Category Archives: Horror Stories

Florida Outrage

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Florida has a new law that allows HOAs to evict a homeowner who’s behind on dues and lease the house to a tenant to make up for the lost money. The Bridgewater Community Association in Wesley Chapel has taken that to extremes.
 
Joanne McCarn says she missed a $225 dues payment in 2009 when her mother died. She claims she knew nothing about the overdue payment until recently. The HOA began tacking on late fees, attorney’s fees, and collection costs. By the time Joanne found out about her missed payment, the HOA was demanding $2,565, more than ten times the original amount. Joanne and her husband both tried to contact Association officials, who refused to talk to them.
 
The McCarn family had leased their home to a renter. But the HOA used the new Florida law to kick out the McCarn’s renter and put in a renter of their own. Joanne says it’s completely outrageous because the house hasn’t been foreclosed on.
 
“I still own this house,” she says. “The HOA changed the locks on the home and they call the sheriff if I come near the property.”
 
A Homeowners Association lawyer in Florida says the HOA’s actions are illegal. If so, then homeowners in the Bridgewater Association may be hit with a special assessment to cover a hefty lawsuit against the community.

How to Wrench a Neighborhood Apart

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HOA lawyers tell their clients, “Show no mercy on neighborhood scofflaws. Warn them about the violation. Tell them this is a “no tolerance” neighborhood. Then pop them with a lawsuit.”

That kind of advice can tear a neighborhood apart. It also means some pretty nice paydays for lawyers.

Sammi Goldsten lives in the Southern Oaks Society Homeowners Association in the Stevens Ranch area of north Los Angeles County. The HOA asked Sammi to repaint her house, so she painted it almost the exact color as a house down the street. But the HOA decided her choice of colors was wrong and they filed a lawsuit. Surprisingly, they got an $18,000 judgment against Sammi, despite the fact that she wasn’t even aware the lawsuit had been filed.

Sammi had two plausible reasons for being unaware of the lawsuit. She was never served with the subpoena. And at the time, Sammi was at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota. Her young daughter was deathly ill and was undergoing a series of surgeries as doctors attempted to save her life. Sammi never left her daughter’s bedside.

On the other side of the country, the Southern Oaks Society HOA continued its war against the Goldstein family. To satisfy the $18,000 court judgment, the HOA drained the savings accounts of Sammi’s two children. And when Sammi finally returned to her neighborhood she was served with a contempt of court citation that basically said, either paint your house or go to jail.

It’s not often that an embattled homeowner wins against an HOA. But Sammi’s lawyer, Kenneth G. Eade, appeared in court and asked the judge to set aside his prior ruling. Eade argued that fairness demands two elements; that a defendant to notified of the lawsuit and second, that a defendant be given a chance to be heard. Sammi was given neither.

The judge agreed and set aside his former ruling.

Still, it’s hard to believe there were any winners in this case. Certainly not Sammi Goldstein who now owes a small fortune in attorney’s fees. And it cannot be the Southern Oaks Society HOA, which has now built up a stack of its own legal bills. Finally, it cannot be the neighborhood itself.  Realtors who show clients any homes for sale in Southern Oaks must disclose any “defects” in a property. That would include the contemptible actions of a rogue HOA board that has no compassion for a family during its time of grief and distress.

What Happens When an HOA Board Goes Rogue

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It can happen at any time to any HOA board in the country: molehills turn into mountains, mountains into disasters and those disasters are jammed down the throats of unsuspecting homeowners.
 
The Arbors Village Homeowners Association is one of those classy little HOAs in Southern Florida, where the gated entrance keeps out all the common riffraff that some homeowners are so desperately afraid of.
 
Edward Grede and his wife bought their Florida home four years ago. But Grede wanted a nice door at his front entrance, a wrought iron door with a screen.  In fact, the original developer liked it and told Grede he could install it.
 
Ah, but now the jealousy strikes, the vicious kind of jealousy that can tear a neighborhood apart. 
 
You see, Grede is the only homeowner who asked the developer for such a door. “It’s just not fair,” the neighbors said. “It’s not fair for him to have such a nice door when nobody else can have one!” So they sued.  Yes, the Arbors Village Homeowners Association sued, demanding that Grede tear down his nice door and pay all the association’s expenses.
 
There was a slight problem with that. The lawsuit again Grede failed. The angry neighbors tried again, making their appeal to a different judge. Surprise, surprise, the second judge didn’t agree either.
 
The neighbors were left fuming, including HOA president Pat Towers, who pushed the lawsuit through the courts. All that remains is the legal bills which the HOA now has to pay.  Grede gets $100,000 to cover his bills, the HOA’s legal expenses are about $150,000, meaning the HOA has to suddenly come up with a quarter million dollars. Each and every homeowner is going to get a huge special assessment
 
One other thing remains behind: a nice gated neighborhood that is emotionally trashed, one neighbor hating another. They’ll have to live with the thought that $250,000 could have bought every resident in that neighborhood a nice screen door, just like the one Ed Grede has.

Homeowner Fined for Brown Grass During Drought

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It’s happened in Florida. It has happened in other states.  Now Denver, Colorado is the scene of the latest HOA atrocity committed against a struggling homeowner.

The Green Valley Ranch Homeowners Association noticed that Lori Wortham’s front lawn had some brown spots.  True, the City of Denver has declared a Stage One drought. True, there are severe watering restrictions on homeowners who put too much water on their lawns.

But a $200 fine for a brown spot? Outrageous, says Wortham. She says she’s tried to put down new grass seed and water, but the brown spots aren’t going away during the record heat wave and drought.  And HOA president James Tanner says Wortham has been warned before that she needs to take better care of her lawn. As long as the brown spots remain, the fines will keep coming.

President Tanner says a brown lawn lowers property values for all of Lori Wortham’s neighbors. He doesn’t say anything about how punitive HOA fines wreck the reputation of the entire neighborhood and lower the value of all properties in the HOA. That’s the law of “Unintended Consequences.”

Good reporting by Denver’s Channel 7 TV.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/31276276/detail.html

North Austin Homeowners Decide to Quit Being Stoopid!

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Hallelujah! It took years, but members of the Sunchase Condominiums in North Austin have decided to quit being stupid. Sunchase homeowners have been paying dues for years, but their HOA board and the property manager, Nancy Thompson, refused to show them the books! Last time I looked, Texas law mandated that HOA members be allowed to see where their dues are going.

Homeowners have poured more than a million dollars down a black hole that hasn’t been audited in more than five years. Readers of this blog know that I’ve got a very low tolerance for the stench rising from tens of thousands of HOAs in almost identical situations. And Sunchase stinks to high heaven!

Investigative reporters from KXAN followed the skanky trail behind the property manager and found that it leads to some other HOAs in Austin where large sums of money vanished like some magic trick at Circus Circus. Tens of thousands of dollars worth of checks have been written to various members of Nancy Thompson’s family. Damn, those no-bid contracts sure are profitable.

Someone at Sunchase should consider calling the huge FBI unit that’s rooting out identical corruption in Las Vegas.

BTW, great investigative work by reporter Chris Willis and KXAN, Austin!

http://www.kxan.com/dpp/news/investigations/homeowners-fight-back-against-hoa-board