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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.

SOMEBODY’S GONNA BE IN TROUBLE!

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Residents of the Laural Hills Condominum on Tennessee’s Renegade Mountain have been arguing over the price of water for the past six months. The property association, not the homeowners association controls the water. But those danged hillbillies up at Laurel Hills kept up the argument.

Now the property owners association has raised the ante. They just flat-out turned off the water to 84 homes. Turned it off! And that, my friends, is against the law.

Monkeying with someone’s water is almost a shootin’ offense. In fact, a lot of people have been shot during the water wars of the past three hundred years.

Hopefully, we won’t see any of that. But laws are being broken! Can’t you just smell the perspiration of all those lawyers trying to climb Renegade Mountain to solicit clients?

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

Gunfight in the “Not OK Corral?”

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Some desperate homeowners in the underwater mortgage markets of California, Nevada and Florida may be turning to a garish, and undoubtedly illegal way of keeping up with the mortgage. They’re allowing their homes to be turned into giant billboards.

Reuters News Service is reporting on a family in Buena Park, California who permitted a marketing firm to convert its home into a giant “Brainiacs From Mars” billboard. Some neighbors are furious, even to the point of threatening gunfire. Others are looking at their own underwater mortgages and wondering if they should take a second look at accepting a second stream of income.

The marketing firm says it has about 38,000 applications from eager homeowners around the country. The campaign will generate lots of publicity for “Brainiacs,” but it’ll be a rare billboard that stands for more than a month.

Although homeowners have been promised up to a year’s worth of mortgage payments, city codes and HOA covenants will soon come crashing down on advertising that doesn’t conform to local laws.

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

A Smackdown in Texas

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Increasing numbers of homeowners associations across the country have learned there’s profit in being confrontational. Lots of profit.  HOA attorneys advise their clients to attack every violation of the covenants with a vengeance. Insignificant fines often turn into tens of thousands of dollars in fees, fines, collection costs and attorneys’ expenses. Some of those confrontations defy common sense.

Ted Faraz of Irving, Texas, found that out the hard way. He installed some solar panels on his roof. His intent wasn’t malicious. He wasn’t doing it to intentionally anger his HOA. He actually invested $15,000 in an effort to be more environmentally responsible.

His solar panels couldn’t be seen from the street. In fact, only one neighbor could see them and that neighbor said they didn’t bother him at all.

But the Ranch Valley HOA felt differently. They began fining Faraz $50 for each day the solar panels remained. It got worse. The HOA filed a lien and began to foreclose on Faraz’s house.

Faraz felt it was a blatant case of extortion. There was no real point for the HOA to prove. It was always about publicly slamming down a homeowner who strayed outside the rules.

The Homeowners Association has proven one thing, though: that young starry-eyed prospective homeowners would be wise to avoid the Ranch Valley HOA.

Avoid it like the plague.

With homeowners associations across the country taking a nose-dive in real estate values specifically because of this kind of community fascism, homeowners would be well-advised to look elsewhere for a new place to live.

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

HERE COME THE LAWYERS!!!!!!!!!!!!

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When the American Disabilities Act was approved in the 1990’s, it was designed to help disabled people have access to the same amenities as non-handicapped people.

But the big laugh, at the time, had nothing to do with the disabled. It was that the new law was a full-employment plan for lawyers.

Now comes the Jeffrey and Judi Weiss family of Palm Beach. Several years ago their son was paralyzed. His only moments of joy were when his family took him to the beach. So his family bought a condo right on Palm Beach just a few steps away from the ocean.

The Sloans’s Curve Homeowner Association blocked the family’s access to the beach, supposedly to preserve sand at the high water mark.   The HOA’s solution was to build a huge A-Frame of stairs.  To reach the beach, the family now as to carry 62 pound Justin UP THE STAIRS, and DOWN THE STAIRS, over the high-water mark. It’s extremely difficult and an obvious violation of the ADA law.

And the circling creatures, the gray masses in the water, folks….they are lawyers, each wanting a piece of the action.
Ah, and the people really losing all their money are the innocent homeowners who thought that by buying into a Homeowners Association, they might protect themselves from such legal costs.

Floridians! Open up your wallets. You’ve been screwed again by a Homowner Association movement that lied to you from the beginning about protecting your investment behind the shield of a convenant protected community.

You really have no protection. In fact, in the colorful verbiage of the insurance industruct: You’re practicing naked.

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

Don’t Trust The Management Company!

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HOA managers just don’t seem to get it. Handicapped people have a special privilege under the ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act). It’s federal law. It can’t be monkeyed with.

Marcus Cook lived in the Jewell Lake Condominium Association west of Denver. He’s a disabled war veteran who needed a handicap parking spot so he could get his equipment out of his van.

Turns out management didn’t see it the same way and painted over his special parking area obliterating the part that contained the wider parking space. Management mocked him. Forrest Scruggs, of the property management company, Realty One, Inc, said “this crazy guy is asking for a parking space in the new fire lane.”

But the repainted parking lot was not in a fire lane. The Fire Department confirmed it.

War hero Marcus Cook, by the way, suffered a broken back while a paratrooper. He also has cancer and diabetes.

He did take his case up with Colorado’s Civil Rights Division.

Guess who won? The handicapped guy.

Guess who lost? Every family who lives at Jewell Lake Condominium Association in Lakewood.

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