Over the years I have spoken to so many people who have found themselves on the receiving end of the wrath and fury of their condo or homeowners associations. The fear, anger, frustration and terror are unmistakable in their voices. They feel trapped and don’t understand how “this can happen in America”. They tell me they will never, ever buy another house in an association again if they are fortunate enough to get out of their current situation. It often takes years to finally put an end to their fights.
Jerry Berg joins us On The Commons. Jerry, as some of you may remember, was hospitalized when the president of his condominium beat him up with a crowbar. The president was a former judge who should have known better. When I called Jerry recently I noticed lightness in his voice. Was I imagining it or did he sound happier? Join us for a recap and an update on what he has been up to. He settled his case, refused to sign a gag order so is able to talk about it and to disclose the terms of the agreement. He has advice for others in similar situations. His advice will surprise you.
Needless to say, I am thrilled that Jerry is HOA free and abundantly happy! Sadly, like all of us that are dealing with HOA battles you can never get back the minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, and years of your life that got eaten away by this nasty HOA industry. I clearly understand why he says take the settlement, sign the non-disclosure, and run. He was on a more level playing field by having a law degree and extensive experience in the courtroom as well as the knowledge of legal proceedings and the lingo spoken by the attorneys and judges. The average person cannot fight these court battles without an attorney.
Clearly there is a sickness that invades these condo and HOA complexes. And the sickest of the homeowners find the perfect opportunity to get a seat on the board and everybody suffers in one form or another.
May we all learn many lessons from Jerry Berg’s suffering and share this interview with everyone that will listen. They need to hear it.
Great interview, and very important for homeowners caught in the crosshairs of their HOA or Condo/Co-op Association to listen.
If only our state and federal legislators would listen and then take appropriate action to end HOA abuse of power.
Interesting segment about what the solution might be – make HOAs government.
But will that be a good thing? Or will it just result in more incompetent local government officials than we already have? There is a severe shortage of competent, responsible, ethical public servants these days. We don’t have enough good people to run for office in our smaller municipalities and counties. How will we ever find enough qualified people if we add 336,000 HOAs to the list of local governments?
And as long as we allow HOA Home Rule (on Steroids) — where the Association can create just about any nonsensical or unconstitutional covenant, restriction or rule without oversight or accountability — how would it be a good thing to give HOA government power to make violations of the CC&Rs criminal offenses? You can bet that’s what would happen in a hearbeat.
I say we need to restructure HOAs not as mini governments but as VOLUNTARY neighborhood civic groups, and shift infrastructure maintenance, code enforcement, and neighborhood security back to local government under the constraints of the US Constitution. Bring back the checks and balances and ACCOUNTABILITY to local governance, get rid of the extra layer of government that HOAs create, and restore individual property rights.
Great interview Shu! Jerry I’m with you and so happy you are out! I agree with you about Nila–she is one of my heroes too and thus my second HOA book is dedicated to her.
Deborah, I agree. We need accountability–as long as judges look at the perpetrators and say, “Oh they are a poor volunteer just trying to do their best,” and let them off scot free claiming that others won’t want to volunteer–we are lost. I believe that some type of consumer protections is in order. Attorneys General in particular–when will they wake up and protect the people they are supposed to be protecting?