Category Archives: Fraud

Nasty, Nasty, Nasty

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I never gratuitously toss around the word ‘fascism’. My parents grew up in the era of German and Italian fascism and it was a devastating word to them. But I still remember how they regarded the fascist totalitarian governments that were wreaking havoc on the world.

So, as I monitor Homeowners Association stories around the country and see stories like the one I’ve linked below, I’m just stunned at the parallels.

South Natomas, California is the scene of an ongoing donnybrook between an elderly former U.S, Marine and the Sonora Springs Homeowners Association. Allen Campbell and his wife, Cynthia, moved into the neighborhood of 200 homes in 2009. He was elected to the board of directors but he became troubled with the lack of accountability in HOA finances. In fact, he was so troubled that he resigned. Cynthia was elected to the board a few months later and she, too was dismayed by the lack of transparency and the apparent hiding of financial records. She also resigned.

The remaining board soured on the Campbell couple and the harassment began. They were banned from neighborhood facilities, shouted down at HOA meetings. At one point, the board began hiring security guards to stand over and around Campbell whenever he showed up for a public meeting. Campbell is 75, in a wheelchair and on oxygen, yet this HOA board apparently felt threatened? In one meeting Campbell says when he stood up the security guard hit him on the chest where he had a fresh incision from heart bypass surgery.

It got worse. The HOA’s law firm began sending Campbell legal bills, including a $1340 bill for a so-called “enforcement assessment.” It’s blatantly obvious that the Sonora Springs Homeowners Association and its law firm are planning on liening, seizing and auctioning off the Campbells’ home. They’ve had practice doing that, seizing at least one other home in the neighborhood. In fact, that was the exact financial issue that so troubled the Campbells. There was apparently rent money coming in from the house that had been seized, but the HOA board wouldn’t account for where the money was going.

There’s so much more in the link below. But even after reading both sides of the story, I somehow think these security guards should be wearing knee-high black boots and HOA armbands of some sort.

http://tinyurl.com/mfatyfc 

 

Ho Hum. Another Day, Another Embezzlement

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KY3 News in Springfield, Missouri is reporting on a 23-count Federal Grand Jury indictment of an HOA bookkeeper in Branson.

Sarah Underwood is accused of embezzling more than 300,000 dollars from the Fall Creek Condominiums. Of course, she’s innocent until proven guilty. But according to the news media in Missouri, she wrote several checks to herself including one for $80,000!

Dumber than a box of rocks!

Next to jaywalking, embezzling from Homeowners Associations is probably one of the most underreported crimes in America. Tragically it’s only the dumb crooks who get caught. This woman certainly deserves to be a runner-up for the annual Charles Darwin award. That is, if she’s convicted.

 http://tinyurl.com/n5nf82s

 

Kid’s Play Before The Day of HOAs

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guest blog by Nila Ridings
  
This story took me back to my childhood. 
 
I spent hours in my little play house with my friends.  We took our dolls, coloring books, Play-Doh, and molding clay in there and completely lost track of time.  Every now and then my Mom would peek in the kid-sized door opening and deliver some lemonade or cherry Kool-Aid.  It was located under a big tree so even on the hottest days of summer there was a cool breeze coming through the windows.
 
It makes me sad that with the introduction of Homeowners Associations little girls and boys cannot have play houses and tree houses.  Nope.  Kiss that idea good-bye.  In many HOAs you can’t even have a basketball hoop.  And not long ago we learned about the ban on anything with wheels for kids to enjoy.
 
And then we complain that kids are bored, spend all their time on video games, electronic devices, and their cell phones.  Not to mention the incessant discussions in the media and politics about childhood obesity.
 
HOAs have not only robbed the enjoyment out of adult life and homeownership, we’ve robbed the kids, too!
 
 
 

Is It Possible You Are Not Really An American?

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OK, quick! Give me a definition of “United States citizen.” I really mean it, give me the shortest possible definition of citizenship. Hard?  It shouldn’t be.

In my mind, a U.S. citizen is one who owes his allegiance to the United States of America, one who is accepted and identified as a citizen by both federal and state government,  and one who is protected from the overreach of government through the limits of the U.S. Constitution.

Whoa! There’s a problem, here. Seventy million people over the past thirty years have signed private real estate contracts in which they disavowed their access to state and federal protections and have signed all their Constitutional rights over to private non-profit corporations known as Homeowners Associations.

Certainly, all citizens have the Constitutional right “to contract.” And you really can sign away individual Constutitonal rights. For example, if you make an out-of-court settlement in a lawsuit, it may contain a confidentiality clause. That’s an enforceable contract in which you voluntarily gave up your right to Free Speech. In other words, you no longer have the freedom to speak about the terms of your confidential settlement.

It’s an awesome thought. Over the past thirty years, seventy million Americans gave up all their Constitutional rights by joining Homeowners Associations. The verbiage in most HOA contracts makes it clear that buyers must agree that they cannot defy any rules imposed by the board of directors. It doesn’t matter if those rules interfere with free speech, freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom to bear arms, freedom from unwarranted search and seizure, due process, and a myriad of other freedoms.

But if half the definition of “U.S. citizen” includes someone who is protected by the Constitution, does that mean seventy million people erroneously think they’re American citizens, when they’ve actually stepped into an entirely new form of government?

Even citizens of other countries who are arrested in the United States for various crimes have rights under the U.S. Constitution. In many cases, illegal immigrants have far greater rights than homeowners in private gated neighborhoods.

So, again I ask: Are you really an American? Are you really a United States citizen? Or do you now belong to some kind of sub-class, for which we haven’t yet invented a word?

CAI Organizes to Lobby Congress!

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One of the most articulate, knowledgeable Homeowners Rights advocates in America is Arizona’s George Staropoli. When he makes a prediction you can bet on it. In his current blog, linked below, he says the Community Associations Institute (CAI) is turning its massive lobbying arm into a lobbying effort specifically targeting the U.S. Congress.

CAI is an extremely deceptive organization that turns George Orwell’s Animal Farm on its head. Up is down and down is up, good is bad and bad is good, all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. CAI is drowning Congressmen and Senators in the blatant lie that it represents the ‘collective’ rights and interests of all homeowners.

CAI’s website has a more honest depiction of its own organization. It says it represents 44 billion dollars worth of American real estate. What CAI will NEVER tell you is:

     the billions of dollars in fines against homeowners it has encouraged or precipitated,

     the hundreds of thousands of American homeowners it has helped bankrupt,

     the massive numbers of embezzlements from Homeowners Associations by HOA insiders,

     the numbers of murders and suicides precipitated after raw harrassment of homeowners,

     the billions and billions of dollars in HOA dues and homeowners’ legal fees it helped divert to private pockets,

     the complete fabrication that HOAs protect and preserve property value.

During the years of prohibition, Al Capone and his cronies made a fortune in illegal activities surrounding the illegal importation of alcohol. His corruption and his ability to corrupt public figures led to the explosion of La Cosa Nostra. Our Thing. The Mafia. It would be outrageous to think of such an organized crime effort creating a legal lobbying arm to twist the arms and the minds of the dimwits in Congress.

But anyone who takes a closer look at the Community Associations Institute will see how it got its start as a public ‘education’ organization, and then twisted itself into a private lobbying group that made massive profits referring HOA matters to its own ‘preferred’ phalanx of lawyers and service providers. If you’re anywhere close to the CAI, you’re going to get rich. Money from the pockets of dismayed homeowners will pour directly into yours.

CAI won’t tell you that dozens of its members or affiliates were indicted, arrested, committed ‘suicide’, or are facing racketeering charges in the current federal investigation in Las Vegas.

CAI won’t tell you that.

But I will.

And our movement is growing.

http://tinyurl.com/lv3fxhh