Texas soldier gets home back after foreclosure | texas, dallas, foreclosure - Online Extras - Brownsville HeraldDALLAS (AP) — The Frisco soldier and his family who lost their home to foreclosure while he was serving in Iraq will get the house back.
Army National Guard Capt. Michael Clauer and his wife, May, lost their $315,000 southwest Frisco home in May 2008 after falling behind on Heritage Lakes Homeowners Association dues.
The Clauers sued the association and subsequent buyers in federal court. A court-ordered settlement conference led to an agreement this week that gives the house back to the Clauers.
A gag order prevents those involved from sharing details.
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Gag order? The episode is enough to make anybody gag. And the Texas state legislature is stirring itself into possible action, so stay tuned. But the state-by-state struggle to get simple protections for owners against their HOAs just goes on and on.
Thanks to Fred Pilot for the link.
3 comments:
> The episode is enough to make anybody gag.
> And the Texas state legislature is stirring itself
> into possible action, so stay tuned.
I agree that this episode is enough to make anybody gag. How dare this delinquent homeowner get his $315,00 house back, after the HOA corporation foreclosed upon it. It is obvious that the courts have no respect for the property rights of attorney Mark DiSanti, who purchased the home for $3,201, nor for his business partner Jad Aboul-Jibin, who purchased it for $135,000.
Not only have Messrs. DiSanti and Aboul-Jibin been harmed by this ruling, but every other homeowner, who expects HOA corporations to protect their property values, have to suffer as a result.
If Clauer hates America this much, he should just go back to Iraq, where they don't have HOAs.
I assure you that I will be stirring the legislature into action, to prevent travesties like this from happening again.
The above inspired me to create this HOA and Change poster.
The community association industry has been successful to date convincing policymakers that people don't need protection from HOAs.
After all, the argument goes, HOAs are made up of people who voluntarily "contracted" to govern themselves under nonprofit corporation and civil law and not under state government codes and constitutions. Ergo, they don't need protection from themselves as consenting adults.
The problem with this argument is single family detached unit HOAs are de facto local government entities and not just a bunch of folks who bought into a condo building. They should just as residents and property owners do relative to their municipal and county governments enjoy constitutional protections.
Like their counterparts on city councils and county boards of supervisors, HOA governing boards members include imperfect, flawed humans that must be held to rule of law to ensure they exercise their powers fairly and judiciously.
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