Jim Troutman committed suicide in 1994 after was was mired by homeowner association lawyers into homeowner association lawsuits and fraudulent judgments.

Several years ago, Richard Glassel a 61 year old homeowner in Arizona walked into a meeting of his homeowner association with guns blazing and killed several board members.

Last week in Pompano Beach, Florida, Patrick Dellisanti, 57, walked into the clubhouse of his homeowner association brandishing a gun and demanded to speak with an employee of the association over the $4,000 fees charged to the condo of his 80 year old mother. He took two employees hostage.

45 minutes later he released them unharmed to a SWAT team that had surrounded the clubhouse. He then came out of the clubhouse with his gun. Officers shouted at him to put it down. Instead, Patrick Dellisanti, 57, put it to his head. An eyewitness stated that the police then started firing and killed him.

The alleged $4,000 in unpaid dues were a combination of maintenance fees, late fees and special assessments imposed after Hurricane Wilma hit in 2005. The homeowner association had placed a lien on his mother's home on April 11.His mother was ill and was cared for by nurses. Patrick was apparently unemployed.

There has been many such acts of violence in homeowner associations. Some observers say that these murders are the tip of an iceberg. All across the country, homeowners complain that homeowner associations have become fraud riddled cash registers for lawyers and other vendors, who seek any excuse to fine and sue homeowners. Homeowners report that the courts routinely rule against the homeowner and for the homeowner association, granting lawyer fees in excess of a millon dollars in some cases. Reports indicate that foreclosures are higher in homeowner associations than in non-homeowner association housing.

It was was against this backdrop that a number of AHRC editors travelled to Washington on April 23 and 24 to seek the assistance of Congress for the 60 million Americans who now live in homeowner associations. In addition, they sought the help of Congress to stave off the taking of the AHRC.com domain name by the law firm of Peters and Freedman, who represent more than 700 homeowner associations in Southern California. The AHRC.com website has been the voice of homeowners who live in homeowner associations. It gets approximately 3 million hits a month. It has exposed the illegal activities of homeowner association lawyers, and the often incestuous relationship which they have with politicians who write homeowner association laws and the judges who ignore the constitution, statutes and regulations.

They met with Rep. Elijah Cummings (D. Maryland) who asked them to propose ideas for legislation regarding homeowner associations. He was visibly shocked to learn of the foreclosures and other abuses taking place in homeowner associations.

They also met with Lillian German, Deputy Chief Counsel of the House Judiciary Committee, and she promised to write the the Department of Justice to investigate the threat to the AHRC.com website by homeowner association home foreclosure lawyers Peters & Freedman as a serious violation of the First Amendment rights of freedom of speech and due process violations.

The explosive growth of homeowner associations has projected them onto the international radar screen. With an estimated value of over $35 trillion, they can be no longer ignored. They are central to the current crisis gripping the country. Their mortgages - many of them subprime - have been securitized and sold on the world markets. In Riverside, California, many of the 46,000 homes in foreclosure are in homeowner associations.

The visit by some AHRC editors to Washington makes it clear that Congress can no longer afford to turn a blind eye to homeowner associations if they want to help avert further disasters like those in Arizona and Florida.

See: 1991 Home Foreclosure Alerts By Homeowners on AHRC.com
• Cash Register Homes in Homeowner Associatons
• Destroying Homes
FORECLOSURES MULTIPLY AND VIOLENCE ERUPTS IN HOMEOWNER ASSOCIATIONS