Another reported HOA Embezzlement (one of tens of thousounds of such cases) and this one is almost amusing. Police in West Melbourne, Florida arrested 67 year old Sandra Blumberg. She was the treasurer for Hunter’s Creek Homeowner Association in West Melbourne.
Police say Mrs. Blumberg wrote checks to herself from neighborhood HOA funds in an effort to recover money she had lost on Lotto Scratch-Off tickets.
Lovely, isn’t it?
Mrs. Blumberg must have thought she deserved the extra money for all the hard work she did for her neighbors. HOA officials, in case you don’t know, are routinely instructed by HOA officials never to talk to the media. Makes you wonder why.
OK, so you were incautious enough to buy a house in an HOA neighborhood. Now you realize you’re about to get sued for some offense against a member, or even non-member.
Concerned owners, of course, need to communicate with their neighbors about how much they’re going to lose in this lawsuit. Those HOA do-gooders have just handed out some brochures to get all the lawsuit victims on board.
Oops! Those HOA do-gooders have just lost their attorney-client privilege. All privileged documents now have to be turned over to the suing attorney, all legal strategies, all incredibly personal information that might have used to defend the HOA against the suit.
Isn’t it just wonderful how the legal system is designed to reward the tricky, and punish the honest?
I’ve said it before, and will probably say it again, but every person interested in the HOA debate should see this guy’s website. I’ve never met him, although I’ve spoken to him on the phone once. He has some incredibly interesting insights that make me extremely jealous, i.e., I wish I had thought of them first.
Do yourself a favor and bookmark RightToOwn.org. Dear God, I wish I could plagiarize!
Also, encourage this guy to write a book. He’s articulate, intelligent, and a book or documentary from him could help us in the war to make the HOA movement fair, honest and responsible, three of the characteristics which are absolutely non-existent today.
Across the country each day, thousands of homeowners are discovering that their neighbors have almost complete power over how they live their private lives. And tens of thousands of homeowners are having second thoughts about their HOA “investments.”
One out of many disputes is typical and involves homeowners Chris and Lavina Marmo of the Glenmont Commons Homeowners Association in Parsippany, NJ. The HOA warned its residents about a series of smash and grab robberies in the neighborhoods townhomes. Chris and Lavina purchased some wrought iron doors to install on their back patio where all the breakins are occuring.
Wrong choice. Glenmont Commons said the security gates were illegal and the couple was going to face daily fines and possible lawsuit. The HOA won’t even compromise or try to find reasonable common ground.
Is it just a power trip by board members who held HOA offices for too long? Or do HOA officials really believe that their properties are better protected by stark sameness on street after street? Who knows?
But a pretty good reminder to Chris and Lavina is “Don’t fight. Just lie back and take it.” You cannot and will not win. Reasonableness is not at play in the HOA system.
Federal investigators trying to squeeze the corruption out of Las Vegas Homeowners Associations are just dying (or at least their clients are). How can you run an investigation when your chief witnesses keep ending up drowning in bathtubs, hanging from barn rafters.
Suddenly, swindlers who agreed to rat out fellow conspirators are getting nervous. They’re telling their own attorneys to walk back previous confessions.
But a wilder thing happens when civil lawyers try to bully their way into the feds’ investigation. They start filing civil lawsuits against the chief witnesses in the federal investigation. Those witnesses realize for the first time they’ll be tied up in the courts for years. Offers from the feds to “protect” their witnesses start ringing hollow. And witnesses start acting like rats on the Titanic.
So much corruption. And any ability for the feds to prosecute Organized Crime in the HOA system, begins to fade. It just fades away.
All that work, and entire investigations can just turn to…dust.
