With all the tens of billions of dollars being embezzled from homeowners and Homeowners Associations across the country, you’d think sending a crook to prison wouldn’t be that unusual a news story. Sadly, stories like the one linked below are pretty rare.
An embezzler in Utah who operates in a number of states has been sentenced by a federal judge in Nevada to three years in prison. Oh yes, he has to make four million dollars in restitution. At least those are the terms of his plea bargain. What? He stole all those millions and has no way to pay it back? Then why isn’t he in prison for life?
(link to Salt Lake City Tribune story on tiny sentence for big fraud)
Don’t beat me up! I know there are other good, honest HOA lawyers out there someplace. Well, at least one or two. But I haven’t met them yet.
But this lawyer actually ‘gets it!’ He understands about the kind of fascism found in many of America’s Homeowners Associations. He understands that HOAs are often a rat trap that ruin targeted homeowners at will. He gets the fact that once a bully board is in control of the HOA they can unleash unbelievable racism, discrimination and abuse. He understands that HOA lawyers are a corrupt layer of infection that can quickly contaminate the atmosphere of a neighborhood. He understands that HOA lawyers have little or nothing to do with ‘justice,’ it’s all about how much money can be pocketed from homeowners who find themselves in a hopeless situation.
I’m linking this lawyer’s short blog below, mainly because he says all of the above but with a lot more diplomacy. But it’s really worth printing out and saving. If you’re a homeowner living in Texas, this connection could someday be very valuable to you.
(link to J. Patrick Sutton Law in Austin, Texas)
For some reason I don’t get many emails from New York, even though condo and co-op problems there are as bad as elsewhere.
But here’s an interesting lawsuit involving a New York condo dispute, in which the board appears to have intentionally targeted one homeowner, possibly as an attempt to get him to move out and sell his home to one of the board members.
With this kind of nastiness, what do you think that does to the character of a condominium? Does a Homeowners Association of any kind actually protect property values?
(link to New York condo lawsuit)
I seem to be getting more and more calls from reporters around the nation asking about HOA problems. Most of them are skeptical when I talk about how massive the national HOA scam is. So it really helps them to read newspaper columns like the one I’ve linked below.
It’s written by a seemingly level-headed HOA board member who’s discovering just how underwater he is in trying to deal with the difficulty of straightening out a crooked HOA.
It’s well worth reading the link…and possibly forwarding it to others.
(link to problems in one North Carolina HOA)
Many of the Homeowners Associations in Boulder County Colorado have roads that are falling apart. In fact, they’re downright dangerous. A group of homeowners decided to sue the county to force them to repave the rotting public roads.
Well, it seems that some of those public roads aren’t so public after all. The Colorado Court of Appeals has ruled against the homeowners, and told them to pay to maintain their own roads.
What do you think that does to property values? No, your HOA was never intended to protect property values. Never!
(link to lack of road repairs in Longmont Times Call)
