First you scare them, then you promise to protect them and then you own them. Once that is accomplished, perpetrating the biggest consumer scam is a piece of cake. Buying a few state legislators’ assistance, creating a very lucrative stream of “free” income for the municipalities, paving the way for developers to increase their profit margins exponentially seals the deal. And that is how simple it has been to force housing consumers into HOAs where they can be robbed of their homes, their wealth and health and their peace of mind. The lies that have been repeated over the decades to scare prospective homeowners appear to have become universally accepted truths. After all, if you keep hearing the same thing over and over again, if must be true, right? However, the one thing that is true is that non HOA controlled housing is almost nonexistent in most of the country. So being told that the house you are buying is in a mandatory membership homeowner association is no surprise.
Jonathan Friedrich joins us On The Commons. When he retired, Jonathan left New York in search of lower property taxes and moved to Las Vegas, Nevada where he bought a house that needed a lot of work. He rolled up his sleeves and got to work. When he bought the house he was given an HOA disclosure package which contained a Declaration of Covenants, Conditions & Restrictions commonly known as CC&Rs. Jonathan’s concern was getting away from crippling property taxes and not so much HOAs. His focus was fixing the house he had just bought and making it habitable. He also became involved in his new community. And that’s when the imperfections of his association and association living in general started rising to the top. He dealt with all the usual insanity that seems to go along with HOAs which not so surprisingly led to the court house. After 5 long years in court, Jonathan won his case. But as the saying goes, the devil is in the details and to truly appreciate the win one has to hear the details of his story, in his own words. The twists, the turns, the lies, the misrepresentations made along the way should alert consumers of what to look for and where to look when buying a house. There may be more to come as Jonathan is not finished cleaning up the mess. Stay tuned.
Jonathan also has a web page HOA Corruption – Check it out.
Tell us your stories in: your own words
Gates provide security.
No, they don’t!
One of the many LIES designed to scare and protect you
Such a sickening story of how Jonathan has spent years and hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the dues and fortunately prevailed in the litigation. BUT he can never get all of these years of fighting with this ignorant bunch on the HOA board back. The torment of dealing with these situations is beyond words. I am thankful he prevailed but no matter what the jury and judge decided he was still robbed of valuable time in his life. I can relate and it’s heartbreaking.
As I understand it, the statute of limitations starts when you learn of the error. I sure hope the title company has to pay all of the the legal bills and he’ll be awarded a massive amount in punitive damages. They made the error and Jonathan had to fix it….with his blood, sweat, tears, years of his life, and money.
Another HOA situation where the homeowner was wronged, severely wronged! Thank you for sharing your story, Jonathan and thank you, Shu for giving him time on your show to share his HOA, not-in-an-HOA story!