Category Archives: Patriotism

CAI Law Firms Fight Back

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CAI lawyers in Florida (and most likely elsewhere) are whining about one of the few court decisions that ever favored a homeowner against an HOA. It’s a case where the homeowner wrote a check for $840 with the notation, “in full and final satisfaction (of disputed amount).” The homeowner included a letter with the same basic language.

The HOA attorney instructed his clients to cash the check, but only apply part of it toward the original disputed amount. An Appellate Court has now ruled that since the check was cashed, the HOA cannot go after the $38,000 in additional fees it claimed was owed by the homeowner.

This is another one of those trashy HOA scams that have given the industry such a horrible reputation among American homeowners. If a homeowner claims, rightly or wrongly, that an HOA fine was improperly assessed, the HOA immediately begins tacking on late fees, fines, attorney’s fees, collection costs and interest. Florida law forces the homeowner to pay the most recent fees first. In other words, interest, collection costs, lawyers, fines, late fees, and only then can the homeowner ever repay the original debt.

It’s a beautiful system which has worked well for generations of Mafia families and for low-life debt collectors. While the debtor desperately tries to pay his original debt, the associated fines and interest keep rising, as do legal fees and collections. It’s a daisy chain that’s impossible to break. It’s a massive money maker for lawyers and collections agencies who, while doing absolutely no work, can raise their charges indiscriminately and perpetually until the homeowner is broken. Of course, the HOA prances in and seizes the home which it promptly puts up for auction. The lawyers then begin picking through the estate of the bankrupted homeowner. The system is fundamentally unfair to the individual homeowner who never has a chance to plead for his own day in court.

So in this rare decision where the Court ruled in favor of the homeowner, the tears and gnashing of teeth are being heard throughout the CAI community.

(CAI firm’s warning to the HOA industry)

 

Screaming, Hair-Pulling HOA Fist Fights

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So you’re thinking of spending your ‘golden years’ in a beautiful peaceful retirement community? You want to live in a neighborhood where neighbors really care about each other?

You have so many really wonderful choices of communities to live, places like Mainlands 3 in Tamarac, Florida. Warm air, well-kept lawns, ocean breezes, bird songs filling the air, happy people wishing each other “Good morning,” or “Good afternoon.”

Before you get too excited, check out the video linked below. It would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. It graphically demonstrates what’s going on in hundreds of thousands, if not millions of Homeowners Associations across the country.

(link to WPLG-ABC News, Miami)

 

To Spark Some Financial Brainstorming

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I just finished taping a TV interview in Denver on the future of Homeowners Associations. The host generally agreed with me that a financial tidal wave is coming that will slam into the nation’s housing market. It will begin with a collapse of the U.S. mortgage industry and HOAs will be the first to be decimated. With the unprecedented amount of federal debt, the ending of quantitative easing, Japan’s weak-kneed attempt to begin its own form of quantitative easing, Russia vowing to outlaw circulation of the U.S. dollar, China’s weakening international trade, a U.S. stock market trading (weakly) at all-time highs, threats of war in Ukraine, Iran, Syria, North Korea, the US/Mexico border, former Communist leaders predicting a return to leadership in East Germany. All the signals for world-wide financial disruption are there.

Outside the TV studio the host asked me a question I had trouble answering: “OK, if you believe all this is coming, where do you put your money?”

Whew! Talk about a million dollar question.

Some experts are advising stashing savings into commodities like silver, copper, any basic manufacturing materials. Others advise using your spare money to pay down mortgages to help you hold out for the long run. Still others say to get ready for hard times you need 9 months of food and water stored in the basement.

I’m not an economist, not even a great investor, and I’m certainly not a survivalist. But if HOAs are the first to be hit in the coming tsunami, why would a homeowner want to pay off a mortgage in an HOA house? With the massive potential for a troubled HOA to bully marginal homeowners with extra fines, fees, liens, legal fees and collection costs isn’t a paid-off HOA home a prime target for greedy (or desperate) board members and managers? Isn’t a supposedly ritzy HOA neighborhood a prime target for questionable slip ‘n’ fall lawsuits where each owner has to fork up money to pay off judgments and legal expenses?

Add to the mix the Nevada court decision (and pending replication elsewhere) the fact that a super-priority lien (the HOA’s petty fine for unmowed grass) can extinguish the first deed of trust (your mortgage) and you’ve got the formula for neighborhood nitroglycerin. It’s unstable at best.

We’re learning more each day about the risks of owning HOA property. Abusive boards, management companies and complicit law firms have brought all this seeming lack of stability about. So, what is the smart investment in troubled times?

Comments?

I’m all ears.

 

“What Hath God Wrought?”

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“What hath God wrought?”

It’s the anguished question from the fourth book of the Old Testament.

It was the astonished phrase that opened the first telegraph line between Baltimore and Washington in 1844.

It could also be used to express complete disgust at a current HOA news story from Detroit.

Waterford homeowner Natalie Forte bought a Chevy Volt which she charged from an outlet in her shared HOA garage. She had no problem with paying an extra charge for the power. But she says her HOA demanded four times the amount of power that her Chevy Volt actually used.

What did the HOA do? LOL! They just disconnected all the power to Natalie’s garage, forcing her to use a 100 foot extension cord to charge the Volt from her condo.

Really? Can HOA vindictiveness get any more ridiculous than this?

What hath God wrought?

(link to WXYZ-Detroit story)

(link to Green News)

 

HUD Cracks Down on Housing Discrimination Against Disabled

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guest blog by Deborah Goonan

It saddens me that housing discrimination against the disabled is so common. An apartment complex, an independent living facility, and two HOAs are among four offending housing providers in HUD’s early November report.

From denial of an accessible parking space, to reluctance to provide wheelchair access; from denial of an emotional support animal, to terminating residency after short-term hospital stays, management of these communities continues to find ways to try to skirt around the law.

“We continue to see more cases of discrimination against persons with disabilities than any other type,” said Gustavo Velasquez, HUD’s Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity. “It is unacceptable that individuals with disabilities have to fight for the opportunity to live where they want, or to have reasonable accommodations extended to them so they can enjoy their dwelling. The cases we’re announcing today reflect our ongoing commitment to leveling the playing field for all Americans when it comes to housing.”

In 2013, almost 54 percent of the complaints filed with HUD (4,426) alleged housing discrimination based on disability.

The stark reality is that most of us will face disability at some point in our lives. For some of us, it may be temporary. For others, it may be a long-term progressive health condition that leads to limited mobility, depression and anxiety, or limited mental capacity.

Therefore, shouldn’t we all be compassionate and understanding? No one guarantees that life will be tidy and convenient for the disabled, their families, their neighbors, or the managers of their housing developments.

It is truly a silver lining that at least our Federal government still takes a role in enforcing fair housing laws. In fact, it seems as though filing a fair housing complaint is the only way to get some HOAs to comply. What a shame that some HOAs are so willing to waste assessment dollars and cause so much suffering in the process.

(link to housing discrimination news release)