By Andrew Knapp

October 19, 2018

non-compliant  “lawn ornament”

Associated Press

Sept. 18, 2018

The former head of a Phoenix-area property management company accused of stealing nearly $1.3 million from homeowners associations has agreed to a plea deal to spare his wife prosecution.

According to court documents made available Monday, Harlow White has agreed to plead guilty to one felony charge of transactional money laundering.

He and his wife were indicted last year on other charges including conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Under the proposed agreement, the indictment against Nancy White would be dismissed. Other charges against Harlow White would also be dropped.  Read more:

By Ashley Ludwig, Patch Staff

Sep. 24, 2018

SEAL BEACH, CA — A 71-year-old Seal Beach woman was accused of embezzling over $115,000 from the Costa Mesa homeowner’s association, of which she was treasurer, court documents said.

Bonnie Diane Harris, 71, of Seal Beach, served as the former treasurer for the Cedar Glen Homeowner’s Association, and was scheduled Monday to make her initial court appearance on charges of embezzling more than $115,000.

Harris was arrested Saturday on charges filed Sept. 12. She faces 36 felony counts of embezzlement by fiduciary of trust, with sentencing enhancement allegations of property damage exceeding $65,000.  Read more:

Article Courtesy of The Daily Business Review
By Michael L. Hyman

Published September 28, 2018

While recreational amenities such as pools and hot tubs significantly add to the appeal of condominium and homeowners association communities, they also come with major liability risks that must be mitigated by the use of effective safety and maintenance measures. The recent $7.5 million verdict for a St. Petersburg, Florida, condominium resident to compensate him for the injuries that he sustained in his community’s hot tub is a telling example of the potential ramifications that can result when any defects in the working condition of these amenities are not properly addressed.

In 2008, Ehab Mina was about to step into the hot tub at the Boca Ciega Resort & Marina Condominium when he became startled to see that it was partially drained. The problem in the hot tub caused the 44-year-old to slip, and he badly injured his right shoulder and spine.

Mina required multiple surgeries, and he was ultimately forced to sell his boat-building business as a result of his injuries. He filed suit against the association and its property management company, Condos by Sirata Inc., alleging that the hot tub should have had a posted warning and adequate lighting in the evening hours.

The attorneys for the condominium association responded by arguing that the half-empty hot tub was an obvious condition, but the jury found the association and its management company to be jointly liable. It awarded a $7.56 million verdict to Mina.

For the unit owners, this verdict could present significant financial repercussions, especially if the association and management company general liability insurance policies’ limits are insufficient to cover the entire amount of the verdict. In that event, the association will be compelled to pass a special assessment, and its insurance premiums are likely to rise, leading to a substantial financial burden for all of the owners.

The expensive lesson for the association in this case is an important one for all Florida community associations and their property managers. Associations must apply reasonable vigilance in maintaining and inspecting all community recreational amenities. An association’s obligations include regularly scheduled periodic inspections followed by performing all of the necessary maintenance and replacement procedures to ensure that all amenities and equipment are kept in safe working condition. In addition, user weight and size restrictions, or limitations on the hours during which amenities may be used, could also help to potentially limit legal liability should an injury occur. Read more:

ccfj.net/condoMill$Avoid.html

Santa Rosa Beach, in Florida’s Walton County, is a quiet place with sugar-white sand, a pleasant surf and signs warning visitors to stay out. The largely rural county on Florida’s Panhandle is at the center of a battle over one of the state’s most precious resources: its beaches. Most of the 26 miles of beaches are already privately owned. As of July 1, homeowners with beachfront property in Walton County can declare their beach private and off-limits to the public. The new law has sparked a standoff between wealthy homeowners and other local residents.

In Walton County and in Tallahassee, where Gov. Rick Scott signed it into law, an earlier version of the bill was known as the “Huckabee amendment.” Fox News commentator and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has a beachfront house in Santa Rosa Beach. Since the bill went into effect, opponents of the law have speculated about Huckabee’s role in getting it passed. In January emails to Kathleen Passidomo, the bill’s sponsor in Florida’s Senate, Huckabee thanked her for helping protect property rights from what he called ” ‘customary use’ abuse.” “Having grown up dirt poor in Arkansas, I never thought I would see saltwater in person, much less live on a beach,” Huckabee writes. But he says he has been appalled at what he has found on his beach property. “I’ve found used condoms on my walk-down, glass bottles broken, dog feces, litter. Sharp tent poles that can cut bare feet and worse. Large tents with large groups with boom boxes make using my own property very difficult during high season.”  Read more:

SACRAMENTO – The state Assembly today approved a bill by Senator Bob Wieckowski (D-Fremont) to rein in election abuses in California’s more than 55,000 homeowner associations (HOA).  Senate Bill 1265 now heads back to the Senate for a concurrence vote before being sent to Governor Brown.

“Today’s Assembly approval sends a clear signal that the Legislature recognizes not only the critical role HOA boards play, but the impact they have on millions of Californians’ homes and pocketbooks,” said Sen. Wieckowski, a member of the Senate’s Housing and Transportation Committee. “By adding safeguards to the system, SB 1265 will restore fairness and integrity to the board election process and end abuses in communities where boardmembers are more interested in maintaining power than faithfully following the association’s covenants, conditions, and restrictions.”  Read more:

It appears there could be a deep, dark secret at the core of multifamily lending that could destroy the market. And in a truly sad bit of irony, the secret could be very similar to the one that crushed the single-family housing market 10 years ago.

Fake residents, fake incomes, and inflated mortgages. Sound familiar?

The details of all of this come courtesy of a blockbuster report released this week by the Wall Street Journal.

The report details how the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Department of Justice, and the Office of the Inspector General for the Federal Housing Finance Agency are in the middle of an investigation that the WSJ calls “one of the biggest mortgage-fraud probes since the financial crisis.”

The whole WSJ article is definitely worth reading (if you have a subscription, that is), as the article extensively details some pretty brazen fraud allegations involving the loans backing approximately $1.5 billion in mortgage securities issued by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

…

According to the article, the investigation has already led to an indictment against four individuals for allegedly conspiring to falsify loan information in order to obtain more than $167 million in multifamily loans.

The indictments, which were disclosed earlier this summer, allege that Frank Giacobbe, Patrick Ogiony, Kevin Morgan, and Todd Morgan conspired to defraud Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Arbor Commercial Mortgage, and Berkadia Commercial Mortgage by faking much of the information that the lenders and government-sponsored enterprises count on when issuing or buying the mortgages.  Read more: