There are many ways that a home can be destroyed - hurricanes, fires, floods. The late 20th. century developed a new way - lawyers - in particular - CAI lawyers. CAI is Community Associations Institute. It lists itself as an educational organization.
CAI, its lobby arm CLAC , TLAC etc (California Legislative Action Committee, Texas Legislaltive Action Committee etc..), and ECHO (the Executive Council of Homeowners) have told the state legislatures, media and homeowners that they represent the 50 million who live in homeowner associations
This is the big lie - it is simply not true.
These organizations represent the vendors who sell to homeowner associations - primarily lawyers, rental judges, service managers and maintenance companies. They do NOT represent homeowners.
These organizations have consistently lobbied for legislation that:
* lines their own pockets
* forces homeowners to finance lawsuits that they purposely manufacture
* conceals these lawsuits, legal fees and settlements from the owners
Two examples.
1. CAI lawyers lobbied for - and got - a law that allowed all money in special reserves to be used for their own legal fees without the knowledge and consent of the owners. Reserves were originally to be savings accounts for homeowner associations to pay the capital replacement costs of the common area facilities.
2. CAI lawyers around the country have fought tenaciously and furiously for non-judicial foreclosure on homes in homeowner associations. The reason for this is that it enables these lawyers to foreclose on homes without any judicial review for even the minutest unpaid assessment, and this provides large fees to CAI lawyers and managers.
The cumulative result of all these and similar actions has been to destroy piece by piece the integrity of the American home.
Once upon a time, the American home was seen as a place of freedom. Now, homeowners in homeowner associations have become the subjects of a new type of private government where the rulers are the corrupt and greedy CAI collection lawyers and vendors. Lawyers have become judge, jury and executioner of homeowners.
These homeowners have none of the traditional protections against intrusive and overbearing dictator governments. They are stripped of fundamental constitutional rights such as due process. Elections are not by secret ballot. The collection lawyers even got legislation passed that exempted them from the constitutional ceiling on the interest rate, so that they could wring even more money from homeowners. In California, one legislator , Christine Kehoe is railroading a bill (AB2289 ) that will allow lawyers to lock families out of their homes without a court hearing for owing minor amounts of dues.
CAI lawyer generously bribe politicians and civil servants, and create incestuous relationships with judges. For example, the former partner of one of the leading collection attorney law firms in Orange County, California became a judge, and then, the presiding justice for the legal district where his former firm was located.
The CAI collection attorneys have attained such a stranglehold on the political and legal process that legislators and other government employees work only through them when dealing with association homeowners. A CAI website proudly brags that the governor of California, Gray Davis, consults with them before signing any homeowner association legislation.
Davis is the godfather of the California foreclosure racket laws in homewner associations.. He continues to uses his position as governor to ensure that the CAI lawyers and vendors can keep on robbing homeowners of their rights, homes and life savings.
These new feudal lords have developed a new type of fiefdom - or more accurately - thiefdom. The homeowners are the new serfs.
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