Category Archives: embezzle

Sentimental Journey Around Southmoor Gardens

      1 Comment on Sentimental Journey Around Southmoor Gardens
guest blog by Nila Ridings
I was near the area so on a whim I decided to carve out a few minutes from a very busy day and see…see what my old neighborhood looks like today.  My very first house was one of the smaller ones with it’s big trees, a red brick ranch with zoysia grass, and hand-picked by my dad.  He called it my “starter” home.
 
Together, we remodeled the kitchen and I worked every weekend on one project after another after Dad died.  I had an arsenal of tools and endless energy.  My neighbor lady told me her husband always said I was the hardest working woman he’d ever seen. According to her, he would see me pull up in my little sports car, jump out in my high heels and suit with my briefcase in hand, and race inside.  15 minutes later I’d reappear in my overalls with my aluminum ladder (another gift from Dad) and up I’d go to clean the gutters. Back down to mow the lawn and grab the extension cord so I could trim the shrubs. Occasionally needing a bandage for a cut or scrape and once the ladder dipped and caught the ground while I was carrying it and smacked me in the eye.  I wore a really deep purple, red, and black eye for several days after that.  I was always busy, but I never knew somebody was observing my routine until Mrs. Neighbor told me. Today, I don’t recall her name.
 
pinkhouseWhat I do recall was Dad making sure I did not buy a house with an HOA.  After this HOA nightmare I have been living, I observed my old neighborhood with a peaked and open-minded interest.  I had totally forgotten about the pink house!  It was pink before I moved there in 1984.  No two houses look the same.  Many had American flags flying today…and always did.  Some with swimming pools and others with porch swings.  Some ranches, some two stories, and one that has totally gone away.  Possibly earlier today?  I don’t know, but the bulldozers were still there and the earth looked freshly dug but the house was gone from the corner lot.
 
Today’s visit confirmed one thing for sure; that this HOA-Free neighborhood did not lose its value.  I sold for double what I paid and today that house is worth double that amount.  The people that bought it still own it.  The city records say the average price in Southmoor Gardens is $188K but there are houses valued at $500K.  Imagine that! Houses holding that kind of value with basketball goals, American flags flying, various house colors…even a pink one…fences of different styles, every color in the crayon box for front doors, paver bricks and concrete driveways and even one with gravel.  Swing sets, gazebos, and wrap around porches.  Nothing looked “junky” but it all looked lived in.  Every single house seemed to sing “Home Sweet Home” in Kansas as I passed by.
 
Do those 700 residents realize they are living in a piece of paradise?  Do they realize how all the HOA and CAI snobs scream about the surefire guarantee of a pink house destroying the property values in the neighborhood? Well, it’s impossible to argue with happy neighbors and increased property values, isn’t it?
 
Southmoor Gardens I miss you now more than ever!
 

Rootin’ Tootin’ Bootin’ At Ridge Creek Condos

      4 Comments on Rootin’ Tootin’ Bootin’ At Ridge Creek Condos
guest blog by Nila Ridings

Boy, Oh Boy! Is Heritage Property Management and Ridge Creek Condos in Clarkston, Georgia trying for the Georgia State Stupidity Award???

Kayla Holland is a condo renter. Her car got booted because her landlord didn’t pay  the HOA dues. She out-smarted them, she had the tires, boot and all removed! An unidentified owner has his dues debited from his bank account but he got the boot, too.

But we sent them a letter, says the goofball property manager! Did the letter say we have no right to do this but we are? Did it say we are going to hold your personal vehicle hostage and act like the “repo man” even though this debt has nothing to do with your car? Even though our CC&Rs don’t list your car as part of the contract you signed when you bought into this lousy loser of a condo complex, we are using every method we can dream up to collect our dues? Does it say our next step to collect will be kidnapping your children? What does that letter and their CC&Rs say? I want to read them!

What happens if an owner or renter gets called out? Let’s say it’s a doctor or a surgical nurse… and they race to their car and find it’s booted? And some innocent accident victim dies because they can’t get to the hospital. Or, they damage a tire or rim with that boot and the driver has an accident at 75 MPH and it’s determined to be caused by damage to the tire. Or, some guy gets a six pack and a few shots of tequila under his belt and decides to wait in his car for the “boot man” to arrive… and he has a loaded pistol. What, then, Heritage Property Management and Ridge Creek Condo Board of Directors? What then?

Here’s “what then!” All the condo owners are going to be liable for a multi-million dollar settlement from a nice, big nasty lawsuit. All over a boot that should never have been placed on the vehicle in the first place!

Good Gawd! Where does it stop? HOAs can take your home, wipe out your bank account, destroy your health, and now they think they can lock up your car!!!

A special THANK YOU to Amy Napier Viteri for reporting this story!

(link to WSBTV news story on booted cars)

 

Is This The Future Of Your HOA?!?!

      2 Comments on Is This The Future Of Your HOA?!?!

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

      No Comments on Another Wonderful Discovery

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

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