Category Archives: HOA Issues

CAI Socks It To Homeowners In Tennessee!

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One of our blog members in Tennessee says the CAI appears to be the only group spending its lobbying money on a Homeowners Association bill now before the legislature.

The proposed bill would make important changes to protect private homeowners in that state.

But the crows at CAI have billions of dollars at their disposal.They make sure that Tennessee lawyers have guaranteed employment as they dip deeply into the pockets of homeowners.

The bill actually sounds like a pretty good one. But in HOA Amerika logic and justice are not really compatible concepts.

The following is an exact copy of what a CAI bigwig is telling his minions to lobby:

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To: All Community Association Board Members

From: Scott Ghertner

Date: February 6, 2014 Subject: Urgent legislative call to action – HB 2060 and SB 2098

As Chairman of the Tennessee CAI Legislative Action Committee and Co-President of Ghertner & Company, I would like to immediately bring to your attention some very disturbing legislation being introduced this month in our Tennessee legislature. Representative Jeremy Durham and Senator Jack Johnson, both of Williamson County, are co-sponsoring a bill (HB 2060 in the House and SB 2098 in the State Senate) that seeks to significantly diminish the authority of condominium and home owner associations in Tennessee.

This bill if passed will:

 Eliminate the automatic lien that associations have with regard to delinquent payers , thereby potentially

jeopardizing the financial solvency of associations and the willingness of lenders to make loans to associations and unit owners;

 Limit the amount an association can fine for rule violations;

 Attempt to insert State rules regarding parking enforcement on public streets within the association;  Prohibit associations from enforcing covenant restrictions with regard to political signs.

Please contact these leaders today and inform them that you want them to withdraw this bill immediately!

Senator Jack Johnson at 615-741-2495 or via email at sen.jack.johnson@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Jeremy Durham at 615-741-1864 or via email at rep.jeremy.durham@capitol.tn.gov

You can also contact the following members of the House Business and Utilities Subcommittee who will hear House Bill 2060 and let them know that you do not support this bill. Please remember the committee members listed below did not introduce this bill and will be hearing about this bill for the first time next week. So we ask you only to communicate to them your opposition to this proposed bill.

Chairman Art Swann at 615-741-5481 or via email at rep.art.swann@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Kent Calfee at 615-741-7658 or via email at rep.kent.calfee@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Barry Doss at 615-741-7476 or via email at rep.barry.doss@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Pat Marsh at 615-741-6824 or via email at rep.pat.marsh@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Jason Powell at 615-741-6861 or via email at rep.jason.powell@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Curry Todd at 615-741-1866 or via email at rep.curry.todd@capitol.tn.gov

Representative Tim Wirgau at 615-741-6804 or via email at rep.tim.wirgau@capitol.tn.gov

Thank you for your attention to this very important issue.

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Now that we know exactly how CAI plans to throw its influence around, they’ve provided a list of legislators who they consider weak…so we can now lobby them right back. 

Resurrection of the Third Reich?

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Did that headline get your attention? Well, a Homeowners Association in Kissimmee, Florida sure got mine!

Turnberry Reserve Homeowners Association looks so peaceful when you see its entrance sign. But apparently, people inside this tyrannical regime are seething. In this HOA’s own newsletter they list a lengthy set of requirements on how and when trash is to be set out for the trash collectors.

But that’s not the half of it. Anyone whose trash cans remain visible after the deadline faces a novel punishment. The HOA bullies collect those trash cans and transport them to the county dump for destruction!

Seems that a number of homeowners have complained to WKMG TV-News in Orlando. Reporters interviewed those homeowners for a central Florida story.

Wait, it gets better. The same wench who wrote the community newsletter saying that board members were intentionally destroying trash cans of rule breakers has even more in that newsletter. She’s obviously intent on further humiliating these families by preparing to spread their names far and wide in her (now national) newsletter as well as by word-of-mouth. 

As long as this monstrosity of an HOA has a national platform, here’s a suggestion to those homeowners being bashed. Now that you don’t have a trash can take advantage of it.

Remove all personal identification from your garbage and liberally spread all that refuse from one end of the neighborhood to the other.

And finally, since Turnberry Reserve posts its mailing address and phone number on the web, I’ll publish it here, as well.

Sherry Raposo (HOA president who ordered the cans taken)
Turnberry Reserve
4051 Fox Bend Lane
Kissimmee, Florida 34744
(407) 483-1456

Ah yes, their nationally published HOA newsletter is at the following link:

(click here for Turnberry website)

http://www.turnberryreserve.net/

 

The Fight Against The Red, White & Blue

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Across HOA Amerika there’s a desperate struggle to prevent homeowners from displaying the American Flag. “They’re not earth colors,” says the CAI and Associa, and a myriad of other HOA management firms that get their marching orders from above.

Thus, there was legal action taken against Colonel Barfoot who served in three wars, won the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery, a Silver star, a Bronze Star, three Purple Hearts. and saluted the flag outside his door each morning and evening. Then there was the case in Texas where a former Marine fought a pitched battle to display a few patriotic bumper stickers on his car.

No, the national Homeowners Association Movement has its own battle colors and they’re all various shades of beige and gray. And they’ll fight to the death to impose their bouquets of beiges on all the rest of us.

The latest battle is in Boston, where 52 year old Mark DiGiovanni wants to hang his flag so it shows through a window at the intersection of Congress and A Streets. But the Fort Point Condo Board says the policy is white window coverings only, and it’s prepared to fine and sue DiGiovanni’s butt if he dares to violate the ‘whites only’ policy.

One of the board members of the condo, Michael Avery, gained fame in 2011 when he called it “shameful” to support American men and women in uniform who’ve gone overseas to kill other human beings. In that same email, Professor Avery complained about an “oversized flag” in a lobby of the University.

DiGiovanni has his work cut out for him. Despite Boston being a big center of patriotism 250 years ago, there’s not much of that left these days. The Red White and Blue can give some people a bad case of hives.

(click here for Boston Herald story)

 

Prosecutor in Trayvon Martin/George Zimmerman Case

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With the national tragedy that is the death of a 17 year old boy at the hands of an HOA neighborhood watch volunteer, it’s only fair to examine why this case was prosecuted at all. As noted by this blogger before, there are many tragedies in this case, not the least of which is the killing of a boy on a rainy night as he zig-zagged through an unfamiliar neighborhood.

Still, the elements for a successful prosecution of the neighborhood watchman were never there. They were never, ever there. And exculpatory evidence that should have freed George Zimmerman immediately, was illegally withheld from defense attorneys.

If America is not a nation of crystal clear laws, then it’s not a nation at all. It’s a rogue state just as unstable and as unethical as the worst example of out-of-control leaders in Zimbabwe, Uganda, and Ruwanda, and Libya, and Venezuela.

If we don’t have the law, the set of rules and restraints on our government set out by our founding fathers, then we are the worst of the worst. Of course, we have stains on our past, but what country emerging out of the chaos of the 18th Century didn’t?

But in one of the most celebrated criminal investigations of the new century, we have a prosecutor with blood on her hands and murder in her heart, who was willing to sacrifice her career over taking a pound of flesh that was never hers to take.

Angela Corey was not one to find justice for George Zimmerman, she was there to make sure that the national race machine did not fail to bleed the Zimmerman team for every political point it could. Damn who’s truly guilty or innocent. “Just bring me  St. Paul’s Head on a Platter. I’ll be satisfied with nothing less.”

This case is really taking on some ugly tones.

It’ll get uglier in the days ahead.

http://tinyurl.com/mkueubh 

 

 

Want To Do A Guest Blog?

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20,000 people a month are now logging into NeighborsAtWar.com.  I like to keep you up to date on what’s going on in ‘HOA Amerika’, but keeping track of it all is a daunting job. So I want to invite each of you to consider doing a guest blog on situations with which you’re familiar.

Just a warning: I’m a tough taskmaster. After 40 years of investigative reporting and television news editing, I want total control over the final edited product. That’s because I have to take responsibility for what we publish. And I want to make sure each guest blog is short, pithy, to the point, and has punch. It has to be absolutely factual, and whenever possible, it has to link to an original published source.  This helps keep us out of legal hot water.

But I encourage you to join in. From everything I can see, our movement is growing and it’s only through YOUR efforts, NOT MINE, that we can eventually get the whole country educated about the organized crime element that runs through the entire national HOA system.

As I’ve said before, the dozens of indictments produced by the federal investigation of racketeering in Las Vegas Homeowners Associations could probably be reproduced in every city in America. This isn’t just a case of homeowners irritated by covenant restrictions. It’s hard-core violations of RICO statutes aided and abetted by a tort industry willing to violate professional ethics in order to create a massive income stream that comes straight out of the pockets and the equity of homeowners and into the pockets of HOA lawyers and HOA ‘insiders’.

Lastly, each one of us who have Homeowners Rights websites have to work hard to increase our SEO rankings so more homeowners can find us. This means leaving frequent comments on each others sites, and the frequent linking of our sites to one another.

KLOUT score is also becoming a big deal in the cyber-world. Each of us (whether you know it or not) has a KLOUT score, which measures the degree of your influence in the Internet community. Your KLOUT score measures the kind of influence you have over your contacts, your friends and associates. The higher your KLOUT score, the more people will find us. That means creating good content, and bringing as many people as possible into your circle of contacts. 

We used to be powerless as individual homeowners. But the Internet has given each one of us amazing power to attack and correct the wrongdoing of evil or misguided institutions.

You can reach me privately at ward (at)  NeighborsAtWar.com.