Friday, February 11, 2011

Home Owners Association Takes Home Over Legal Fees

Home Owners Association Takes Home Over Legal Fees: "The smile on Hillary's face masks a dark secret she doesn't share with customers. She's owned this southwest side condo since 2005. Her youngest son's father paid cash for it and put it in Hillary's name.

But it's not her property anymore. Why?

She was late in paying monthly maintenance fees to her homeowners association."


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Another one of those "isolated examples" that keep happening. And in this case, she paid the maintenance fees. She lost her home because she didn't pay the attorney fees.

7 comments:

Mike Reardon said...

That is sickening. It must be an absolutely loathsome way to make a living taking the homes from people like this.

gnut said...

Fox 7 in Houston originally posted the story on Wednesday, 09 Feb 2011, 10:01 PM CST -- about 2 1/2 days ago as I write this.

So far, there is no mention of this at Overlawyered.com, a web site that describes itself as "chronicling the high cost of our legal system" *.

And given their track record, I doubt there will be. Try to find any HOA related stories on that site.

The free pass that Walter Olson and Ted Frank have given to one of the most parasitic, rapacious, sleazy, unscrupulous, and unethical groups of lawyers has made me believe that the entire conservative/libertarian/Ayn Randian so-called "tort reform" movement is about something other than reducing frivolous lawsuits or the cost of the legal system to society.

I believe that conservatarians want to make it harder for individuals to sue corporations, but not the other way around. They seem to have no objection to HOA corporate lawyers making large sums of money at the expense of individual home owners.

Keep this in mind the next time you see a John Stossel program on Fox about parasitic tort lawyers.

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* Overlawyered.com's original self-description:

Overlawyered.com explores an American legal system that too often turns litigation into a weapon against guilty and innocent alike, erodes individual responsibility, rewards sharp practice, enriches its participants at the public’s expense, and resists even modest efforts at reform and accountability.

Yet since the site started in July 1999, the number of HOA stories on that site can be counted on the fingers of one hand. It's not as though there is a lack of material to work with, so there must be another motive at work.

Anonymous said...

Dr. McKenzie,
Isolated? Not a chance. Hum, is this woman another single woman, single parent?
How about owing no money, having no contract with the person/group making the allegations....having you own property routinely destroyed, ongoing harassment and too many threats? Yes, all true. How does an attorney and insurance agent get away with this in a court of law? I suspect, with no one else knowing and
everyone else too frightened, not caring and/or in a state of DENIAL!
Oh, the state where this was done, it is illegal. TRY TO GET SOMEONE TO DO SOMETHING. EVEN IF IT IS THERE JOB. LEGITIMATE INVESTIGATIONS? RECTIFICATION FOR THE VICTIMS? PROSECUTION OF THE CRIMINALS INVOLVED? All of them...It is long overdue.

Abraham Lincoln said...

"Never stir up litigation. A worse man can scarcely be found than one who does this. Who can be more nearly a fiend than he who habitually overhauls the register of deeds in search of defects in titles, whereon to stir up strife, and put money in his pocket? A moral tone ought to be infused into the profession which should drive such men out of it."

Anonymous said...

Above, RE: What Anonymous said...
This has to be Pennsylvania. I know the new Congressman, Lou Barletta has been asked to review the cases (the foreclosure)in certain areas (counties), and especially in the northeastern part of the state. These foreclosures are a true tragedy and illegal, there, I am assured. In my experience and opinion, in one case, a homeowner having no contract, intentionally set up alleging false allegations(slapp lawsuit), harasses, threatened, property destroyed, dragged through the courts, while she was fighting for her own health, due to surgical, medical issues (accident related.) A severe medication reaction (nearly deadly), complicating an already difficult ordeal. Meanwhile, an HOA attorney was putting false liens against the property they had owned, and paid on, for YEARS. Another single parent home where the homeowner was a nice, trusting accountable, law abiding nice person and neighbor... want to know where that has them? HOMELESS!!
Mr. Barletta, PENNSYLVANIA, PLEASE INVESTIGATE.
Here is a recent link to what those poor "indentured servants," are experiencing:

Private Communities: WNEP, TEMPERS HEAT UP OVER FROZEN ROADS

IF THOSE "IN CHARGE" HAD COMPETENT PEOPLE, OVERSIGHT, LAW ENFORCEMENT TO ENFORCE.
ACCOUNTABILITY and ..... That takes effort, work, and ACCOUNTABILITY.
What a mees. Not pay...WILL BE HOMELESS.....The people in this group needs to wake up, as do the writers for their local paper.

http://www.wnep.com/news/countybycounty/wnep-mon-icy-road-middle-smithfield-township,0,2509224.story

Anonymous said...

> Isolated? Not a chance.

It was sarcasm.

The phrase "another isolated incident" is often used to describe something that happens all too frequently, but is also often swept under the rug by apologists for the wrong-doers.

Evan McKenzie said...

Yes, it was sarcasm. I have been referring to these foreclosure abuse cases as "isolated incidents" for years, because that's what the industry always says about them. The truth is exactly the opposite: for every one of these that hits the papers, there are many more that we never hear about.