Category Archives: HOA Issues

The Short Sale Trap

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For those of you wanting to make a short sale on your house, you’d better keep an eagle eye on your good old Homeowners Association. They’re starting to get pretty crafty in keeping the neighborhood operating budget full.

For homeowners who are suffering through the housing mess and living with underwater mortgages, working out a short sale might help you save some of your retirement nest egg. The banks take a well-deserved loss, but you’re happy because you’ve found a buyer and you’ve escaped your nightmare of a mortgage.

But wait!  Your HOA has superior rights over your bank. If it moves quickly, it can snatch your home and foreclose on it before your short sale can go through. Just about any violation of HOA covenants can make your home a nice grab.  If you were a little behind on dues, if your grass became a little brown during those months you failed to water the lawn, if you got fined for leaving the trash can outside, once you add fines, collection fees, legal fees, late fees and all the other fees that can be conjured up, your HOA can actually claim you owe it tens of thousands of dollars.

Like a rat trap, the HOA springs shut on your pending short sale. You lose, the bank loses, your potential buyer loses.  Ah, but your HOA wins. It gets to put your house on the auction block. Sweet, huh?

Ward Lucas

Author of

Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Subject: Editorial in Raleigh News & Observer 2/3/12

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Gather a group of people who are members of different homeowners associations and you’ll hear tales across the spectrum of human behavior. Some HOAs are run by groups of well-intentioned, reasonable people who want to help their neighbors and see to it that their association quietly performs the duties of mowing grass, doing repairs on common areas, maintaining a certain level of neatness, watching safety. They try to do their duty without interfering much in neighbors’ day-to-day lives.

And then there’s the other end of that spectrum, where perhaps one or two association leaders mistake their roles for those of drill sergeants or monarchs. It’s their way or the highway, and if they have a grudge against a neighbor who, say, once dared to complain, they don’t mind using the association to intimidate that person.

There’s a reason why a legislative committee has been hearing various accounts about HOAs with an eye toward further regulation, and it looks as though further regulation is needed. There were too many accounts recently at a committee meeting about associations that went after neighbors, including to the point of trying to foreclose.

The General Assembly can start right there. No homeowners association should have the power of foreclosure, end of story, period. Taking someone’s home because they’re late with dues? No. Some association leaders who appeared before lawmakers actually tried to defend that right. And, there should be a line of appeal for alleged excesses on the part of associations besides an expensive trip to court.

Some HOA leaders resist the idea that anyone needs to tell them how to operate or put limits on their powers. But they need instruction, and they need regulation. Strict regulation, with consequences for associations that don’t comply.

Written by:  A.A. Friedrich — Raleigh, NC, USA

http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/02/03/1826206/whoa-hoa.html#storylink=cpy

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Eight Crooks Down

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A lawyer?!? Dang!  The first lawyer in the Las Vegas HOA scandal to admit he’s a crook!  Huge news! 

The Las Vegas HOA corruption case marches steadily onwards. Today (Monday, 10/24/11) an eighth defendant pleaded guilty.  He’s the first lawyer to take the fall for official corruption, and falsifying HOA election results. Sadly, he will get a reduced term for testifying against all the other criminals who took part in this effort to scam the residents of Las Vegas and their insurance companies. But at least his testimony will help bring down other lawyers, judges, police officers, and public officials whose names are yet to come out.

In case you don’t know, folks, this is one of the largest official corruption cases in FBI history.  Funny, how it sits squarely on the American Homeowners Association establishment.  The model for this federal investigation could be imposed on any major metropolitan area in America and the Feds would discover this same kind of corruption.

The HOA movement is fundamentally and foundationally  flawed. Its very structure is problematic because there are no checks on power. The average HOA has no ethics police and no way to discipline official wrongdoing. When an HOA board “goes rogue” it can cause a tremendous amount of financial and emotional damage to the neighborhood before it’s reigned in.

If you’re a resident of Las Vegas who has lost 80 percent of your property value, believe me, it went into the pockets of the criminals now under indictment or facing indictment in the next few months. They got your money, they got your home equity.  In my upcoming book, “Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association”, I’ll tell you where your money went and how easily it slid from your pocket into theirs.

Money doesn’t just vanish from the American housing system. It’s not a magic trick. Your home equity has to go someplace, that’s just basic economics. The stinky secret is that your home equity vanished into the pockets of a certain elite ruling class. In Las Vegas, at least, some brave federal officers are uncovering the secrets and fighting back.

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/oct/24/lawyer-takes-plea-in-vegas-area-hoa-fraud-probe/