Author Archives: Beanie
FLORIDA – City threatens to turn off running water at West Palm Beach condo
If the bill isn’t paid, condo dwellers could lose water by the end of September.
The 108-unit complex has two main water lines on the property but no individual water meters.
Mildred Madison has lived in the Woodstock condominiums for 18 years. She said she pays her water bill to the HOA but is wondering where the money going.
“My biggest fear is I don’t want to lose my property,” Madison said. “We have to pay $230 every month. I pay my $230.”
Sarah Hudson said she owns two condos in the complex. She said the reason why the water bills are so high is because the infrastructure is very old.
“There’s double water usage for every month,” Hudson said.
City spokesman Elliot Cohen said they’ve been dealing with the problem at Woodstock for years. He said the city will have to take swift action by next month.
“We obviously don’t want to shut anybody’s water off, but with over $60,000 worth of outstanding water bills due from the association, we’re left with very little choice,” Cohen said.
Cohen said if the water is bill is not paid, the city will turn the water off Sept. 25.
The HOA president Zandra Stevens said the issue began last year when they had several major underground water breaks. Read more:
FLORIDA – Residents in Orlando community fear losing homes in HOA battle
NEVADA – Lawyer who stole $1M from clients gets eight more years in prison
Suspended attorney Barry Levinson, a convicted player in the scheme to take over and defraud homeowners associations, was handed a second stiff prison sentence Thursday, this time for stealing more than $1.1 million from his clients.
Clark County District Judge Michael Villani called Levinson’s actions “despicable” and sentenced him to at least eight years in prison to run consecutively to a 7½-year federal sentence Levinson received for his role in the massive HOA scheme.
Villani ignored a plea agreement, worked out by defense lawyer Brent Bryson and Chief Deputy District Attorney J. P. Raman, that called for a minimum of two years in prison to run concurrently to the federal sentence.
The judge also ordered Levinson, who pleaded guilty to four felony theft charges, to pay $1.1 million in restitution to his clients.
Then Villani ordered Levinson — who was free until Thursday — handcuffed and immediately taken into state custody.
Afterward, Bryson said he was “shocked” by the sentence and was considering options to get it reduced.
Levinson, 48, who has more Nevada bar complaints against him than any other lawyer, was supposed to surrender to federal prison authorities on Aug. 21. Federal authorities now may have to ask a judge to transfer Levinson into their custody next week. Read more:
ARIZONA – Valley Realtor wants to inform public about HOAs
There are thousands of HOA communities across the Valley, where homeowners are very happy. Some neighborhoods, however, have constant controversy.
Geraldine Namen, 86, lives in one of those. The Anthem grandmother just received another violation notice from her HOA. She was cited for not trimming back the bushes in front of her house.
“There are a lot better things they can be better spending their time with than harassing an 86-year-old lady for a few sprigs of a bush crossing the sidewalk,” Bob Namen said,
More and more Valley homeowners are feeling frustrated with the way their HOAs do business. Homeowner advocate Jill Schweitzer insists that it should not be that way.
The Scottsdale real estate agent has just written a 22-page informational guide called “Buying Into an HOA with Your Eyes Open.” Read more:
MISSOURI – Mommy and Daddy Are Going To Jail!
Excuse my language, but WHAT THE HELL is going on at Raintree Lake in Lee’s Summit, Missouri?
This family project of building a playset is about to land the parents in JAIL. All because the stain they used on the wood is purple. And since when do HOAs have the legal right to put somebody in JAIL? Isn’t JAIL where criminals go? Tell me what is criminal about purple? Or a playset. Oh! That’s right we’re dealing with an HOA here. Now, this all makes sense.
I know people who live in this Raintree Lake HOA. I’m not sure how happy they will be to see their neighbors hauled off in handcuffs to JAIL over the color purple. And I know they will not be happy having their dues burned up in legal bills! I need to ask them if their HOA has built a jail for those who they think did not follow the CC&R’s? Perhaps this is the up and coming thing with HOAs? I’ve always felt like I was living in a JAIL since I moved into an HOA.
I can hear it now. “Hi Dad, it’s Marla. We’re in JAIL because we stained the girls’ playset purple! Can you come down with some bail money so we can get out of HOA JAIL?” Read more:
NEVADA – Judge grants newspaper’s motion to unseal HOA probe documents
In a decision hailed as a victory for transparency in the courts, a federal judge Monday unsealed documents that could shed more light on the government’s long-running investigation into fraud and corruption at homeowners associations.
Some three-dozen secretly filed documents were covered under the order sought by the Las Vegas Review-Journal and attorney Maggie McLetchie.
“We’re pleased that the public will now have access to the majority of the substantive documents that were sealed in the case,” McLetchie said. “This case gets to the heart of key public policy issues facing Southern Nevada in the biggest corruption case in our history.”
McLetchie said the order by U.S. Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr. is an “important step forward for transparency” not only in the HOA case but for the courts in general.
“The press can’t report on important critical proceedings like this if the documents are all kept secret,” McLetchie said.
Some of the documents were filed under seal with no public notice, McLetchie said.
“There were documents we didn’t even know were sealed,” she said. “They were completely cloaked from public view.”
Foley has promised a written decision on a second Review-Journal request to dissolve two protective orders he signed barring disclosure of massive amounts of HOA evidence, including many documents not filed with the court.
One of the orders kept secret some 6 million pages of documents, including 10,000 pages of FBI reports, federal prosecutors turned over to lawyers representing defendants preparing to stand trial. The other order withheld information from the public about a separate Justice Department investigation of alleged government leaks in the HOA case. Read more:
MARYLAND – Russett’s woes show problems with HOAs
LOUISIANA – Family forced to leave home alleges racial attacks, harassment and hostility
Anthony Harris and LaQunior Harris sued Ponchartrain Homeowner’s Association LLC, Donna Signorelli, Rebecca Smith, and Amanda Roublau in the U.S. District Court of the Eastern District of Louisiana on July 13 alleging multiple violations in regard to the residential matter.
According to the complaint, all parties resided in an apartment complex at 1516 Aztec Avenue in Metairie. The suit states that the Harrises rented an apartment in July 2014 with their infant son, and that LaQunior was six months pregnant at the time.
The Harrises assert that several individuals overtly harassed and intimidated LaQunior in the presence of family members in the property’s common area, allegedly making racially tinged comments laced with hostility. Read more:
FLORIDA – Standing up for Florida-friendly lawns not easy when HOA says no
All Dominic Bruno wanted was a lawn that was less work for him and took less water to maintain. That set off a battle that has lasted six years, generated two lawsuits and cost him at least $15,000.
Bruno is a 78-year-old former police officer who lives in Sable Ridge in Land O’Lakes. He has Parkinson’s disease. His wife, Ilona, has terminal cancer.
In 2009, he replaced his thirsty St. Augustine grass with a Florida-friendly lawn, which began with a $780 layer of mulch. That turned Bruno’s lawn into ground zero in a battle with the Sable Ridge Homeowners Association.
Today, he’s still fighting, and his lawn is still largely mulch. Read more:
NEVADA – Feds say HOA leak investigation found romance, not corruption
Federal prosecutors provided a glimpse this week into why they are fighting to keep secret reports of an investigation into alleged leaks in the high-profile homeowners association corruption case.
The investigation, conducted by the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section in 2011, focused on concerns that the late construction defect lawyer Nancy Quon, one of the key targets in the long-running HOA investigation, was getting confidential information from the Nevada U.S. attorney’s office and possibly elsewhere.
Quon was alleged to have been tipped off before FBI-led raids in September 2008.
Thomas Hall, one of the Justice Department prosecutors in the HOA case, told a federal judge this week that the leak investigation delved into personal and romantic relationships of public officials who have not been charged criminally or disciplined administratively.
Hall didn’t didn’t provide details, but he has previously indicated in court documents that members of the U.S. attorney’s office were among those investigated. The office removed itself from the HOA investigation after the leak allegations surfaced in late 2010, prompting the Justice Department’s Fraud Section in Washington to step in.
Hall, who is with the Fraud Section, said that since the leak allegations weren’t substantiated, making public the names of the officials would embarrass them.
“Their personal lives were dealt with in a very serious way,” Hall said.
But attorney Maggie McLetchie, representing the Las Vegas Review-Journal, argued that the public has a right to know who the officials are and why they were investigated.
McLetchie has filed court papers seeking to dissolve protective orders signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge George Foley Jr., keeping secret the evidence in both the HOA and leak investigations. Prosecutors said 6 million pages of documents, including 10,000 pages of FBI reports, were turned over to lawyers representing nearly 40 defendants in the HOA investigation alone.
The public has a right to see that evidence in what authorities have said is the largest public corruption case in Southern Nevada, with 42 convictions, McLetchie told Foley, who has not yet issued a ruling. Read more:
HOA Reform Coalition 