Condo owners in a Cleveland suburb are suing their condo board because it hid the fact that the building needed millions of dollars in repairs. Recent buyers were told nothing about the massive repairs needed to keep the building from collapsing. It’s just another reason why more and more millennials are learning to rent…not own.
(link to expose’ of yet another failed HOA)
Longtime journalists know they’re never supposed to use the word, ‘fraudulent.’ Unless they can prove it.
The current CAI survey put out by Frank Rathbun and Tom Skiba, heads of the Community Associations Institute, is FRAUDULENT! How they’re able to get a respected polling agency like Zogby is beyond my comprehension. Line by line this poll is fabricated. But money buys anything. Zogby should be ashamed. CAI isn’t about building better communities. It’s about keeping the cash flow going. Keeping the lawyers well-fed. Hiding the amount of embezzling going on in Homeowner Associations across the country.
Hey! That brings up an idea for Frankie for next year’s poll! (Pay attention, Zogby!)
What percentage of HOAs have lost money to embezzlers?
How many board members and HOA managers have been hit with criminal charges?
How many homeowners have lost their life savings by buying an HOA home?
How much money has been made by CAI members who lie to the IRS and say they’re tax-exempt?
How many homeowners say they’ll never live in another HOA?
How many homeowners think of the name, ‘George Orwell,’ whenever they think about Homeowners Associations?
Egads, there are too many such questions to list here. I’m going to bed.
Community Associations Institute (CAI) just released 4 White Papers, Community Next: 2020 and Beyond. The reports are a product of 4 separate hand-chosen panels. For the most part, CAI’s talking points rehash the same old mission. In CAI’s words:
CAI and its chapters—will always be focused on maintaining and improving property values and making communities preferred places to call home. That means collecting assessments, enforcing rules and restrictions, providing quality leadership and more—no matter what external forces influence associations.
Nothing new there. But there are a few new elements to CAI’s political agenda.
Take, for example, the “External Influences Panel Report”
https://www.caionline.org/AboutCommunityAssociations/About%20Comm%20Assns/CAI%20-%20Community%20Next%20-%20External%20Influences%20Report.pdf
Here’s an excerpt:
Influential Stakeholders and Organizations
Association leaders also will need to work closely with influential
stakeholders and organizations, such as developers, real estate agents
and mortgage lenders. The National Association of Homebuilders,
National Association of Realtors and American Bankers Association
exert an incredible amount of influence over development, sales and
mortgage lending for homes in community associations. AARP, with its
large and active membership and powerful voice, also impacts the
success of associations. CAI will need to engage these organizations
to ensure common-interest communities continue to be considered
preferred places to call home.
In my opinion we do NOT want CAI strengthening its ties to NAHB and
NAR and mortgage lenders, nor aligning itself with AARP!
This white paper (and three others) written by CAI, I believe, is
partially a matter of damage control. CAI acknowledges negative public perceptions of Association Governed Developments (HOAs), even though they are not yet willing to admit that their grand utopian community model is plagued by fundamental flaws.
But it’s becoming clear that NAHB is less interested in building new condominiums (except for luxury condos) and is making its case for suburban rather than urban development. That’s clear from NAHB’s recent surveys and news releases. Developers’ agendas are not the same as CAI’s. They want to sell homes and avoid liabilities and litigious environments. They distrust owner-controlled associations, with good reason.
Mortgage lenders are rip-roaring mad about the priority lien debacle in many states, and they are becoming more skeptical when it comes to underwriting mortgages – especially for association-governed multifamily housing — concerned about assessment delinquencies and other financial risks.
We just recently purchased a single family home (no HOA), with a 15-yr fixed, 20% down mortgage from a major financial institution. Very low risk for the lender. The mortgage includes several key provisions and clauses to protect the lender’s interest when a home is governed by an owner’s association – such as reserving the right to require HOA assessments to be collected in escrow. It doesn’t apply in our case, but it was enlightening to see
this language inserted in the mortgage.
We even had to sign an affidavit that said our home purchase is for a primary residence.
I believe most Realtors are still relatively uneducated about Association Governed developments. In my new home state, real estate agents that seem to be “in the know” happen to own land and/or property that they develop into some sort of HOA! Others ally themselves with HOA developers and serve as exclusive agents for those developers. The rest have minimal knowledge about HOAs, Condo Associations, and spew CAI’s usual talking points about property values and maintenance-free lifestyle benefits.
This must change.
But the most disturbing part of this white paper is that CAI is targeting AARP – a consumer organization – as an “influential stakeholder” and positioning itself as a consumer protection group. That is downright sleazy, dishonest, and completely outrageous.
CAI is a trade group interested mainly in improving its professional reputation and enhancing business opportunities for its members. In their own words, CAI’s leaders cling to their core mission of “improving property values” and “enforcing rules and restrictions.” There is no mention of improving social values, enhancing quality of life, or creating a true sense of community. None of those values can be measured in dollars. Bottom line, CAI is not working for the Greater Good.
#ValueMyRights
It’s nice work if you can get it.
39-year-old William Francis managed money for more than four dozen HOA clients. He also managed to steal enough to finance the kind of life many men like him would love to have. Limousines, hookers, porn, NBA tickets. He faces a maximum of 20 years in federal prison. Ah, but these judges rarely sentence a white collar criminal to more than 18 months behind bars. This man apparently spent a lot of his life behind bars, the kind where you find loose women and alcohol.
A life of luxury? People like this guy should get life in prison. Until we start treating embezzlement from HOAs like the crime it really is, the wave of corruption will continue. Nobody takes this crime seriously….except the victims.
(HOA manager admits a life of luxury after stealing all the money)
Growing up as an Army Brat in the 1950s had its benefits. My dad was a West Point graduate in 1939, a time of true national honor, honesty and dignity. Many years later I remember my father weeping at news of the first West Point cheating scandal. I was too young to understand but my dad’s tears just broke my heart.
But these days, nobody raises their eyebrows at cheating and official corruption. It’s just the mud pit of what our country has descended into. Occasionally, reporters here and there expose the official corruption. Here’s the rare one:
(link to CotoBuzz story on Illinois corruption)
