Category Archives: Fraud

A Homeowner-Oriented Law Firm

Many homeowners are dismayed when they start looking for a lawyer to represent them against a Homeowners Association. Such law firms are close to non-existent. Lawyers who align themselves with such organizations as Associa and CAI make a massive amount of money.  But defending individual homeowners against HOA abuse is almost always a money-loser.

So I’m happy when I can pass along the name of a homeowners’ rights law firm. The Herb Milgrim Law Firm in Fort Lauderdale is a name you Florida homeowners should keep track of. They don’t blog often but their blogsite, linked below, is worth checking every so often. And I’m still collecting names of other good law firms around the country. If you run across a lawyer or law firm that stands for the rights of individual homeowners, please email me their names.

Ward@NeighborsAtWar.com

(link to Florida Condo Attorneys)

 

 

 

 

 

Stoopid HOA Buyers

I have enormous sympathy for people who buy into an HOA. Heck, I was dumb enough to do the same thing. Three times! But in retrospect, I was STOOPID! I was a lamb among the wolves. Never had a clue.

The biggest unreported financial crime in America is embezzlement from an HOA. The following story isn’t even extraordinary, it happens in city after city, day after day. But homeowners (like me) are just too witless to ‘get it.’ The HOA scam is beyond any reasonable explanation. If you’ve bought an HOA property you’ve just donated your life savings to a massive national criminal enterprise that the government will never investigate, expose, or end. Kiss your life savings, ‘Goodbye.’

If you live in a non-HOA neighborhood, fall in love with those boat trailers, the purple front doors, the obnoxious lawn ornaments. Your life savings are protected. Your investment will continue to grow. And feel a modicum of pity for the ritzy people on the other side of the street.

(link to Tampa Bay News story on 300 million dollar fraud)

 

Sara Benson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Egads! I’ve never met Sara Benson, never even talked to her on the phone, but I’d have an affair with her in an instant, if she’d agree! (Yep, I’m not very classy, but I’m sincere!)

This incredible Illinois Realtor has discovered that up to 80% of Illinois Homeowners Associations are unknown and untracked by the state! The implications are massive. It means that huge numbers of Americans have signed away their access to rights conferred by the U.S. Constitution by buying homes in private corporations where they’re lying naked in front of all their fellow homeowners. They think they’ve bought private homes, but what they’ve actually bought is shares in unregulated corporations in which they can be taxed, liened, sued and bankrupted with their life savings going into a common pot owned by all their fellow neighbors.

It’s the biggest transfer of private property wealth to government in the history of America. Seductive. Illegal. Subversive. There just aren’t words enough to express it. I thought I was pretty smart about the evils of Homeowners Associations. I hate to admit it, but I didn’t have a clue. Not a clue.

This should be the Number One headline in every news organization in America. Sadly, it won’t be. I love America, but Americans are fundamentally stupid. Like the frog in the pot we just enjoy the increasing heat. Until it’s too hot.

Sara Benson and Don DeBat, I hope you sell a zillion copies of Escaping Condo Jail!.

(link to Chicago Tribune article on Sara Benson)

 

Another Nutty HOA

My job is just too easy. Lots of people read this blog site and you’d think I’d struggle to come up with a new subject each evening. But with people around the country gradually waking up to the HOA scam there are stories everywhere about out-of-control Homeowners Associations.

The link below deserves reading. It’s a tiny Homeowners Association in Arizona that suddenly decided it needed two lawyers and a security guard at its annual meeting. The HOA hired a new management firm which is fining homeowners for a bizarre range of ‘violations.’ So homeowners suddenly have to pay fines, pay for unneeded lawyers and an unneeded security patrol just to make sure nobody protests the hiring of such people.

Life can be creepy.

Beware of buying property in the Carter Ranch Homeowners Association!

(link to Coolidge Examiner story on Carter Ranch HOA)

 

HOA Swingers! Ya Gotta Love It!

I don’t know much about swingers’ clubs. Yeah, I’ve been on a few vice raids in my career of such clubs. And one such raid was on a home in Greenwood Village, a super-ritzy HOA just south of Denver. Even for a hardened investigative reporter it was pretty eye-opening. So this headline caught my eye.

Swingers Club May Be Forced to Produce Guest List

Seems that an HOA lawsuit against a Texas homeowner may lead to some interesting discovery, i.e., the guest list of all those who’ve attended swingers’ bashes in the past few years. One doesn’t usually think of HOAs as being bawdy. But as a former Texan, I can say that Texans can be just as raunchy as people in any other state.

Still, this could be an interesting case, especially if the guest list turns up any Congressmen, Senators or certain HOA management officials. Any names come to mind?

(Texas swingers’ club being sued)