tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post482818093864751545..comments2023-11-05T06:18:25.377-06:00Comments on The Privatopia Papers: Tracking Arizona homeowners association foreclosuresEvan McKenziehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04479661304143631524noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-50442963391370242262017-09-27T20:02:04.259-05:002017-09-27T20:02:04.259-05:00IC_deLight said... "Make the HOA pay its atto...<b>IC_deLight said...</b> "<i>Make the HOA pay its attorney - no contingency fee and no 'deferred payment' where the money comes from the homeowner.</i>"<br /><br />And how exactly would that be enforced?<br /><br />In the past, I've been able to uncover fraudulent attorney fees -- down to the penny -- by noting discrepancies in the account statement generated by the H.O.A corporation, which included both the amount of attorney fees and when those fees were billed to my account, and comparing them to Motions and Affidavits for Attorney Fees files with the Court. <br /><br />And I've also been able to prove that thousands of dollars in attorney fees were repeatedly billed to my account in direct violation of a judge's Court Orders. Yes, plural. There were two Court Orders over the course of six years by the same judge explicitly prohibiting attorney fees being billed to my account. The judge didn't care, but that's another story....<br /><br />The H.O.A corporation "fixed" that problem. And by "fixed that problem", I don't mean eliminating the fraudulent and illegal attorney fees. Instead, they now put a disclaimer in their monthly account statement sent to me stating something like "If your account is in collections, this statement may not include attorney fees. Contact the collections attorneys for the total and accurate amount owed." It's a gigantic loophole that allows them to make up any amount owed after-the-fact as the circumstances require, in order to prevent anyone from ever doing again what I did.<br /><br />Several years later, the injustice and insanity and Kafkaesque nature of it all still keeps me up some nights. But that, too, is another story . . .robert @ colorado hoa . comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12708201742019960100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-78775772778734336902017-09-27T19:40:32.775-05:002017-09-27T19:40:32.775-05:00IC_deLight said… “Because the agents of the HOA ar...<b>IC_deLight said…</b> “<i>Because the agents of the HOA are spending other people's money whereas homeowners have to bear their own costs</i>”<br /><br />The directors and officers of the H.O.A. corporation are also spending other people’s money. Additionally, those other people -- the mandatory members of the H.O.A. corporation -- are often forced to pay for Directors & Officers (D&O) insurance in order to indemnify their tormentors.<br /><br />And the costs borne by the homeowners aren’t just financial.<br /><br />“<i>Our legal system invites lawyers to act like bullies. Only in America can I sue you for dubious reasons, force to you spend thousands of dollars on lawyers (</i><b>not to mention the psychic costs — the anxiety and lost sleep that the lawsuit create</b><i>), and when a judge rules that my claim is bunk, I don’t even have to say ‘sorry’. I can blithely move on to sue someone else.</i>” (John Stossel. “Bullied by Lawyers”. ABC <i>20/20</i>. <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/2020/Stossel/story?id=4614399" rel="nofollow">April 09, 2008</a>. emphasis added).<br /><br />Corporations, on the other hand — and <a href="http://condoissues.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-your-neighbors-stupid.html" rel="nofollow">homeowner associations are corporations</a> — can't suffer the “psychic costs” that individual homeowners do.robert @ colorado hoa . comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12708201742019960100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-5920630079447396912017-09-25T09:25:27.175-05:002017-09-25T09:25:27.175-05:00who could "begrudge" HOA attorneys a liv...who could "begrudge" HOA attorneys a living?<br />1. Get HOAs out of the business of "enforcing restrictions". More often than not this is the pretext under which HOA attorneys and management companies entangle assessments with attorney fees and management company windfall fees ("late fees").<br />2. Make the HOA pay its attorney - no contingency fee and no "deferred payment" where the money comes from the homeowner. This should force down those attorney fees and generally start reducing the bad practices. The suit are overwhelmingly launched by the HOAs - not the homeowners. Why? Because the agents of the HOA are spending other people's money whereas homeowners have to bear their own costs.<br />3. CIDs do not always 'have' to collect. There is some myth that CIDs must maintain all assets they have into perpetuity. A real business and even real governments, however, close amenities and dispose of assets. CIDs should operate like any other business in this regard.IC_deLighthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04545064681164387194noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-10380194068487451412017-09-24T14:13:41.614-05:002017-09-24T14:13:41.614-05:00> Evan McKenzie wrote… “The volunteer owner-dir...> <b>Evan McKenzie wrote…</b> “<i>The volunteer owner-directors typically don't have enough training</i>”<br /><br />Providing "training" and "education" isn’t going to fix the fundamental problems with H.O.A.-burdened housing, which have been well-documented on this blog for over a decade.<br />robert @ colorado hoa . comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12708201742019960100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-83876472664919274662017-09-24T11:42:43.396-05:002017-09-24T11:42:43.396-05:00> Evan McKenzie wrote... "And no, I don...> <b>Evan McKenzie wrote...</b> "<i>And no, I don't begrudge these lawyers their living</i>"<br /><br />I do.robert @ colorado hoa . comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12708201742019960100noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5060417.post-62317777288153657862017-09-24T11:41:10.482-05:002017-09-24T11:41:10.482-05:00> Evan McKenzie wrote... "Now, I would be ...> <b>Evan McKenzie wrote...</b> "<i>Now, I would be the first to say that CIDs ... need to be able to foreclose at some point--for the assessments.</i>"<br /><br />No.<br /><br />robert @ colorado hoa . comhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12708201742019960100noreply@blogger.com