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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.

Justice Department Fights for Homeowners. Feel better?

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The big news this week is that the U.S. Department of Justice, Eric Holder & Co., has reached a mass settlement in the housing bubble scandal.

It’s a settlement of more than $25 billion dollars. That’s to pay for all the phony loans, the robo-signing deals by phony bank officials who never ever looked at your real estate closing documents. Attorneys General across the country are hailing it as a landmark settlement, a massive achievement, to help cash-strapped and bankrupted homeowners. They’re holding news conferences and talking about how hard they fight for the average consumer.

Hmm, let’s see. You got crushed in the Fannie/Freddie housing debacle. You lost your house in the mortgage slamdown. Your wife left you and went back to her parents in New Jersey. Your credit is crap. You’ll get to see your kids maybe one time a year. The settlement is for 25 billion dollars. That means at some point in the future, you might… you might, get a check say, for $2000.

That means IF you qualify for a settlement payoff, you COULD get a reimbursement of $2000.

Gosh, I suddenly feel all warm and fuzzy… just warm. And fuzzy.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Mob Mentality in Las Vegas HOAs

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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.

But investors are now filing complaints or suing dozens of HOAs which they claim are gouging them with inflated liens and excessive dues, fines and collection costs. The old wisdom is “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.” Investors are pouring money into dying neighborhoods, but HOA boards are slamming them with fistfulls of phony fines.

The mortgage mess will take years to clear up. But many Las Vegas HOA boards don’t seem to “get it.”

Welcome the investors. Bring in the investors. Use their money to prop up your dessicated neighborhoods. But if you use your customary mob mentality against this new money, you’ll end up paying a high price.

The obvious message to investors is… “never buy a home in an HOA. Not in Las Vegas. Not anywhere.”

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

HOA Alligator Killing Goes to Court

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The story is tragic. An 83 year old woman is killed by an alligator in the Landings Homeowners Association.

Gwynth Williams’ body was found in a lagoon in an exclusive community in South Georgia. Her family is suing the HOA, saying it was negligent for not removing the gator. The HOA and its golf course say they’re not responsible for controlling wild animals that roam the area.

Those are the raw facts, but the behind-the-scenes story will probably not get told by the mainstream media. Win or lose, millions of dollars will be spent on this case. Perhaps the HOA will be punished by a large jury award. That seems to be par for the course in today’s atmosphere of tort law.

The real story is where those millions of dollars will come from and where they will go. They will come from the pockets of homeowners who bought homes in The Landings Association. They will go into the bank accounts of lawyers who represented Williams or who represented The Landings Association.

It’s a tragedy, of course, for the family of Gwynth Williams. It’s a double tragedy for the American system of justice.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

Homeowner Associations a Social Disease?

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Just like a social disease that keeps coming back, some Homeowner Associations never let a patsy out of their grip.

The latest “sucker” is some poor fellow in The Times Condominium At Sweetwater Del Webb Master Homeowner’s Association (Whew! Where do these names come from?)

Anyway, resident Larry Murphree thought he knew what was meant when GW Bush signed the “Freedom to Display the American Flag Act” in July of 2006. Muphree planted two little flags in flower pots outside the door of his condominium.

Along comes the HOA and starts whacking him with fines of a hundred bucks a day, liens, threats of lawsuit and foreclosure.

Murphree is now in federal court in Jacksonville, Florida. He notes that the flag act specifically says “A condominium association… may not adopt or enforce any policy, or enter into any agreement, that would restrict or prevent a member of the association from displaying the flag of the United States on residential property within the association with respect to which such member has a separate ownership interest or a right to exclusive possession or use.” Hmmm. Sounds moderately clear.

Whichever way it goes, Murphree will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The HOA will lose tens of thousands of dollars. The stature and marketability of the neighborhood will fall. The lawyers, of course, will earn hundreds of thousands of dollars. It always seems to come back to that, doesn’t it? The lawyers. They just keep coming back.

Ward Lucas
Author of
Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association

A Homeowners Association Dating Scam?

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Sometimes it hurts too much to cry…so you just have to laugh…and give ’em the publicity they so richly deserve.

It’s another embezzlement from an HOA. The suspect is 62 year old Nancy B. Walker of Boonsboro, Maryland.

Details aren’t crystal clear yet, but investigators claim Mz. Walker filched from $100,000 to $137,000 from the Ballenger Creek Meadows Homeowners Association.

It seems she was involved in an Internet dating scam and was wiring the money to a man in South Africa.

Just an idle question, here: How low does your I.Q. have to be to qualify as the HOA board member in charge of the the neighborhood treasury?

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