Your life savings and home equity has just been turned over to a handful of dictators

July 20, 2004

By P. Flamingo (View author info)
Copyright P. Flamingo

A homeowner in a battle with their homeowner association says, "I wonder what has happened to me?" "Never in my life have I ever disliked, detested, wished bad on people like I do against brutal boards. If they all disappeared tomorrow I wouldn't care."

What has happened to you?

You have been through something akin to a war zone. Call it post traumatic stress or whatever else you want to call it. It is a seething sense of anger, frustration and shock that comes with the vicious blow of realizing that life in a homeowners association closely resembles communism and that your life savings/home equity has just been turned over to a handful of dictators.

Men and women are considered heroes every day for protecting our Country and Home front, our State borders and even foreign borders, from foreign and domestic enemies.

Because these men and women wear a uniform provided by the governments and that are emblazoned with an American flag, they are given nearly carte blanche to do away with the enemies who cross the line and threaten Freedom. Thank God for those heroes.

Shamefully, the politicians with a stroke of the pen, have voted to take away much of what these heroes have fought and died for. By virtue of the laws passed by politicians, handfuls of so called "elected" neighbors (aka homeowner association board members) have been given police powers to fine, ticket, specially assess, lien, foreclose and evict a fellow neighbor from their home, all without due process.

HOA Boards of neighbors wield the power to vote away even the simplest of freedoms, under a "quasi-government" system with virtually no checks and balances in place. There are no penalties if they violate the law, and if that isn't enough, they are protected under a multi-million dollar 'duty to defend' (meaning it doesn't matter if they are right or wrong) liability insurance policy paid for by you.

The question is this - Is protecting one's "home sweet home" front from domestic enemies of the most intimate kind, your neighbor, any different emotionally than the battles we partake in to protect our great Country? If we don't have even the simplest freedoms at home, does it really matter anywhere else? If our homes are no longer a safe haven, does it matter if we are kept safe on the streets or behind our Country's borders?

Protecting freedom BEGINS at home. It shouldn't end there.

FREEDOM NOW ENDS WHERE A HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATION BEGINS.

Politicians have turned the American home in a homeowner association into a war zone. This war is very up close and personal because it is a battle in your neighborhood, with your neighbors, maybe even your next door neighbor. These are not strange faces, far removed from your personal life. These are people who know everything about you. They know where you live, where you work, where you play, where your children go to school, when you come and go and the kind of car you drive.

These are people you see on a daily basis. These are people whose children go to school with your children. These are the same people that may target you and your children and make you a pariah of the neighborhood. To add insult to injury - you may pay, through your dues, to be targeted in the minutes, in the newsletter, through neighborhood flyers, and in litigation where you will be layed out on the cold slab of justice.

What would it take for even a stable personality's moral compass to go haywire before they get pushed over the edge? We are all familiar with 'Road Rage' in California. Which is worse - being cut off on the freeway during rush hour or being left homeless and penniless by an enemy neighbor with a vendetta?

"HOA Rage" is a bitter reality that politicians have yet to acknowledge and the blood of every victim is on their hands.

We must all be conscious of the reality that the precipitous edge of the cliff in a homeowner's association isn't too far away when someone is entrenched in a battle to, protect his family's shelter and everything he has ever worked for, from the domestic enemies of HOA's.

If any of you out there feel that edge getting a little too close - seek help. Don't wait till you are already falling down.