Category Archives: HOA violence

Community Associations Institute (The Disinformation Institute)

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guest blog by George Staropoli

Think in terms of the Third Reich and the Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, Josef Goebbels in charge.

CAI is the modern incarnation of the Ministry. If, as has happened, CAI goes unopposed with its ongoing propaganda campaign about the grand and glorious benefits of HOAs without even whispering “constitutional violations” or “de facto private governments” who will believe anything is amiss?

What? Those malcontent, troublesome homeowners who don’t know how to live in a community with rules? That handful of trouble makers? They can’t even write decent legislation! Let the CAI lawyer/lobbyists explain the issues to your legislators so you can make better decisions.

Who would you believe?

Over the years CAI in Arizona has been basically silenced in the public media, because I would confront, challenge, and expose their lunacies and false statements whenever I could.

In the 2000 – 2005 time period the CAI repeatedly slandered homeowner advocates. We often heard statements from legislators like, “You’re just trying to get out of a contract.” “You agreed and you should have read your contract.” “Anyone who didn’t read or understand their CC&Rs and signed anyway was really stupid. I wouldn’t do anything like that.” Or even worse, “If you don’t like your HOA, just move out. That’s all!”

This year the Arizona Legislature approved SB 1482 without any questions being raised in committee. The bill was simply voted on and passed. Why? An almost identical bill was passed last year but failed in the courts. Also last year I repeatedly confronted and exposed CAI simply by quoting erroneous statements their lobbyists had made in public. Many legislators began to realize CAI was feeding them bad information. Of course, the previous law was eventually thrown out by the courts because it was fundamentally illegal.

However, CAI lobbyists still walk the halls of the legislatures whispering in each lawmaker’s ear, spreading the same old disinformation. This will never change unless voters contact their legislators and truly educate them on the issues.

HOA Hall Of Shame Targets Forest Hills

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Homeowners in Las Vegas are some of the fortunate few in the country who can monitor the behavior of their HOA boards. But it wouldn’t happen without Darcy Spears, creator of the HOA Hall of Shame report. There’s never a lack of misbehavior among Nevada Homeowners Associations to report on.

The latest is in the Forest Hills Homeowners Association where homeowners have often found their water shut off because of collapsed water pipes. Complain to a board member and they refer you to the management company, H&L Realty, which either refers you back to the board or hangs up on you. If you want that morning shower you have to find a contractor and pay for all the damage yourself. Of course, you have to keep paying those high HOA dues which theoretically are supposed to pay for basic maintenance.

It’s just another in a long, long list of reasons to discard the current HOA system.

(link to Darcy Spears and KTNV’s Hall Of Shame)

 

Stupid, Stupid Florida

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You’ve heard about the new law in Florida, haven’t you? The one that now gives “emergency powers” to all Homeowners Associations, condo associations and property owners associations?

Yep, all HOA boards will now have “emergency powers” to raise dues, make contracts and borrow money without even all board members being present, without even allowing homeowners to have a say.

All I can really do is shake my head in disgust and ask my readers to consider five of the most significant dates in world history:

January 30, 1933.

February 27th, 1933.

February 28th, 1933.

March, 5, 1933.

March 23, 1933.

Every school kid should have those dates locked in their hearts and committed to memory for life. I seriously doubt if a kid….or a parent, anywhere, has any idea of the significance:

January 30th, Adolph Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany.

February 27th, an arsonist sets fire to the Reichstag Building.

February 28th, blaming “an emergency” thousands of people, including all legislators not friendly to the Nazi cause, are arrested and imprisoned.

March 5th, new elections put the Nazi party in control of Germany.

March 23rd, the Enabling Act takes effect, which essentially makes Adolph Hitler the absolute dictator over Germany.

Jan Bergemann, one of the biggest homeowners rights advocates in the nation, is one of the few Americans who knows all about those five dates. After all he was originally from Germany and he knows what happens when dictators are given unrestrained power. He now lives in Florida where he’s been the state’s top crusader against abuses and crimes committed by the boards of rogue Homeowners Associations.

Bergemman says the new Florida “emergency powers” law is dangerous.

That could well be the understatement of the year.

(link to Orlando Sentinel story)

What’s A Developer To Do?

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A massive monkey wrench has been thrown into the field of real estate development with a 55 million dollar verdict against developers of a condo conversion project in South Carolina.

Developers are the people we homeowners all love to hate. They’re the bane of our existence. Their rotten reconstruction work has led to the financial ruin of hundreds of thousands, even millions of American homeowners. So we generally stand and cheer when a jury hands down a huge verdict against a developer.

Well, let’s stand back and give this one a little reflection.

There are about 200 residents of the East Bridge Town Lofts in Charleston, South Carolina. They all bought into the idea of buying an apartment that was converted to a condominium. Sloppy work. Unlicensed building inspector, all the usual jazz. But including all the legal costs, each of these property owners will theoretically get about 300 to 400 thousand dollars. So far, so good.

But…

…when the bankruptcy filings start filling the courts like an overflowing sugar bowl, where will those homeowners all be? When the delays and appeals to higher courts start piling up even higher costs, where will those homeowners be?

The American legal system was originally meant to provide justice for the injured. Sadly, that’s not the way things turned out. Oh, the lawyers on both sides will claim victory, of course. But the homeowners? The ones who’ve had to declare personal bankruptcy? The ones who’ve died or divorced or moved on to try to repair their lives elsewhere, what happens to them? Will they look back with great fondness on how the legal system treated them?

(South Carolina verdict)

 

It’s Not About A Flag, It’s About Testosterone

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I swear, I’ve gotta quit doing stories about outrageous treatment of the American Flag, there are just too many of them. I could get stuck doing 12 or 15 stories a day. Still, I feel duty-bound to at least occasionally tell you when the latest cretin is pushing around his weight after having been given new power over other homeowners.

The latest victim of a flag outrage is a retired veteran named Larry Murphree of the Tides Condominium at Sweetwater, Jacksonville, Florida. It’s actually just a small flag that he placed in a flower pot on his porch. You can barely see it. It’s sticking in the flowerpot behind the right porch rail in the photo below. He’s been fined $8000 before and he got it settled in court.

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After his court victory, Larry replaced the flag. And once again he’s being sued for $8000 and confiscation of his home. Here’s a very tight shot to show you a real good closeup of this tiny flag.

“It’s worth fighting for,” says Larry. “It’s a small flag but it stands for a big thank you and it shows the love and respect I have for my country.”

Larry, a little advice here from someone who knows. It’s not about the flag. It’s about a brain chemical called Oxytocin. If you don’t know about it look it up. When a chimpanzee of either sex is placed in a cage with a bunch of other chimps at the zoo, there’s an immediate disturbance. The new chimp races around the enclosure showing off his or her ‘equipment’, spraying the cage, making other chimps a little frightful of his or her prowess. Jane Goodall spent a lifetime studying this kind of behavior in all kinds of primates.

Larry, you’re being victimized by a new board member who thinks his or her virility is a little more chemically tinged than yours. Or maybe this board member wants you to think his or her influence among the weaker members of the tribe will carry more weight on the evolutionary scale. Whether you’re an evolutionist or not, you cannot deny that chimpanzees share approximately 96% percent of their DNA with humans. They (and orangutans) are our closest relatives. In so many ways, they’re a lot like us and we can learn from them. Your flag fight is not about patriotism. It’s about simianism. It’s about oxytocin. It’s about sex.

All science aside, there’s perhaps a bit of usable truth here. Spread this blog far and wide around the Tides At Sweetwater condominium complex. Without putting yourself in a slander trap, figure out which tiny dickensonian creature has been causing you all this misery. The good women of the Tides at Sweetwater know that as a veteran you probably came from good genetic stock. They’ll respect you. Then gather the whole community’s support as they publicly and visibly show this ‘little’ simian how ‘little’ they think your challenger’s virility really is. Each hour of each day when those community members greet that simian they should hold up their fingers about one inch apart. It’s just a guess. Just to show how much that person is regarded in the community.

Most journalists won’t tell you all of this. But since I know a little about science I will.

(Fox News story (ignore the ad, they’re getting harder and harder to skip))

Please reach out to Larry and let him know this blogsite address so he can spread it throughout the neighborhood.

And here’s a quick link from him:

(let me fly the flag)