Couple lose their home over $120 debt

The Sacramento Bee ^ | January 24, 2004 | Michael Kolber -- Bee Staff Writer

[DelaWhere]

Couple lose their home over $120 debt By Michael Kolber -- Bee Staff Writer Published 2:15 a.m. PST Saturday, January 24, 2004 Get weekday updates of Sacramento Bee headlines and breaking news. Sign up here.

COPPEROPOLIS -- A retired couple's dispute with their homeowners association has spiraled out of control in this Calaveras County community -- and now they have lost their home less than a year after failing to pay $120 in annual dues.

[sauropod]

"Property taxes started out as liens placed upon the property by the property owners as a way to pay for government infrastructure..."

I would say that this liability went hand in hand with the priviledge that landed gentry had in being able to vote in Colonial America.

Because most folks could not vote, this was a self-correcting system.

Not anymore, however.

[sauropod]

Then we agree to disagree. You are choosing the Pharisee's way. I do not.

[sauropod]

LOL! You reduced me to laughing out loud in a most uncivil manner.

Not circumcision. Circumspection ;-).

[missyme]

I hate the HOA's I had to go to a hearing where I live because I leave my garage door open to much and I park in the driveway to much...They say the next time I park in my driveway I risk being towed away! HOA Sucks!

[sauropod]

I would have named them the Big Veiny Throbbers myself ;-)

[DLfromthedesert]

It might be worth it in the long run. Like the first shot in a new revolution against tyranny.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Well, if the Pharisees believed in people being grown up enough to enter into legal contracts with each other without government stepping in when one party decides to bail, then count me in.

[sauropod]

You are being purposefully dense.

[Johnny_Cipher]

Good evening.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

Where's the difference? And please don't tell me what the courts have said. Big deal.>>

That's like saying "please don't tell me what the Constitution has said. Big deal." Our freedom are retained by the Constitution AND the Common Law, both together. Take away the Common Law--law made by judges since the year 1189--and that's like removing the bottom row of bricks from your house. The whole thing will collapse.

Can you "contract away your freedom"? Absolutely, and by definition: that's what a contract IS--and agreement to exchange your abandonment of freedom (i.e., you make a promise) in exchange for the other guy abandoning his freedom (making a promise). You clearly have no understanding of what a contract *IS*.

Contracts are promises. Promises are the bricks in the wall that keep chaos and evil at bay. Remove enforceable promises, and the next thing you know you'll be starring in your own private production of Escape from New York, with yourself in the Patrick Swayze role.

[sauropod]

Nitey nite!

[ColdSteelTalon]

HOA's violate peoples constitutional rights. Unfortunately when you sign on to one you volutarily give up those rights.

Too bad for the owners. they signed the paper probably...

[kiki p]

Things like this shouldn't happen and the creep that bought it for $70,000 & plans on selling it for a profit, should have something *really* bad happen to him.

I don't understand the venom directed towards the purchaser. He or she did not CAUSE this situation. Depending on your point of view, the cause was either the people who didn't pay their bill or the HOA. If this particular person had not bought the house, Anita and Thomas still would not have kept it - it would probably have reverted to the HOA. I work in real estate investment - we buy homes in pre or post foreclosure. It can make one feel like a vulture sometimes, but I have to remind myself that I didn't cause the situation. Is it morally wrong to take advantage of it after the fact? If I can find a deal pre-foreclosure, the unfortunate homeowners will walk with some money - the bank will never do that for them. One way or the other, right or wrong, people lose their homes when they fail to live up to agreements they make. The fairness or morality of the agreement is another issue.

[DLfromthedesert]

It's immoral to buy a home at 20 % of what it's worth; why not give the homeowner his due, which is the market value of the house, and THEN deduct whatever he owes?

[TN4Liberty]

...but $70,000 sounds like a backroom deal to me.

Agreed. Like I said, assuming we had all the facts. I doubt we do.

[ArmstedFragg]

If I can find a deal pre-foreclosure, the unfortunate homeowners will walk with some money - the bank will never do that for them.

Funny, isn't it, how when the bank is the only bidder the house always seems to be worth exactly as much as they're owed?

[ovrtaxt]

law made by judges since the year 1189

Here's where we part company. Judges who 'make' law violate their own role. They are to judge, not legislate. But we have a de facto legislature because of the preeminence of legal precedent.

The anti-federalist papers speak of this. In fact, many of the Founders had a problem with the existence of a Supreme Court in the first place. They followed the logic and saw the future. Unfortunately, they didn't prevail.

Please understand, I'm not doubting the structure of the system as it exists, as if I'm trying to find a loophole or a point of protest, I'm just pushing the envelope of what we accept. Trying to get you to think.

Yes, contracts are good, I know. I'm not talking about ALL contracts. But the larger point is the tendency for some people to so easily accept the erosion of their basic, fundamental rights by contracting restrictions upon themselves to the point of a slave status.

[kiki p]

It's immoral to buy a home at 20 % of what it's worth; why not give the homeowner his due, which is the market value of the house, and THEN deduct whatever he owes?

Ummm, because real estate investing isn't non-profit.

[neutrino]

You'd have to be NUTS to live in a development with an HOA.

That's a fact!

[kiki p]

Funny, isn't it, how when the bank is the only bidder the house always seems to be worth exactly as much as they're owed?

Yep, funny it is :)