Category Archives: Home Assoc

Nevada HOA Corruption War Opens A New Front

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Nevada continues to be Ground Zero in the federal fight against official HOA corruption. Across the country, residents and officials of Homeowner Associations have complained about financial irregularities and outright organized criminal activity involving the HOA Movement. But for years, they were ridiculed, mocked, threatened, fined and essentially separated from their Constitutional rights.

Now, such complainants are gaining serious credibility.

Federal prosecutors, of course, continue their current criminal investigation into Las Vegas HOA corruption, where hundreds of millions of dollars were bled away from homeowners and into the coffers of certain attorneys, judges, law enforcement officials and night club owners.  Strange statistics, but out of ten officially indicted officials, four have suddenly and inexplicably “committed suicide.” One of those four had his knees broken a few days before his body was strung up from a barn rafter and hanged. No conspiracy theory there. They’re just dead.  Forty percent of the Federal Grand Jury’s list of witnesses have just died. Forty percent seems an impossibly high percentage, but facts are sometimes pretty ugly. Dying Grand Jury witnesses really should be of great concern to every citizen who thinks Justice in the American system can actually be achieved.

I’m trying to think of any federal investigation in history where forty percent of the Grand Jury witnesses just suddenly “committed suicide.” Maybe it’s just my wild reporter’s conspiratorial thinking, but after four decades in the news business, I have never seen that happen.  Why Las Vegas citizens aren’t pounding the streets and demanding honesty and justice baffles me. But then I’m old school. I believe the Constitution was written to say exactly what it says it says.

Anyway, there’s a new front apparently opening involving allegations of a corrupt HOA system that’s cheating Nevada homeowners.

I’m not a very popular person in Las Vegas right now because of my book which comes out in two months..

But you can check out the new criminal front in a current news article by the Las Vegas Sun.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/mar/29/dont-question-your-hoa-or-you-might-get-arrested/

The writer is J. Patrick Coolican. If you know him you might warn him of barn rafters, and bathtub drowings and kneecapping and the kinds of things that seem to be happening to truth tellers with some regularity these days.

I keep hoping that Federal Prosecutors are getting some practice in Las Vegas on how to investigate white collar corruption in the HOA Movement, and then institute such investigations in every city in the country. That’s just a pipedream, though. From a grizzled old-school reporter. All I can say is an old cliche.   ‘Where there’s smoke, there’s fire’.

 

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

Some “Inside Dope” on the Las Vegas FBI Investigation

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With four decades as an investigative reporter, I can tell you a few things about what’s going on inside the FBI investigation into HOA corruption in Las Vegas.  First, I happen to know that about half the readers of this blog are federal investigators. That’s not ego, it’s just past experience. So, some of this is written for them.

Second, federal agents are extremely worried about the number of indicted suspects who are getting “whacked.” With ten people under indictment, and four of them suddenly dying, the feds know that a large part of their case is going down the tube. For the time being, those are all being called “suicides” for obvious reasons. But no case in FBI history has had forty percent of its indicted suspects die before trial.

It doesn’t take a CSI-head to know why suspects are indicted early. It’s to make them talk. It’s to force them to rat out co-conspirators. Give ‘em a lesser sentence to testify about the scope and breadth of the conspiracy. And for about a month, the feds were on a roll. But then, top figures in the case ended up being beaten, drowned, hanged. By the way, how does a 57 year old attorney (David Amesbury), who’s beaten to a pulp and both his knees shattered by a baseball bat just two ot three months earlier, climb up onto a rafter in the barn and hang himself? Anybody who believes that one desperately needs some psychiatric help.

Anyway, the feds had two dozen other people right on the cusp of agreeing to work out plea deals by testifying against up to a hundred others involved in the Las Vegas HOA scam. Suddenly those swindlers are clamming up. The feds are promising protection, which absolutely cannot be guaranteed.

Reporters have acronyms for contemptible organizations: NASA (Never A Straight Answer), FBI (Famous But Incompetent). And there’s not a doubt some of those organizations have the same contempt for the news media.

But for the feds to salvage this thing they’re going to have to work faster and harder and forget about offering plea deals to get some lesser player to testify against a major figure two years in the future. It’s not going to happen. This spaceship is going to crash.

The very next thing we’re going to see is the Feebies refusing to release any information at all to the public. Remember, this is an embittered public, many of whom have lost their homes and their entire life savings to these HOA scammers. Shutting down all communication about progress of the investigation is a horrible idea. Homeowners are desperate to get some relief.

The best solution? Recognize that the entire Homeowner’s Association Movement is rotten to the core from Miami to Seattle and from San Diego to Maine. Announce to the world that it’s all organized crime. The entire HOA system was designed to allow racketeering. These RICO organizations have to be attacked everywhere. National legislation has to be enacted to take away most HOA powers. Enact a reasonable Homeowners’ Bill of Rights. Take away the ability for any HOA to foreclose. Ensure that every dispute has an entirely independent “judiciary” which will arbitrate away the small disagreements that turn into huge lawsuits. But most of all get the lawyers out of the HOA business. The current structure is just too profitable for them. That’s why so many lawyers are facing indictment in Las Vegas. But this stench is rising not just out of Las Vegas, but from neighborhoods across America. 

End it!

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

Think Las Vegas HOA Crime is Bad? Try Hawaii!

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“Though the mills of God grind slowly, yet they grind exceedingly small, though with patience He stands waiting with exactness grinds He all.” -Friedrich Von Logau (“Retribution”)

Many of us have dreamed of having that condo on the beach in Hawaii. You know, the one you get to visit a few times a year, the ones where the kids go when they want a break from work.

Now imagine what life is going to be like for folks who live at Ne Nani Kai. Jim and Nancy Bevill, as it’s reported in the Molokai News, have just been awarded 3.87 million dollars. The jury found that the HOA board of directors and its employees have been engaged in a course of racketeering, civil conspiracy, gross negligence, intentional infliction of emotional stress along with a host of other crimes.

Guess who pays that four million bucks? The Bevill’s neighbors. Guess what happens now? Other HOA members are going to start coming forward and claiming they were victimized by the same kind of HOA thuggery.

Folks, you’ve got to believe that the HOA industry is right on a verge of a moral, emotional and financial collapse. Crimes committed by HOA thugs have been going on for far too long and the civil and legal establishment is starting to recognize it. (Actually, to put it more bluntly, a whole bunch of lawyers have suddenly decided to switch sides, stop defending the national Homeowner Association Movement and search for new profits defending the victims of these crimes.)

As an HOA homeowner you’re a sitting duck, not just for abuse, but for the financial ramifications of HOA abuse handed out to others.

I’ve been right in all my other predictions. I was one of the first to warn people to avoid buying into the Las Vegas market. I warned of Florida, and Texas, and the Carolinas. Now I’m warning about the HOA/condo market in Hawaii.

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

One of the Heroes in the Fight

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CalHomeLaw.org is one of the heroes in the heroes in fight against abuse by Homeowners Associations. It costs a few bucks to join, but the average member will be paid back many times in advice and information. It’s designed for California residents but every homeowner in the country can profit from their wisdom and research.

Anyway, in their 2/25/12 email, CalHomeLaw notes how debt collectors cut their own throats in a meeting of the California Legislature. The Radcliffs were an elderly disabled couple in Calaveras County. For some reason, the couple overlooked a $120 annual assessment. The debt collector, Coast Assessment Collection, claimed the couple had been legally served with papers. During questioning, the company admitted that it had stapled the notice of foreclosure to a tree on the far side of the Radcliff’s property.

Angry senators then introduced SB137, a bill to clean up predatory collection practices. The new law demands that notices of foreclosure be physically put into the hands of those targeted for foreclosure. You can’t mail it, you can’t toss it on the porch, it has to be in the homeowner’s hands.

Also, the HOA initiating the foreclosure has to follow a number of other new procedures to make sure that homes aren’t whipped away from the owners. Dispute resolution is mandated.

Still, CalHomeLaw notes that many HOA debt collectors continue the old practices and haven’t improved their behavior.

Ah. Almost forgot to tell you. (dang my fading memory!) Most of the HOA debt collectors are law firms or subdivisions of law firms. (How could I forget that?)

CalHomeLaw.org has the whole sordid story posted.

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

“GET OUT OF JAIL FREE” CARDS

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The game of Monopoly is one of the most popular board games in the world. Its roots were squarely in the Great Depression of 1930. Eighty-two years later, in the middle of another fiscal crisis, this author’s publisher, Judith Briles insisted; no, demanded that a two page chapter be added almost ad hoc at the end my book.  Perhaps she had too many margarita fumes wafting over her as she disembarked from her two-week annual vacation cruise. Or perhaps it was her recent nightmarish confrontation with her own Homeowners Association, but she is absolutely immune to any of my anemic last-ditch efforts at dissuasion.  She wanted me to produce some sort of “Get Out of Jail Free” card that lists some rules of conduct homeowners could carry in their wallets or pocketbooks at all times to help head off any kind  of unexpected meanness from a Homeowners Association.

Certainly, there’s enough historical intrigue around the game of Monopoly to merit some sort of examination of its perfidious past. Most folks don’t know that the British Secret Service once tried to use Monopoly to smuggle certain strategic supplies to prisoners being held by the Nazis. Fake charity groups distributed Monopoly sets that contained hidden maps, real money, compasses and any number of items that could ostensibly be used by imprisoned Limeys to conduct “escape and evasion” missions.

In my business, the Publisher is always right, and the Ink-Stained-Wretch is always wrong, so here is a secret document to be hidden inside all “Get Out of Jail Free” cards distributed to homeowners inside those gated private prisons otherwise known as “planned communities.”

The bottom line is that you, as a homeowner, are always wrong. If your dues are several weeks late, you get no grace period, whatsoever. Pay those dues including interest, late fees, collection fees, attorneys fees, everything.  Don’t argue. Even if your $300 bill has turned into $10,000, find a way to pay it. You could probably count on the fingers of one hand the number of people who’ve been able to get the courts to reduce that fee. Many of those people have spent $40,000 to win the $10,000 case, but no matter, just get it behind you.

If you have an urge to plant flowers in the Springtime, DON’T! Submit an architectural plan containing the exact number of posy seeds, the exact shape of the flower beds, and your future watering plans. Don’t expect the next board to approve any change made by a previous board. Re-submit the same plan each year.

While we’re on the subject, if a single board member has changed, immediately re-submit any requests you’ve made to a previous board. This includes architectural plans, requests to park a relative’s vehicle on the streets during his ten-day visit.

Do not put up Christmas lights of any kind.

Don’t even think of putting a wading pool in your back yard.

Don’t dream of planting a tree in honor of a dead father.

Never, ever think of air conditioners as necessary appliances.

If you have one too many cats, absolutely do not protest when a board member puts a bowl of anti-freeze on your porch. This is one fight you probably think you can win. You can’t.

An outdoor hot tub? Fuggeddaboudit.

If you are assessed a fine because a guest parked his car on the street overnight, do not attempt to argue that it wasn’t your guest.  If the manager or board member determines the car was close enough that it “could” have been your guest, you’re guilty.  In fact, in this society, assume you are always guilty. And you become even more guilty each time to try to prove your innocence.

Never say, “I know my rights!”

Never say, “I’m gonna call my lawyer!”

Never say, “I’ll see you in court!?

Forget the words, “This isn’t fair,” and “Everybody else is doing this.”

Never ask, “Can I work out a payment plan?”

As you fold this paper up and clip it to the “Get Out of Jail Free” card in your wallet, please understand that there have been rebels over the years who have won some widely-scattered fights with Homeowners Associations. Invariably, those victories have come at enormous and unexpected costs. The one thousand dollar fight you expect to wage in court has a nasty way of turning into two hundred thousand dollars. And rebels die young. They really do.

When you moved into an HOA, you thought you were making a move into Utopia, that gleaming City on a Hill, the Republic envisioned by Socrates, Plato and Aristotle. But the only thing that makes Utopia work is a blandness, a sameness, an agreement of understanding that no member of society will ever make waves. Communism described itself as Utopia. The Third Reich was Utopia. Utopia works because every man has surrendered his loyalty and his soul to a single Central Authority.

Keep this card close to your heart. I promise, and Judith, my publisher promises, it’ll keep you out of trouble.

This two-page chapter is really superfluous, because enough warnings have been scattered throughout NEIGHBORS at WAR. But Publisher Briles is a difficult taskmaster and one does not easily ignore her advice.  So here, with apologies to Parker Brothers, is your “Get Out of Jail Free” card with its application for a new era.

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