Friday, September 18, 2009

Neighborhood's Water Shut Off | KOHD

Neighborhood's Water Shut Off | KOHD: "The City says it's never had to turn off an entire private subdivision's water. There were about 40 other homes in the neighborhood, who like Kasowski, did not have water for about two hours.
In this area off of Fifth and Cheyenne, homes are on a master water meter. They pay a billing company every month which then sends money back to the Homeowners Association to pay the City.

Chris Doty the Redmond Public Works Director says
'In this case the subdivision had some difficulty in making payments over the past nine months or so. They had been put on shut off notice before and have always made payments prior to shut off, this time they failed to do that so they were subsequently shut off.'

Neighbors we talked to say they've paid their bill. The Homeowners Association, Northwest Community Property Management declined to comment on the reason for lack of payment."

----------
It is just unacceptable to place a whole neighborhood's water supply at the mercy of a volunteer board of directors and whatever property manager falls through the transom.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Your private government tax dollars at work -- or not as in this case.

Beth said...

yikes, yet another thing for prospective home buyers to investigate. MAKE SURE YOU HAVE YOUR OWN METER. What is wrong with the boards that approve these setups in the first place? Why can't they see the potential for disaster?

Anonymous said...

This isn't just an oversight. The industry has been trying to entangle the HOA with all of these services - particularly economically unregulated services. This has been a problem with water, gas, electricity, telecom, internet, cable, etc. The FCC stepped in to address the oppressive regimes with respect to cable (much to CAI's chagrin). Who can homeowners turn to with respect to all the other services?

Check out this nasty set of CCRs where the developer can come in at any opint in the future and designate an area as a "service area". The homeowners will have no choice but to purchase the particular "service" at whatever price the developer/affiliate dictates.

The "service" bill is entangled with assessments to a) bypass any regulatory authority and b) to all the HOA vendors to utilize the "priority of payment" scam to extort money from homeowners. In addition, administration costs may also be tacked on. Generally, you are forced to purchase goods and services as dictated by the HOA under threat of foreclosure on your home.

Check out the "Master Covenant" of the following CCRs which i) actually put the priority of payment scam into the CCRs §5.12, and ii) purport to enable the developer to usurp the homeowners' ability to contract for any service at any point in the future under the "bulk purchase" scam §3.11. The homeowner will be forced to purchase services he/she doesn't want at prices no one would pay but for being forced to under threat of foreclosure on their home:
http://ledgestoneaustin.com/1ccr.htm