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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.

Homeowners Association Nightmares Never Stop

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Estrella Bryant was trying hard to keep up with her mortgage payments on her home in San Francisco, California. Like many other struggling homeowners, she thought she could delay a dues payment to her Homeowners Association. Wrong choice. She was unprepared for the nightmare that followed.

The Parkview Heights Homeowners Association told her she owed $560 in dues. The case was turned over to a collection agency, which then tacked on its own fees and attorney’s fees.

The nightmare grew. Bryant said her big mistake was thinking that an HOA was there to help its member homeowners, the exact opposite of what the typical HOA does.

The HOA’s collection firm said it would be glad to arrange a payment plan, as long as she signed an agreement to pay the collection agency’s fee first. (By the way, it’s absolutely illegal in California for collection agencies to make debtors sign such agreements!)

As soon as Bryant signed the agreement she saw the collection fees, the attorney’s fees, HOA dues and interest continue to rise.

Bryant was one of the fortunate few who found an attorney who would take the case pro bono to save her home.

Anyone in California who finds themselves in a similar situation should contact CalHomeLaw.org. The organization has waged a vigorous fight against illegal practices by Homeowner Associations and collection agencies. They also have excellent material on how Homeowners can use Small Claims Court against out-of-control HOAs.

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

Disabled Child Gets the Finger from his HOA

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Handicapped youngsters are often the target of ire from Homeowners Associations. Despite laws to protect the handicapped, there’s a special kind of rancor directed at families who have special needs children.

The latest example is in Lexington, Kentucky. The Andover Forest Homeowners Association has told the parents of a child with cerebal palsy that no exception from HOA rules would be granted their son.

Three year old Cooper Veloudis is the center of the storm. His therapist told his parents, Tiffiney and George, that their special needs son might be encouraged to be more active if he had, say, a playhouse in the backyard.

A playhouse? For a handicapped kid? Outrageous violation of the rules, according to the HOA. And it’s fining the Veloudis family fifty dollars a day for each day that Cooper’s new playhouse is left standing.

“Illegal structure!” the HOA told the family. “Get rid of it!”

George Veloudis says he has pictures of other such “illegal structures” throughout the neighborhood. Ah, but the typical HOA isn’t required to enforce the law evenly. Besides, pressure on the family might encourage them to pack up and move out, a common plight facing families with a handicapped youngster.

HOA officials won’t talk to the media. Perhaps they’re embarrassed?

On second thought, probably not.

A tip-o’-the-hat to LEX 18 Television in Lexington for reporting on this story.

http://www.lex18.com/news/playhouse-for-boy-with-cerebral-palsy-causing-controversy-in-lexington-neighborhood#!prettyPhoto/1/

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

HOA Dues: For Some, it’s Poison

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Members of Homeowners Associations must pay their HOA dues, on time!

That’s as it should be, of course. After all, homeowners agree in their original real estate purchase agreements to abide by all HOA rules and restrictions. But in thousands of cases across the country, people’s homes are being snatched and sold at auction, sometimes without notice, after a late payment or other violation of vague neighborhood rules.

Tony Goodman, of San Antonio, Texas, is just another in a long line of homeowners to find themselves threatened with homelessness.

Goodman, who was unemployed for nearly a year, says he was unable to pay HOA dues on his $165,000 home in the Lookout Canyon Creek Homeowners Association. He owed $769. With surprise collection fees and attorney’s costs that sum rose to more than $2000. Goodman says he worked out a payment plan with the HOA’s lawyer, Tom Newton, but the plan was rejected by the HOA twice.

Reporter Brian Collister, of WOAI TV, says he tried to get both the attorney and the Homeowners Association to discuss the Goodman case. Neither would talk to him. Collister says he then showed up at a Homeowners Association meeting and tried to ask questions about the home seizure, but the HOA ordered Collier to leave and then called the police.

Tony Goodman was eventually one of the few “snatch and sell” victims who was able to save his house. After all the negative publicity in Texas, the Lookout Canyon Creek HOA agreed to let Goodman make payments to head off the foreclosure.

Others, many others, have not been so “lucky.”

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

For Anyone Planning on Buying a Home in Eden Prairie, MN:

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I love to hear stories of really rotten, really contemptible things that Homeowner Association boards do to certain “targeted” members of the neighborhood. Every ghastly story just reinforces my belief that there’s something desperately wrong with these phony Utopian neighborhoods govered by deed restrictions and neighborhood covenants.

Seven years ago, homeowner Gregg Harcus hung about a half dozen birdhouses around the area. Suddenly, Harcus was ordered by his HOA board that the birdhouses were illegal and had to be removed.

Nobody had complained about them, but the board just decided to remove them.

Harcus, is actually a member of the board, himself, and he thought he’d be able to persuade the rest of the board that the birdhouses were an improvement for the neighborhood.

At the hearing, he was surprised to see that the HOA had hired an attorney be be present.
But wait, it gets even more interesting. Two weeks after the hearing, the HOA Board slams Marcus with a $650 bill for the attorney hired by the Homeowner Association’s board! In other words, just by asking the HOA board to reconsider its decision to remove the birdhouses, the board is ordering Harcus to pay for the lawyer who Harcus didn’t even know was coming!

Ah, but there’s a backstory here; Harcus is apparently in a dispute with a new management company hired to oversee the neighborhood. Somebody wanted to find a way to demonstrate their power to punish a fellow board member.

In frustration, Harcus resigned his position on the board. From what it sounds like, that’s exactly what they were trying to accomplish in the first place.

The petty, arbitrary, and vicious things that routinely take place in the country’s Homeowners Associations just makes them all the more unattractive to would-be buyers.

And to the Homeowners Association board at Bluff Country Village Townhomes, an extra helping of scorn and shame. You’ve just made your neighborhood a little dirtier, a little uglier, a little more vulgar, and a little more socially dangerous for homeowners to rise out of their own apathy.

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

Embezzlements from Homeowner Associations Routine

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It’s incredible, really, how common embezzlements are from Homeowners Associations. With 320,000 HOAs across the country, you’d think there would be a major push to clean out the corruption that seems endemic in such HOAs as the latest one in the link below.

There are many fundamental problems with the structure of the modern HOA. As private non-profit corporations, the HOA is typically beyond the law. Restrictions against government, the protections we’ve grown accustomed to in the U.S. Constitution, don’t apply to the average HOA. As such, dictatorial edicts against such things as freedom of speech, protection against unreasonable search and seizure, and due process happen all the time.

Homeowners in the HOA environment become apathetic. So when the “neighborhood Nazi” gets elected as the tipping point vote on the HOA board, it’s usually by a very tiny vote by the HOA membership.

Overthrowing the “neighborhood Nazi” or overturning senseless edicts usually requires a “Super Majority” of an already apathetic membership. The idea that Homeowners Associations are “democracy at work” should really be a warning about the true meaning of “democratic tyranny.”

The typical embezzler who recognizes the truth of all the above points, feels no guilt or compunction about dipping into the till. He or she feels they’ve earned the right to help themselves, and they do just that.

How many millions of dollars (or hundreds of millions!) are stolen each year from Homeowners Associations? You just don’t want to know. But research by this writer indicates the crime happens in tens of thousands of communities. It just gives you a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach.

Source: http://www.winknews.com/Local-Florida/2011-11-23/President-of-Homeowners-Association-Accused-of-Embezzlement

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

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