Freeing Fifty Five Million Americans Enslaved in Homeowner Associations

March 21, 2005

By Willowdean Vance (View author info)
Copyright Willowdean Vance

Homeowner Associations, the social experiment that began with a 1973 congressional hearing, created more problems in the name of helping citizens to find a way to live in harmony since we fought World War I. The hearing began with housing experts like FHA, HUD and VA, whose sole mission is financing affordable housing and helping developers to meet the needs.

However the National Home Builders Association opened a door to a new prison that put every family home in danger by turning so many outlaws loose in every profession. The outlaws outnumbered the officials on Capitol Hill, who are paid to protect and preserve our precious heritage-The Bill of Rights.

Our Founding Fathers were so concerned over homestead protection, they would not sign the Declaration of Independence until a Bill of Rights was added granting equal protection, due process, freedom of speech etc, which Ben Franklin learned about in the 1754 Confederation of Indian Convention held in Albany, New York. He was amazed these Native Americans had created government by the people for the people of the people of several tribes who even respected each other's rights to worship as they pleased and he took his convention notes to Philadelphia as a guideline for the new Republic which Thomas Jefferson needed help with.

The social experiment in housing that began on the east coast in the sixties spread in the seventies to meet the growing population needs at less cost for maintenance and installation of common area needs like streets, sewers, lights etc. It called them, "Common Interest Developments(CIDS)";or Common District Developments (CDDS), or, as in North Carolina, Planned Community Developments,(PCAs).

While they could not agree on a name, all agreed that local county commissioners did not wish to be obligated for all the installation costs or continued maintenance. This concept of community housing held the owners liable to pay all costs with monthly fees or assessments.

The first disputes were so angry, that FHA, HUD and VA actually helped create the Community Association Institute (CAI) AFTER wealthy developers in the National Home Builder's Association made a promise they would establish a nonprofit, EDUCATIONAL corporation for the sole purpose of educating the families buying community homes. It would educate homeowners on HOW to operate this new form of housing as self help communities. The hope was that all would live in harmony by training professional managers and directors on their fiduciary duties and record keeping etc.

The problem is, when money began to flow like wine, and CAI spent a bundle on professional membership drives to attract lawyers, managers and agents, the families were left behind and the money makers worked together to take over the legislatures nationwide with no thought of the original purpose-Rights and Responsibilities for residents at large.

The first CAI Residents Bill of Rights, consisted of a two page document which instructed residents to treat each other fairly etc and give each other a right to be heard and vote etc. But they never implemented a plan for each HOA buyer to receive a copy when new communities were sold and they never provided copies to local chapters to hand out to newly elected directors. So the non-dissemination of this document led to warfare that enriched the law firms stepping in where angels fear to tread.

Legislators bought CID condos because each legislator has to spend so many months a year away from home, renting an apartment at the capital while maintaining a home base. This is a double expense but investing in a condo allowed them to make a profit reselling the equity when the term of office expired.

Also, HOA Board of Directors were happy to have a member of the Legislature in their group. They laid out the red carpet and made sure no bad news or unfair action ever entered their biased ears so any complaints would be met with disdain.

This was brought to my attention as early as 1993 in Sacramento, California by then Asemblyman Dan Hauser who boasted to me, " I have never had a single problem with either of two condominiums I own here in California since I bought them. He failed to realize the crafty directors and manager carefully treated him like a royal king and made sure his condo had every service above and beyond the call of duty to keep his goodwill.

That's the American game of politics, always reward those who hold the power and money for your own future wealth and health.

With this in mind, no lawmaker considered complaints serious enough for government reform of these quasi-governments. Local governments, eager to increase the tax flow, required developers to limit all new housing construction to private governments in order to increase their cash flow and decrease their expense.

Now, some 35 years later, fifty five million or more families are faced with the destruction of the American Dream because law firms and managers discovered that no one objected to nonjudicial foreclosures. These eliminate all court expense and delay, and the same sheriffs, who declined service to private community homes, lined their pockets with service fees to change locks on doors to evict helpless families who fell victims to nonjudicial foreclosures.

Then the politicans decided the best way to protect the money tree was to declare that HOA contracts granted HOAs the right to foreclose.
As the majority of Americans are too lazy to drag out a copy of the constitution, most would not read these CCRs. So these politicians were home free. However, a few hours of reading the federal and state constitutions, would instruct all that "any contract which violates a constitutional right is VOID!"

Real Estate agents know this and lawyers know this but who is going to walk away from a landfall when no one, including the judges, are being sued or removed from office.

With the real estate boom after World War II, many were motivated to be a real estate agent. Then the common interest development spawned more schools for law degrees and now one out of three or four is a lawyer and the fastest road to wealth is HOA foreclosures.

Personal Injury or criminal cases require months of work and expensive evidence but a you can foreclose on an expensive home in a HOA with no hearing, no witness, no evidence but a biased, bribed manager's statement that someone owed a late fee as little as $10.00 and which threatened the only HOA income needed to operate. Never mind, the law firm pockets all money and eats up all reserve funds, which leaves the HOA facing bankruptcy for any emergency repair etc.

Never mind the fiduciary duty of each director to treat all members fairly and avoid all arbitrary actions etc...never mind they are bribed with gifts, travel, and perk benefits almost equal to the members of congress!

The first amendment right to petition the congress to redress a grievance is the only door open except a massive class action suit against CAI, County Commisioners and Law Firms for using illegal CC&Rs to racketeer under RICO, for violating their civil rights, for violating public trust by exploiting a nonprofit 501 C corporation to bring in more profits than any commerical corporation to get around the IRS and State Tax.

This condition began under building developers urgent search for increased profit with help from local commissioners whom CAI educated to join the money tree with help from Urban Land Institute who always put the welfare of developers above we, the people.

President Harry Truman warned Americans, "The buck stops at the top, " and this destruction of the American Dream began at the top of the day that Congress approved the National Home Builder's Association to establish their own private "nonprofit Corporation". This enabled them to hold all the chips. They actually donated $75,000 to the cause, with no controls to follow up and no recourse for the uneducated buyer who never saw a single copy of the 501 C State Statutes for nonprofits or the Homeowner Bill of Rights and Responsibilities that CAI promised. Instead, CAI published "Common Ground", aptly named, because the one thing they have in common is how to milk the Common Interest Developements of public and private funds while lawmakers accept the wealthy gifts that bind and blind them.

President George Bush likes to promise that every citizen can share the American dream so what we need is a one mile long petition delivered on camera to the White House with the names,addresses of each HOA coast to coast that destroyed these victims dreams.

This petition would be so long it would surround the White House and have to be written on cloth or some fiber strong enought to staple together so it won't break in it's life serving mission.

We, The People showed us how to get action in Washington when they arranged for 1,040 people to surround the IRS in DC to demonstrate how corrupt the IRS is...perhaps you could start with HOA volunteers to surround the capitol of the state you live in to demonstrate agaisnt CAI controlled Legislators...

National Education Associates (NEA) are protesting at the Hyatt Hotel in Irvine,California tomorrow, Tuesday, against their Hollystar Governor, who slashed budgets at the same time he increased classrooms to the point of moral and financial bankrupcty. Tune in to the NEA protest against the great darling of the Republican administration,

Gov Arnold Swartzenegger who seems to forget his modest beginning before Hollywood helped him to find fame and fortune -like members of CAI and CLAC, who now celebrate a position the mafia would envy - a membership in the richest nonprofit making corporation license since 1973 to rob the poor and enrich the rich right under the noses of our con-game congress-who forget the first congress was paid only $6.00 a day and no perks.

The line forms to the right under our current president so he organized a "Faith Based Petition" like he did for his election and made sure GOD is on your side, and then pray God will forgive us all for trespass in his name because the only thing left slaves is prayer. HOA residents will remain the newest slaves until they a new Moses is born to lead them out of captivity. Trust me!

The National Association of Colored People had Rosa Parks to lead them to freedom and the Hispanics had a much loved respected farm leader, Cesar Chavez. So history shows that when a need arises, someone comes along to fill that need...it's time for a new Patrick Henry...to ride his horse into Capitol Hill and wake up congress crying, "The foreclosures are coming..."