by UncoveringTruths » Thu 23 Jun 2005, 15:13:38
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')he story just smells funny.
It is fishy the way the attorneys manipulate the penalties and mushroom the original estimates.
Oh by the way I fought an association that was trying to take my property. 2 years of BS! I won!
Resident Loses House to Homeowners Association$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'E')veryone knows that failure to pay a mortgage or property taxes can result in the loss of a house. It was another sort of fee, however, that cost a Calaveras County man his home.
After retiring from Pacific Gas and Electric, Tom Radcliff paid cash for three acres in the foothills around Lake Tulloch in Calaveras County. He built a home there, and felt he was secure for the rest of his days. That didn't turn out to be the case, because Radcliff's home was recently sold at auction and the elderly man was told to move out.
Property owners in the Lake Tulloch development pay dues of $10 a month to a homeowner's association for upkeep of the roads and a park. That's $120 a year. Radcliff fell behind on a year's worth of dues, so the association auctioned off his property.
"In January he got a letter," said office manager Linda Hoopiiaina, who insists she did everything by the book. "He got another one in April: 'This account is past due.'"
Radcliff said he was busy and simply overlooked the homeowner's association dues. Now he can't believe he lost his dream home over a $120 payment. "It slipped through the cracks is all I can tell you," he said.
Although the property was recently appraised for $280,000, a Bay Area man bought the house and three acres at an auction last month for $70,000.
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'S')ometimes, a name is ironically inappropriate.
Willard Harrington lives in Paradise - at least for the moment.
61 years old, disabled and living alone, Willard has an extremely limited capacity to read and comprehend written materials due to a head injury sustained many years ago. His sole income and source of support is a monthly Social Security Disability check of $824.20.
In December 1987, he purchased a home with money from his parents from Charles and Rosemary Hanks for $24,250. He has made his regular monthly mortgage payments to them during the intervening 17 years.
In July 2003, he did not pay his annual $123 assessment to his homeowner association, Paradise Pines, because he said that he did not know about it. He has told the association that he has difficulty reading.
Nobody in his association went down and knocked on his door and reminded him. Instead, the association employed Allied Trustee Services to foreclose on his home. On June 23, 2004, at One Court Street, Oroville, the association purchased his home for $1,796.95. The home was worth between $50,000 to $70,000. There was only $8,900 left on the mortgage.