Nancy Quon, the attorney at the center of a Homeowner Association scandal in Las Vegas, has been found dead in her bathtub. Quon had been accused in an HOA construction defect litigation scandal that took in more than a hundred million dollars from insurance companies that represented Homeowner Associations in Nevada.
The FBI has been investigating up to a hundred Homeowner Associations in the Las Vegas area, and has staged several raids on the offices of HOAs and HOA management companies. The scandal has been in the hands of at least three federal grand juries over the past three years. At least ten prominent figures in the investigation have pleaded guilty to a variety of charges over the past five months.
People in Kansas and Missouri Homeowner Associations must have wondered why they weren’t being hit by embezzlers. Were they just more honest, maybe luckier? Maybe people in the Midwest just respect each other a little more?
But then, maybe not. The feds in Las Vegas have learned how the corrupt HOA system is bleeding dollars away from homeowners across the nation. Now U.S. Attorney Beth Phillips theft has released info that should shock a lot more homeowners.
She has arrested the owner of a Kansas City business for stealing more than 750,000 dollars of money from his neighbors. And he has pleaded guilty. Dozens of homeowners associations were hit while 53 year old Dale Palmar of Kansas City, Missouri just raked it in.
We haven’t heard much lately about the Las Vegas Homeowner Association scandal and the federal investigation which has already obtained ten guilty pleas against public figures for corruption. But, we may as well do this blog to keep Las Vegas criminality in the headlines.
The Mountain’s Edge Homeowner Association is being sued by investors who tried to snatch up foreclosed homes in the Vegas area. In the mortgage collapse, investors have taken a huge risk in trying to buy up homes which were abandoned by bankrupted homeowners. Those investors are just about the only financial thread keeping entire neighborhoods from going under.
Washington State is such a pretty place to live. They call it “The Evergreen State.”
And a boat-load of Homeowners Associations were all going to help protect and preserve property values for all those new owners. Well, it’s not working out so well for folks in the Hazel Dell Townhomes, part of the Timbers at Town Center HOA in Vancouver. About six years ago, crowds of real estate agents dragged their clients in to buy some of those ritzy new townhomes. Now, HOA dues are going unpaid, a lot of personal wealth has been shredded, common areas are uncommonly unkempt. At this point, a townhouse owner probably couldn’t unload his property in a bad poker game.
With several dozen Las Vegas Homeowner Associations mired in the muck of a federal corruption investigation, members of one association have learned they may be targeted by huge IRS assessments and fines.
Sun City Summerlin Community Association is not one of the Nevada HOAs where investigators have found corrupt cops and judges and lawyers. But this HOA’s accounting practices are attracting lots of federal attention.
