Those of you living outside Nevada might have missed one of the most important editorials of the week. Of the month. If you love your family and your home, please take the time to read this from the Las Vegas Review-Journal:
http://www.lvrj.com/opinion/hoa-smackdown-27-guilty-pleas-entered-so-far-175202281.html
The Bank of America lawsuit against dozens of Nevada Homeowners Associations chugs onward. Earlier this Fall, B of A filed a federal lawsuit claiming that HOAs were illegally charging excessive collection fees and arbitrary fines against homeowners who committed minor infractions of HOA rules and covenants.
In one such case, a family in North Las Vegas moved out of their home and attempted to short sell it through the Bank of America. But the HOA in question decided the home in question had too many pine needles and weeds on the property, and they filed a lien against the home. Although the initial fine was only a few hundred dollars, the HOA dramatically escalated its fines and costs to more than $16,500. That made the home virtually unsaleable.
In another case (reported by Darcy Spears, KTNV-TV in Las Vegas), homeowner Char Vanderveen had her home seized by the Mountain’s Edge Homeowners Association. The HOA sold her $700,000 home for $7000, less than one percent of its true value.
There are hundreds, if not thousands or even tens of thousands of similar cases.
Bank of America says that kind of thing is happening all over Nevada and they want a federal judge to intervene. Any kind of major judgment against Nevada HOAs could cost them millions of dollars. HOA board members and their attorneys are now whining that if they lose the case, the costs will have to be assessed against all other homeowners.
To refer back to the headline of this story, would you buy a home in an HOA that’s potentially facing multi-million dollar judgments, legal fees and huge special assessments against all homeowners? Wouldn’t you be stupid to do so?
William Ronald Webb was a major player in the federal investigation into massive corruption in the Valley’s HOAs. His plea comes just a day or so after the federal judge in the case told victims they probably wouldn’t see any restitution in the case. That’s the problem with ponzi schemes, the Bernie Madoffs made off with your money and leave everyone else in the pyramid high and dry.
The Vegas HOA scandal wasn’t really a ponzi. It was just a run-of-the-mill insurance fraud, phony HOA election, bribery, swindle with some good old boys mixing the date-rape drug in the police lab thrown in for interest. Oh, I forgot, several dead cops, dead attorneys, and a lawyer with his knees bashed so far backwards that he actually had to work up a sweat before climbing a ladder in his brother’s barn to hang himself from a rafter.
Now that the judge has officially pronouced all those little old men and ladies swindled and broke, all the victims could hope for was that the scammers might get some extra time in the joint. Naw, they’ll spend more time smoking joints than sleeping in them. Web got six years. The swindled old ladies get to pay the penalty for the rest of their lives. Somehow, it just doesn’t seem fair.
More coming. But don’t expect any huge jail time.
This blogger saw it coming last year when the indictments and highly suspect “suicides” first started happening. Now the federal judge in the Las Vegas HOA corruption case says he’s sympathetic. But he’s telling scammed homeowners, “Don’t hold your breath. You probably won’t be seeing any restitution.”
From the very beginning, I have been saying that homeowners who were shafted in the massive HOA scandal would never get their money back. Officially, federal investigators say the sum of 8 million dollars was stolen. Unofficially, more than 100 million dollars of homeowners’ money was funneled through to the lawyers, the police officials, the political figures, the businessmen who all took part in the fraud. Insurance companies lost scores of millions. Who do you think has to make that up? Yep, it’s the homeowners who’ll see their premiums rise, the contractors who’ll never be trusted again, the homeowners who’ll never see their defective homes repaired, and the elderly who’ll never be able to sell out and move.
Sadly, the real losses in this scam will never be truly calculated. Not only have homeowners lost millions through phony HOA elections, fake board members and secret bank accounts. But the value of all housing in Las Vegas has taken a huge hit in this economy. Did the HOA system protect homeowners? That was always the promise. But investors would have to be idiots to sink any money into a home in a formerly scandal-ridden neighborhood.
So don’t believe it when you’re told the loss to homeowners is only 8 million dollars. No, the real losses to taxpaying, home-owning Nevadans will ultimately be in the hundreds of millions. All you can do is hope for more indictments. And lengthy prison terms. If that’s any consolation.
As always, reporter Jeff German from the Review-Journal remains on top of this story. The link to his story, today, is below.
That’s the official conclusion of investigators looking into the death of Nevada Lawyer David Amesbury. He used to run the ever-popular CourtHouse Restaurant. His wife was a former Clark County Prosecutor. Earlier he had pleaded guilty to criminal wrongdoing and taking a small part in a massive scheme to make a faked buy of homes inside of Las Vegas gated neighborhoods.
The scheme required the fake neighbors to become fake board association members to take fake votes to send fake construction remediation work to fake construction companies all overseen by Las Vegas attorney Nancy Quon, who it turns out was the queen of all fakes, herself. She faked a drug overdose, she faked a fire in her home supposedly to commit suicide. But she was pulled from the flames just in the nick of time. “Whew! that was close!” A bit later, Quon chose some better drugs and some bath water to do the trick.
Sure, Amesbury was a little embarrassed to get caught up in this mess, but he was about to get a huge break. A lighter sentence and maybe some traveling money to rat out some low level racketeers. You don’t commit suicide for that. you commit suicide because someone is scaring you so badly that you feel there’s no way out. That could be the prosecutors. Or it could be his low-life former business partners.
Of the first ten people invited to plead guilty in the Federal Grand Jury investigation, four of them committed suicide. Now think about this: four high ranking police officials and two rich attorneys pleaded guilty in exchange for their testimony against a couple of low-lifes? Is something just not registering in the minds of Las Vegas residents? Aren’t there a few too many “fakes” in this story? The basic plot line just doesn’t fit “Tthe 100 Monkey Test.”
In David Amesbury’s case, he’s found lying on his face behind the gates on one of those gilded neighborhoods, he’s beaten to a pulp, his pants are yanked down below his ankles. and his knees are broken backwards. Yet we’re to believe this brutalized 56 year old man had the strength to climb to the rafters in his brother’s barn and hang himself? it’s a good story but his family doesn’t buy it. They public may not be buying it, either.
Ward Lucas, author of Neighbors At War! The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association
