Texas Ain’t No Rain Forest
guest blog by Nila Ridings
guest blog by Nila Ridings
A patriotic member of the U.S. Marines tried to fly both the American Flag and the Marine Corps flag outside his home in Atlanta. But the Sun City Peach-Tree Homeowners Association says he’ll be fined, sued, liened and foreclosed if he does so. Seems that Sun City will only allow one flag at a time (Southern Homeowners Associations have been consistently losing their fight to ban all flags).
The Griffin Management company thinks it has total control over its homeowners and can micro-manage every aspect of their lives.
Former Marine Captain Jim Lowe still has the spit and fury of a U.S. Marine in his heart and says he’s going to fight. But his Homeowners Association is fining him 25 bucks a day each time they spot the reviled Marine flag on his flagpole.
Captain Lowe and his wife say they plan to move out of the community. Apparently they’re just now realizing that Amerikan Homeowner Associations are not really part of America. And he wants to move back into the country that he loves.
BTW, it’s not about this man’s right to fly which ever flag he chooses. It’s about the equity in his home. No HOA fines a guy unless it first checks public records to see how much equity there is. Follow the money, folks. Never follow the ideology or the reasoning behind stupid board decisions. Follow the money. It’s all about the equity and how much can be seized and transferred to the HOA’s operating budget.
Believe me.
Just believe me.
(click to read article in the Atlanta Free Beacon)
The president of the Seascape Homeowners Association in Galveston, Texas, is suing a homeowner for ten million bucks after the homeowner circulated an email to fellow homeowners called the president “arrogant, incompetent, dishonest, and harassing.”
President Ron Benotti is suing homeowner Richard Alan Collier. Collier alleged that Benotti mishandled a project to restore beaches in the area.
The really surprising thing here is that the court didn’t throw this case out long ago based on the ‘public figure’ rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court. Once a person goes public by running for office or otherwise inserting himself into public discussions it’s nearly impossible to successfully sue for libel and/or slander. It’s the one thing that protects news agencies from lawsuits when they inspect the private behavior of public officials.
Benotti’s lawyers had to have told him that his lawsuit will never survive against the public figure argument. His defamation suit is nothing more than a SLAPP lawsuit designed to cost the defendant his life savings and shut him up.
For shame, Benotti and your phalanx of HOA paid-for lawyers! For shame!
(click here for article in the Southeast Texas Record)
Two of Colorado’s largest housing foreclosure law firms are now in the cross hairs of the State Attorney General for allegedly fraudulent billing practices.
Attorney Susan Hendrick used to work for the law firm, Aronowitz & Mecklenberg. She has testified under oath that her former employer made millions of dollars by padding its legal bills on housing foreclosures. Those bloated bills that weren’t paid by homeowners ended up being charged off to the taxpayers. Hendrick also alleged that the law firm destroyed evidence subpoenaed by prosecutors during their investigation of the law firm’s practices.
Attorney Robert Aronowitz and his attorney daughter and son-in-law own a private firm which posts foreclosure notices. State investigators say they believe the law firm and the private posting firm were used to inflate foreclosure fees many times above the customary amounts.
Hendrick also testified about the second firm, The Castle Law Group. The two firms have handled 90% of the state’s foreclosures over the past few years. Among other allegations being made are that the two law firms manipulated State Legislators into passing legislation that ended up more than doubling the law firms’ already artificially inflated legal fees.
The Denver Post has been aggressively investigating and reporting details of this story.
Their latest revelations are posted here…. and here.
It’s so much fun to a see a prediction come true. For several years, now, I’ve been talking about the coming wave of inexpensive drones; flying machines equipped with incredibly clear spy cams. They’re light as a feather and designed to be astoundingly invasive. If you and your gal pal or boy toy use the backyard Jacuzzi at midnight, understand that your underwater antics are going to be displayed at the monthly HOA board meeting. From five hundred feet in the air you’ll be able to count the freckles on your lover’s shoulders. At night!
If you leave your second story bedroom shades open, these spy cams can hover and record all the action.
“Not fair!” you rant. “Not fair!”
Well, get used to it, folks, because the FAA doesn’t regulate these spy toys. Unless you’re invading federal air space there are no rules at all. And if your backside shows up on the community center’s big screen how are you going to stop it? Invasion of privacy? Heck, there’s a long list of Homeowners Associations that routinely violate privacy. Some California HOAs are doing unannounced inspections of the interior of members’ homes. It’s all in the name of stopping hoarders, of course.
Slander? HOAs routinely slander targeted homeowners. Your extra pounds aren’t slander because you did it to yourself.
Harassment? Forget about it. The ‘H’ in HOA means harassment.
Remember all those covenants and standards that you signed on your real estate documents? Well, hidden inside those documents is a clause that lets your HOA board change the covenants at will and as needed. If your HOA needs to force a targeted homeowner out (think race, religion, gender bias, marital status) then it will do so. Your lawsuit against the HOA will cost you a bloody fortune, and in the end it’ll be tossed out of court because you gave your permission to your HOA to sue you. Not only that, you agreed to pay all your HOAs legal expenses.
So, hot tub lovers, start dieting now. Your privates are no longer private.