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Ward Lucas is a longtime investigative journalist and television news anchor. He has won more than 70 national and regional awards for Excellence in Journalism, Creative Writing and community involvement. His new book, "Neighbors At War: the Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association," is now available for purchase. In it, he discusses the American homeowners association movement, from its racist origins, to its transformation into a lucrative money machine for the nation's legal industry. From scams to outright violence to foreclosures and neighborhood collapses across the country, the reader will find this book enormously compelling and a necessary read for every homeowner. Knowledge is self-defense. No homeowner contemplating life in an HOA should neglect reading this book. No HOA board officer should overlook this examination of the pitfalls in HOA management. And no lawyer representing either side in an HOA dispute should gloss over what homeowners are saying or believing about the lawsuit industry.

Monica Lewinsky at TED Talks

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At least four times over the past four months, I’ve listened to the TED Talk given by Monica Lewinsky. It’s a talk that brought a huge standing ovation. It’s the kind of talk that could change people’s lives forever. Her bravery is beyond description.

More than that, it has some very specific messages for those of us in this battle against the public shaming, humiliation and bullying that happens in Homeowners Associations across the country. It isn’t just the Internet that’s brought on public shaming. In my personal experience, there once was a time when neighbors actually talked to each other, brought each other dinners and birthday cakes, shared holidays together. If a neighbor to neighbor dispute arose it was most often settled quietly over the backyard fence.

I became so passionate about the homeowners’ rights movement after my family and I went through the most horrific public HOA shaming imaginable. Although I’ve finally sold my house in that neighborhood, even the thought of what a number of these ‘neighbors’ did still nauseates me.

It’s only when I started looking around this country that I discovered others were going through even worse pain and torment than what I had experienced.

I have to keep going back to a document I treasure: The U.S. Constitution. With a few exceptions, each line was written to preserve the rights of every citizen. It was written to prevent bullying and shaming. But in the past fifty or sixty years, we’ve written or adjudicated away so many of those protections that we may yet see a day when that Great Document is no longer relevant.

Please, please take the time to watch Monica Lewinsky’s TED talk. Then apply it to your own life. And keep up the battle against HOA bullies.

 

 

Common Sense on Superpriority Liens

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Tennessee politicians have seen through the phony HOA argument that their petty little fines for HOA violations do not give condo and homeowner association boards the right to declare that they can extinguish the existing mortgage and then make a killing selling unburdened properties.

The Nevada Supreme Court shocked the nation by giving HOAs such powers. But a new Tennessee law will guarantee that a little of the HOA abuse in that state will be reigned in. The link below gives the whole subject a new angle.

(link to the change in Tennessee law)

 

A Free CAI Vacation! How Sweet!

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All those board members and lawyers are having another annual convention, all at the expense of homeowners across the country. This time they’re gathered in the shadow of ‘the Sleeping Giant’ in Scottsdale, Arizona. Only the best for our CAI, right?

You’d think they could save some money by holding their convention in a motel in Boring, Oregon. But, no, they desperately need to spend homeowners’ money in the fanciest resort in the U.S.

 

Another HOA Gone Wrong!

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The corruption is so incredibly thick. It’s not just this one story linked below. HOA corruption is endemic across the country. The news media are gradually educating themselves on the national HOA Scam. It’s slow progress, But at least more and more people are learning to never buy an HOA house. Once HOA property values collapse all over the country some will begin to realize that Americans really do like their constitutional rights.