nevada, and one of the largest criminal investigations in the history of the U.S. Attorney’s Office is in danger of collapsing, with four years and millions of dollars of investigative efforts going down the tubes. The ultimate result will be the U.S. Government totally turning its eyes away from one of the biggest and most vicious frauds in American history.

A massive number of homeowners in the Las Vegas Valley have discovered the assets they thought they’d accumulated in their retirement homes were stolen…by lawyers, politicians, public officials, corrupt Homeowner Association officials.

The feds have known about this scam for years. Nevada law enforcement officials have known about it for at least a decade. 29 HOA officials have already pleaded guilty in exchange for their testimony against the bigwigs who rigged HOA elections with phony board members and funneled millions of dollars into private pockets.

A dozen Nevada bigwigs have been indicted. But their defense attorneys are now claiming they need at least another year to prepare a defense for their clients. They claim they still have millions of pages of testimony to examine.

This is the way Organized Crime works, folks. Stall, stall, stall, let a witness die here and there, some by suicide, some by car accident. Let a few more come down with faulty memories, get a few more federal investigators transferred to cushy assignments in foreign embassies, get some different people elected… and your investigation goes right down the toilet.

Did the feds finally get Al Capone for murder, assault, robbery, kidnapping, smuggling, murder for hire? Naw, they got him for a few income tax violations.

Yep, folks. That’s the way it works. Pray this Nevada judge doesn’t grant defense attorneys a year-long stay.

(link to latest Las Vegas Review Journal story)

 

Bank Foreclosures Down, HOA Foreclosures Up!

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Regular readers of this blog have long known most of the material in the article linked below. But regular readers also know that I’ve long predicted a second massive housing bubble, this one larger than the one in 2009, this one directed squarely at the 63 million homes controlled by Homeowners Associations.

As you read the article below, keep in mind that most of these 63 million homeowners have loans backed by the now bankrupt Fannie Mae, Freddy Mac along with the FHA and various other agencies connected with the federal government.

You still want to move into a Homeowners Association?

(link to story from Naked Capitalism)

 

Court Rules That Bloggers ARE Journalists

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In my book, Neighbors At War, I encourage homeowners rights activists to keep track of the wrongdoing of HOA board members and shout those wrongs from the rooftops.

HOA board members are public figures because they sought election to a public position. They are therefore public figures and you as a critic have special protections against libel and slander lawsuits.

Now, yet another federal court has ruled the same thing. It’s a long string of court decisions that protect Freedom of Speech in America.

In the Oregon case linked below, a bankruptcy trustee sued a blogger who was critical of the trustee’s activities. Even though this trustee was not a public figure the court still ruled in favor of the blogger. Because the trustee’s activities were of public concern, he could not win his slander lawsuit unless he was able to prove negligence on the part of the blogger.

If you’re trying to correct problems in your corrupt or negligent HOA you have all the Free Speech protections that any journalist in America has. If you’re trying to correct bad behavior by out-of-control, fascist-like actions in your HOA, do it courageously!

(link to Associated Press story)