HOA boosters like the Community Associations Institute would have us all believe that embezzling by HOA board members is very isolated. Linked below is one more of the hundreds and even thousands of cases of out-of-control board members stealing from their neighbors.
(how isolated is HOA embezzling?)
She was a 17 year old lifeguard at the Heritage Point HOA swimming pool. She was found in the water by another employee, but he could not jump in and try to save her because the water was electrified.
My heart is broken for her parents, family, and friends who will say a final good-bye to Rachel in the coming days. There will always be the unanswered questions. One will be “why” did this young woman’s life end so soon?
The investigators will uncover “how” this happened. Possibly, she left them one clue with a text message on her phone that was found near the pool? But no matter how it happened, Rachel’s life journey has ended.
We have heard of these deadly pool stories before where the HOA hired some unlicensed contractors to do the wiring on a pool and it proved to be a fatal decision. They saved no money, as they thought they would, but they took the life of an innocent person. I certainly hope that is not the case in this situation.
Adding to the sadness of the loss of life, the homeowners face the liability of responsibility for these tragedies. It’s that liability that so few people realize they are accepting when they sign those papers to own a home in an HOA. Every homeowner can have his or her life changed drastically if the insurance coverage is not sufficient, the policy has been canceled, or the attorneys find significant negligence.
So much sadness. In so many ways, it raises our awareness of what we truly did to ourselves the day we bought into an HOA.
Soar now with angel wings Miss Rachel Anna Rosoff.
(link to story on Rachel’s tragedy)
Yup! After a long struggle our friend in Las Vegas, Jonathan Friedrich, has won his lawsuit against a Homeowners Association that tried to claim Jonathan was a member and not only demanded he pay dues, they tried to foreclose on his house.
KTNV’s Darcy Spears has now done a story on Jonathan’s victory. And now Rancho Bel Air is now officially in the Nevada HOA Hall of Shame.
(link to story on Friedrich on KTNV)
I’m not sure how successful this class-action lawsuit will be, but it sure looks interesting. Home and condo owners in Hawaii have long been tortured by abusive HOA boards which have discovered the extreme profitability of seizing and auctioning off homes with no independent court oversight. It’s guaranteed full-time employment for lawyers, and guaranteed future abuse of homeowners, many of them elderly.
(link to story about wrongful foreclosure claims)
I’m not much of a fan of the Huffington Post, but they’re the latest media outlet to try to warn prospective homeowners about the dictatorial power of HOAs. They don’t go deep enough, but at least they touch on a number of the kinds of abuses that all homeowners should be thoroughly educated about.
The main message they don’t hit hard enough is NEVER BUY INTO AN HOA!!! They also don’t warn you how much your property values can collapse in a poorly run association. Ah, well, I guess that’s what the rest of us are for.
(link to HuffPo warning about Homeowners Associations)
