I get many emails from folks who’ve discovered my book, Neighbors at War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association. All of them have been heartwarming and appreciated. Many have been written since the Kindle version came out a couple of months ago. And what really helps is the amazing number of positive reviews you’ve given my book on Amazon. Every time a new positive review comes out, I see book sales rise.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read, review and refer my book to others. And thank you for your newly aroused activism in your own neighborhoods. In Kansas City, Las Vegas, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida and Texas, I see homeowners actually winning. We desperately need to keep reclaiming the Constitutional rights we’ve lost to the HOA movement. Every time I hear your horror stories it raises my ire, and doubles my determination to keep fighting. But it’s your victory stories which are the most encouragement to me.
This is the kind of thing that blackens the eye of the typical Homeowners Association in HOA Amerika. Homeowners Associations seem to have a special fondness for seizing the homes of the elderly. Old people usually don’t have the money or the will to fight back. And a simple misunderstanding of a homeowner’s obligations leads, not to compassion, but to the kind of fascist actions that scare the crap out of American home buyers.
A 74 year old man in the Davis Lake Community Association in Charlotte, North Carolina, tried to get some family members registered at the local clubhouse and pool, and he was refused. He quit paying dues, and ‘sure as shootin’ his house was grabbed.
Yes, he’s going through kidney failure and frequent hospitalizations. But that’s all the more reason for Davis Lake to grab his home. Bam! They can auction it off, re-route huge legal fees to a favored law firm, and toss a few bucks into the neighborhood kitty just in time for the summer picnic.
It’s good to see when mainstream reporters start recognizing the massive and growing crisis involving American Homeowners Associations. Still, it’s frustrating when they only tell part of the story.
In the story linked below, a single mom in Charlotte, North Carolina bought an HOA home and suddenly started getting hit with daily fines because her fence was ‘warped.’ No question, she says, it had to be fixed. But by the time she got settled in her new home, the daily fines, fees and legal costs totaled nearly 11,000 bucks. Welcome to your new neighborhood, Lady!
In any event, the reporter for WSOC-TV gets most of the story right. But he talks about the fact that HOAs are like ‘little governments.’ He doesn’t add the critical information that governments of any kind have a court system, a system of last resort. Homeowners Associations don’t.
They’re really not like ‘little governments.’ Unless you add the word, ‘fascist.’ Some day reporters will start getting it right.
George Staropoli, one of the nation’s leaders in the homeowners rights movement, has an excellent blog post we should all commit to memory. If his five proposed legislative changes are ever enacted, this would be a far different country; a country of neighbors instead of embattled homeowners and power-tripping board members.
It never ceases to amaze me how blatant HOA embezzling is. Today’s case involves a board member at the Woodcreek Homeowners Association in Bixby, Oklahoma.
55 year old Gregory Horvath was arrested for stealing 18,000 dollars from his neighbors. Police say Horvath funneled excessive amounts of HOA money through his insurance company, then wrote checks to himself and his wife.
Note to homeowners everywhere: Study the books in your own HOA. You’ll find problems of your own. The very structure of American HOAs encourages cheaters.
