The developer always urges homeowners to be the first to buy into a brand new Homeowners Association. “If you delay, the price will only go up,” he’ll say. And sure enough, you throw your money down.
But new home buyers across the country are learning they’ve been victimized by one of the least prosecuted scams in America.
The latest one involves Lafayette Falls near South Bend, Indiana. Years have gone by. The developer is still collecting the dues, but homeowners are just now beginning to ‘get it’. The nice waterfall at the front entrance is now just green puddle with a broken pump. The streets are badly in need of repair.
On one street is a half finished home that hasn’t been touched for a year. Neighborhood meetings are nasty affairs where the homeowners demand some kind of action be taken.
All the employees of Lafayette Falls? They’ve closed down the old office and they’re now working for another developer called ‘Turning Point’.
Now that I’m out of and away from the Colorado flood I’m watching aerial video of the damage. I’ve seen some bad disasters in my life, but nothing like this one. This single cloudburst caused damage across Eastern Colorado from the Wyoming border to the New Mexico border.
Colorado has about 8000 Homeowners Associations, many of them in eastern Colorado, right in the flood ravaged areas. At some point, all those HOA members are going to be told they don’t qualify for disaster relief since the federal government considers Homeowners Associations and co-ops to be non-profit private associations where ‘homeowners’ are actually shareholders or groups of investors in a neighborhood and its common areas. They can still apply for federal loans, but by living in an HOA they have removed themselves from the ability to get federal aid.
Congress could change that, of course, but with the country facing sixteen trillion dollars of debt there’s a huge question as to whether the feds would change the rules. Perhaps China would help us? After all, we’re their biggest customer. All those COSCO container trucks and ships you see on the roads and the seas are owned by the Chinese government. The acronym stands for “China Ocean Shipping Company,” owned by the People’s Republic Of China.
Well, I’m going back to watching video feeds. A pretty good one is being hosted right now by the New York Times.
Some homeowners describe it as such. But when HOAs lawyers advise it to do the kind of thing linked in the video below, it’s worse than a scourge. It’s actionable illegal conduct. What if this homeowner had to leave home to attend to an emergency at a local hospital? This would be a lawsuit with no bottom line on damages. This lawsuit could cost the HOA millions and millions of dollars.
The president of the Seascape Homeowners Association in Galveston, Texas, is suing a homeowner for ten million bucks after the homeowner circulated an email to fellow homeowners called the president “arrogant, incompetent, dishonest, and harassing.”
President Ron Benotti is suing homeowner Richard Alan Collier. Collier alleged that Benotti mishandled a project to restore beaches in the area.
The really surprising thing here is that the court didn’t throw this case out long ago based on the ‘public figure’ rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Once a person goes public by running for office or otherwise inserting himself into public discussions it’s nearly impossible to successfully sue for libel and/or slander. It’s the one thing that protects news agencies from lawsuits when they inspect the private behavior of public officials.
Benotti’s lawyers had to have told him that his lawsuit will never survive against the public figure argument. His defamation suit is nothing more than a SLAPP lawsuit designed to cost the defendant his life savings and shut him up.
For shame, Benotti and your phalanx of HOA paid-for lawyers! For shame!
Two of Colorado’s largest housing foreclosure law firms are now in the cross hairs of the State Attorney General for allegedly fraudulent billing practices.
Attorney Susan Hendrick used to work for the law firm, Aronowitz & Mecklenberg. She has testified under oath that her former employer made millions of dollars by padding its legal bills on housing foreclosures. Those bloated bills that weren’t paid by homeowners ended up being charged off to the taxpayers. Hendrick also alleged that the law firm destroyed evidence subpoenaed by prosecutors during their investigation of the law firm’s practices.
Attorney Robert Aronowitz and his attorney daughter and son-in-law own a private firm which posts foreclosure notices. State investigators say they believe the law firm and the private posting firm were used to inflate foreclosure fees many times above the customary amounts.
Hendrick also testified about the second firm, The Castle Law Group. The two firms have handled 90% of the state’s foreclosures over the past few years. Among other allegations being made are that the two law firms manipulated State Legislators into passing legislation that ended up more than doubling the law firms’ already artificially inflated legal fees.
