Category Archives: Realtor

MaryJane! Coming to an HOA House Near You!

Whew, the webs we weave when first we practice to deceive (Sir Walter Scott, 1808).

Now that marijuana for medicinal AND personal use has been legalized in several states, grow operations are bound to be taking place very near you.  A next door grow-op will certainly affect your property values, right? And a Homeowners Association will make sure that never happens to you, right?

Wrong, Bunky. One of the biggest lies in American life is that your Homeowners Association protects your property values. There’s not a scientific study in the nation that shows HOAs protect property values. And there are lots of studies that show HOAs  crash property values (think Trayvon Martin’s neighborhood!).

But the growers of grass, weed, Hawaiian black, Indian hemp, jolly green, wacky weed, are looking for a safe place to grow theirs. The safest place in the world is a private home right smack dab in the middle of a Homeowners Association. They’re usually pretty safe. And if they’re not growing ‘skunk’, you’d probably never even notice.

Surely your HOA will protect you against such things as illegal next- door grow-ops. But…if they don’t? How are your property values will do once the police raid gets publicized?

http://tinyurl.com/lxxzd6e

Typical Trickery

There’s yet another lawsuit in North Carolina involving an HOA’s use of phony bookkeeping to jam fees down the throat of an elderly homeowner.

Alan Elam says his family is being bullied by their Homeowners Association (so what’s new?).

Charlotte House HOA and William Douglas Management say HOA dues are late after 30 days. But when Elam is more then 10 days late, he gets fined. When he pays his dues, the fine is charged against next month’s rent which makes him automatically late for the next payment. The fines and late payments have added up to more than $10,000.

Elam’s attorney calls it ‘accounting trickery.’ He’d be more accurate to call it “Standard Operating Procedure.”

The Elam family is destined to lose this lawsuit and forfeit their home.  That’s also standard operating procedure.

http://tinyurl.com/lstajgd

 

CAI Organizes to Lobby Congress!

One of the most articulate, knowledgeable Homeowners Rights advocates in America is Arizona’s George Staropoli. When he makes a prediction you can bet on it. In his current blog, linked below, he says the Community Associations Institute (CAI) is turning its massive lobbying arm into a lobbying effort specifically targeting the U.S. Congress.

CAI is an extremely deceptive organization that turns George Orwell’s Animal Farm on its head. Up is down and down is up, good is bad and bad is good, all animals are equal but some animals are more equal than others. CAI is drowning Congressmen and Senators in the blatant lie that it represents the ‘collective’ rights and interests of all homeowners.

CAI’s website has a more honest depiction of its own organization. It says it represents 44 billion dollars worth of American real estate. What CAI will NEVER tell you is:

     the billions of dollars in fines against homeowners it has encouraged or precipitated,

     the hundreds of thousands of American homeowners it has helped bankrupt,

     the massive numbers of embezzlements from Homeowners Associations by HOA insiders,

     the numbers of murders and suicides precipitated after raw harrassment of homeowners,

     the billions and billions of dollars in HOA dues and homeowners’ legal fees it helped divert to private pockets,

     the complete fabrication that HOAs protect and preserve property value.

During the years of prohibition, Al Capone and his cronies made a fortune in illegal activities surrounding the illegal importation of alcohol. His corruption and his ability to corrupt public figures led to the explosion of La Cosa Nostra. Our Thing. The Mafia. It would be outrageous to think of such an organized crime effort creating a legal lobbying arm to twist the arms and the minds of the dimwits in Congress.

But anyone who takes a closer look at the Community Associations Institute will see how it got its start as a public ‘education’ organization, and then twisted itself into a private lobbying group that made massive profits referring HOA matters to its own ‘preferred’ phalanx of lawyers and service providers. If you’re anywhere close to the CAI, you’re going to get rich. Money from the pockets of dismayed homeowners will pour directly into yours.

CAI won’t tell you that dozens of its members or affiliates were indicted, arrested, committed ‘suicide’, or are facing racketeering charges in the current federal investigation in Las Vegas.

CAI won’t tell you that.

But I will.

And our movement is growing.

http://tinyurl.com/lv3fxhh

For Today? Just A Definition To Mull Over

The following definition is taken directly from the FBI Glossary. No further comment is necessary.

Organized Crime

The FBI defines organized crime as any group having some manner of a formalized structure and whose primary objective is to obtain money through illegal activities. Such groups maintain their position through the use of actual or threatened violence, corrupt public officials, graft, or extortion, and generally have a significant impact on the people in their locales, region, or the country as a whole.

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/organizedcrime/glossary

 

Blog Reader Mile Marker

Very quick update: This blog passed a mile marker last week in numbers of readers.

23,000 unique readers

107,000 visits

1,266,000 page views

This is a relatively new blog and doesn’t count the numbers on the old WordPress site, which was apparently trashed the same day a couple of other homeowners’ rights websites were hit.

But these numbers, while not really huge, do mean something. They mean that more and more people are waking up to the national HOA scam. Our movement is growing and I deeply appreciate those of you who work tirelessly to enlighten naïve neighbors and friends.