The astounding thing about this four minute video is the level of ignorance among city council candidates in Hopkins, Minnesota. That’s the home of one of the nastiest HOA disputes in the country. But most of these candidates are clueless about what goes on in these gated communities.
A huge jury verdict in Nevada was just awarded to a homeowner against two HOA collection companies. Across the country many HOA boards assess minor fines and liens against homeowners and then turn the accounts over to their law firms for collection. It’s so tempting for an ambulance-chasing law firm to turn to the easy profits of debt collecting. It’s not unheard of for minor fines to turn into huge foreclosures. Law firms add so-called ‘collection costs’, legal fees, interest and other such nonsense onto nickel-and-dime fines. It’s enormously profitable for such lawyers to have a buddy down at the county offices when the properties are auctioned off for pennies on the dollar. A whole roomful of Las Vegas lawyers are in jail right now for similar racketeering convictions.
The law firm hired by the Arrowcreek Homeowners Association in Washoe County, Nevada was accused of violating federal and state regulations against racketeering and violations of the Fair Debt Collections Act. The jury agreed and awarded the homeowner more than $600 thousand.
The link below is to a press release by the homeowners legal team. Obviously, the press release is to attract business. But since this law firm has affiliates in many other states it could possibly strike some fear in the hearts of the HOA Lawn Nazis!
(link to press release on details of jury verdict)
Discrimination has long been a hallmark of the modern HOA movement. The disabled, Negroes, Orientals, members of the Mongol race, gays, the handicapped, non-married adults. I’ve seen that in my own Colorado HOA, stories I relate in my book, Neighbors At War. I’ve seen it firsthand, but since starting this website I’ve been stunned at the number of blatantly racist, homophobic, anti-Semitic stories that are happening daily in American homeowner associations. There just aren’t enough courtrooms to handle all those cases, Ah, there are enough lawyers, to be sure. More than enough. Just not enough courtrooms.
In Lafayette, Indiana the Brookfield Farms Homeowners Association has made it clear they don’t want three handicapped people living in their neighborhood. “It’s a group home,” they’re screaming. “We don’t allow three unmarried handicapped people to live in a single home. And we’ll take it all the way to the Supreme Court, if necessary!”
Stupid people. They’ll lose, of course. Federal law is pretty clear about abuse and discrimination against handicapped people. But in the meantime this idiot board will cost its homeowners tens of thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands in legal fees.
Avoid HOA life like the plague. It looks good on paper. But when planning to buy into the HOA scam just remember you’re putting all of your personal assets into a common pool of money with people you don’t know and have never even met. All your assets including the equity of your house are being pledged to pay for moronic legal positions like the one being taken by Brookfield Farms in Indiana.
(link to Indianapolis Star article on discrimination against the disabled)
Yep, it’s a question a lot of us have been asking: With The Donald being such a high-powered real estate developer, what does he think about owner associations? After all, he creates the covenants for all the condos he sells.
His take, linked below, is extremely interesting.
(link to Virginia blog on Trump and condo associations)
This one is huge, and it’s developing right now in Colorado.
A Homeowners Association in Vail is being sued because one of the supervisors in the management company was a jerk who was mistreating female Mexican workers. The Feds are now suing both the management company and the condo association.
I’ve owned two ski condos in that same area and I never had a clue who the management company was. I did get dinged a couple of times when I tried to change the locks on my doors. The management company bored through the locks, changed the door handle and charged me for their work. Yes, I was p.o.’d about that and it was one of the reasons I finally dumped the condos when the market improved.
But what if a federal EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit/judgment happened while I was still an owner? I could have been hit with a 10 to 50 thousand dollar special assessment for something I had zero knowledge about. Most Vail condos are owned by average people in Denver who just want to ski a week or two a year and rent them out the rest of the year to make the mortgage payments.
Incredible that completely innocent homeowners or condo owners could be financially ruined by this kind of thing.
(link to legal news on EEOC sexual harassment lawsuit)
http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/condo-association-sued-for-sexual-70687/
