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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.

Another Vegas Crook Bites the Dust

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Daniel Solomon pleaded guilty to trying to swindle his neighbors at the Vistana Homeowners Association. He admitted he became a “straw purchaser” in the Vistana HOA so he could direct construction business to his co-consirators. He’s the 9th bad guy to admit to the judge that he’s guilty.

If I were living in an HOA whose value plummeted fifty to sixty to eighty percent because of scandals like this, I’d be mortified. If I knew my condo had ZERO resale value because a bunch of neighbors were skimming property values off the top to slip into their own greedy pockets, I’d be more than furious, I’d take to the streets.

Are you HOA members in Vegas such pastel patsies that you’ll put up with this garbage?  Across the country, the same kinds of scams are happening everywhere. Yet homeowners meekly sit by and whine, “I just don’t really want to get involved.”  Involved?!?!?!?  You’re being cheated. You’re being robbed. You ARE involved!!!  Your retirement savings are being wiped out because some crook down the street wasn’t honest enough to say, “No I don’t want to commit the kind of crime you’re offering me!” You ARE involved.  But where’s your anger?  Where’s your outrage?

My upcoming book, “Neighbors at War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association” addresses the Las Vegas Scandal, but it goes after some of the swindles going on in 300,000 other Homeowners Associations across the country. You will not believe the lives this movement has ruined. You won’t believe the families who’ve been broken apart because some HOA Nazi decides to confiscate a home under the most incredibly minor circumstances.  God Bless you if you live in one of the rare HOAs that haven’t had problems.  But don’t be naive.  You have absolutely no Constitutional rights when it comes to defending your beloved home if you live in an HOA.

I’m thinking of called my second book on the subject “Gutless in Las Vegas“.  It wouldn’t be too far off the mark.

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

HOA Reform: Conservative? Liberal? Or Libertarian?

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As discussed recently in this forum, it’s mystifying why neither the political left nor the political right has taken a stand on the state of “HOA America.” Sixty million homeowners live in one of the country’s 300,000 Homeowners Associations. The number of HOAs is exploding with government jurisdictions around the country turning over lower government responsibilities to the HOA Movement.

As a private non-profit corporation, a Homeowners Association has incredible power to harass, fine and foreclose. Housing discrimination is still common in many areas. Violation of the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act is ongoing. Free speech is restricted, religion is restricted. Due process is rarely, if ever, followed. Almost every one of the protections that Americans think they have in the Bill of Rights is trampled on daily.

Where’s the ACLU? Missing.

Where’s the outcry from conservatives and Consitutional originalists? Non-existent.

With such a large and growing population ending up in these private government corporations, a reasonable observer would think that some political faction ought to grab onto the anti-HOA issue as a cause celebre.

Well, here comes the Texas chapter of Eagle Forum, a very conservative group, with a strong editorial called “Legalized Extortion.”

http://texaseagle.org/april-2011/302-legalized-extortion.html

It’s an excellent look at an industry that passes out equal abuse to homeowners all over the political spectrum.

It took the illegal abuse of a Texas family (Michael and May Clauer) to generate this strong an outcry. But who knows? Maybe the various political factions in the country will wake up and finally recognize that the HOA Movement is helping the U.S. Constitution to pass into irrelevancy.

And that’s not a left or right issue.

It’s an American issue.

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

A Bad Case Of HOA Insensitivity

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There are many ironies in the country’s HOA quagmire, but the one that really stirred anger among American families was the 2010 confiscation of the home of an Army Reserve Captain named Michael Clauer.

Clauer and his wife, May, lived in the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association in Frisco, Texas. They had two young children, one of them just a toddler. They owned their 300,000 dollar home free and clear, a gift from May’s parents.

But when Michael was transfered to command a unit in the war in Iraq, May Clauer allowed what she thought was junk mail to pile up. Sadly, among the items in the growing stack of mail were the couple’s HOA dues, about 877 dollars, and the threat to foreclose.

One day, when May answered the door, a visitor told her that he now owned the home and that she and her family would have to vacate. It seems that Heritage Lakes HOA had done a non-judicial foreclosure, meaning no judge ever heard a foreclosure case against the Clauer family. The HOA had just reached out, snatched the home, auctioned it for $3500 to an investor who sold it again for $135,000.

Federal law prohibits civil actions against service members who are on active duty overseas. But many Homeowners Associations consider federal law just a minor annoyance.

Michael Clauer says not a single person from the Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association ever visited his home, despite the fact that board members live just a short distance away.

The Clauer’s finally got their house back after a federal judge ordered all the parties involved to work out a settlement. Details of the settlement are confidential, but it’s hard to imagine that the experience was not extremely costly for the family.

Clauer now lives in Virginia. He says he’ll never again live in a Homeowners Association.

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

The Dictatorial Power of the Homeowners Association

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Negative experiences continue making national headlines, as HOA homeowners share stories of almost incomprehensible conflict. A homeowner who loses her home because she underpaid her dues by 78 cents! (Florida) Homeowners fined because they put up some Halloween decorations.(multiple locations) Christmas decorations banned in neighborhood after neighborhood. An HOA president who orders a board member to poison cats with anti-freeze! (Arizona)  What is going on? Have people just gone crazy?

Kim and Ed Hartnett owned a nice condominium at Spinnaker Run 1, but their Homeowners Association has levied so many fines against them for late payment of dues, that they just can’t catch up. They’ve abandoned their nice condo and are now living in a motor home.

Homeowners Associations are theoretically supposed to improve property values, but the actual experience by many homeowners is that home values are being crushed by the presence of a Homeowners Association. Too hard to believe?

Well, would you want to buy in an HOA where the president has just pleaded guilty to embezzling hundreds of thousands of dollars from the neighborhood budget? (multiple locations)  Would you buy into a condo where a grandmother is foreclosed on because she accidentally underpayed dues by $4.70? (Venetian Village, FL)  Would you (or could you) get a loan to buy a place in Clinton, CT, where the FHA and HUD have decided they will no longer offer federally backed loans? And would you buy a home in a neighborhood where you are prohibited from having your grandkids stay the weekend?

When faced with allegations like these, HOA officials almost universally refuse to comment. That’s obviously the advice they’re getting from legal firms that represent the HOA quagmire.

But really, do HOAs protect home values? Ask homeowners in Las Vegas, where some homes have dropped 80 percent in value. Or look at Florida where homeowners can’t even give their homes away. Just ask a Realtor if more and more clients are asking to see only non-HOA homes.

Are there good HOAs? Of course. But it just takes a single election for an HOA board to turn from gentle to rogue. And how difficult is it for a neighborhood to ‘unelect’ a rogue board?

HOA officials across the country are told by attorneys and property management companies, “Don’t worry. The odds are practically ZERO that the voters will ever rise up and remove you from office. You’re safe. Just keep doing what you’re doing.” They do. And the value of homes in gated communities continues to fall.

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

Eight Crooks Down

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A lawyer?!? Dang!  The first lawyer in the Las Vegas HOA scandal to admit he’s a crook!  Huge news! 

The Las Vegas HOA corruption case marches steadily onwards. Today (Monday, 10/24/11) an eighth defendant pleaded guilty.  He’s the first lawyer to take the fall for official corruption, and falsifying HOA election results. Sadly, he will get a reduced term for testifying against all the other criminals who took part in this effort to scam the residents of Las Vegas and their insurance companies. But at least his testimony will help bring down other lawyers, judges, police officers, and public officials whose names are yet to come out.

In case you don’t know, folks, this is one of the largest official corruption cases in FBI history.  Funny, how it sits squarely on the American Homeowners Association establishment.  The model for this federal investigation could be imposed on any major metropolitan area in America and the Feds would discover this same kind of corruption.

The HOA movement is fundamentally and foundationally  flawed. Its very structure is problematic because there are no checks on power. The average HOA has no ethics police and no way to discipline official wrongdoing. When an HOA board “goes rogue” it can cause a tremendous amount of financial and emotional damage to the neighborhood before it’s reigned in.

If you’re a resident of Las Vegas who has lost 80 percent of your property value, believe me, it went into the pockets of the criminals now under indictment or facing indictment in the next few months. They got your money, they got your home equity.  In my upcoming book, “Neighbors At War: The Creepy Case Against Your Homeowners Association”, I’ll tell you where your money went and how easily it slid from your pocket into theirs.

Money doesn’t just vanish from the American housing system. It’s not a magic trick. Your home equity has to go someplace, that’s just basic economics. The stinky secret is that your home equity vanished into the pockets of a certain elite ruling class. In Las Vegas, at least, some brave federal officers are uncovering the secrets and fighting back.

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2011/oct/24/lawyer-takes-plea-in-vegas-area-hoa-fraud-probe/