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.

[DelaWhere]

Oh, I thought you read the article.....

"The tussle began last January when the Radcliffs didn't have enough cash to make the annual dues payment. Anita Radcliff said she became distracted over the following months by a series of ailments that struck her husband, now age 64. He had a knee replaced and then was bitten by a spider, which required months of recuperation."

I would also assume that the tax obligation fell into the same situation.

[verity]

Obviously you have a degree in conflict resolution. lol

[Lazamataz]

All that guy would get from me would be a burnt-out shell with a toxic waste problem in the back yard if I was 64 and just lost my home over $120.

NEVER overload an electric circuit. It could start a fire! ;^)

[Orangedog]

The sons couldnt find 120 bucks between themselves to bail out MOM and DAD.....I have issue with this more than anything....

Mom and Dad probably never told their kids they were having money problems. Most parents would rather saw off one of their own limbs than have to ask their kids for money.

[Lazamataz]

He had a knee replaced and then was bitten by a spider, which required months of recuperation.

Damnable Brown Recluse, I bet. I used to love spiders. Then when I came down south, I met many friends who had been bitten by Brown Recluses. The resultant wound looks like a bullet entry would.

Now I kill every spider I see.

[John Jorsett]

I have a friend who's been on the boards of the HOAs of the condos she's lived in. Based on her experiences, some people are deadbeats and just won't pay. If the HOA didn't take action to collect their money, they'd never get it from those people, so they have to use the tools available to them, up to and including foreclosure. The people in this story got notice after notice and either threw them in a corner without reading them or consciously decided to ignore them. There's only so much you can do before the HOA has to either forget it (meaning they'll have increasing numbers of owners deciding not to pay, since it won't hurt them) or take it all the way.

If you don't want to be subject to HOA rules, don't live in a home where there is one. I don't like being told what to do on my own property, so I live in a house without an HOA to deal with. I can put up political yard signs, paint the house hot pink, cut the grass into a mohawk, or any other thing I please, and my neighbors might hate it but there's no HOA to make me stop.

[verity]

Perhaps! But also painting a bullseye on one's center-of-mass seems less than rational.

[pabianice]

HOAs are turning people away from such housing in droves.

[Pern]

With that attitude, one must conclude that you are dissatisfied with your life.

Not at all. I simply wouldn't allow the fruits of my labors to be taken from me. Would you allow someone to take away your home over a measly $120?

[ovrtaxt]

Hehe! Sometimes people forget to turn off the upstairs tub faucet!

[Orangedog]

Now I kill every spider I see.

RACIST ARACHNIPHOBE! You should be sent to spider sensitvity training ;)

[PackerBoy]

It is interesting to me that this conservative forum produces so much liberal-sounding sympathy.

If the homeowners agreed to abide by the association's rules, were properly assessed $120 in charges, failed/refused to pay them, ignored a dozen collection letters, and failed to come up with the case when they were sued -- what is wrong with legal process taking its course, even if the result seems tragic? This is like saying that a $40,000 car should not stop running just because the owner failed to put $20 of gas in its tank. The owners' failure brought about this result, not a cruel HOA.

It also seems strange to me that they could not/did not manage to find $120 somewhere. They had no neighbor, friend or relative who would help them out? Very strange.

[alisasny]

From the link to the Letter to Senator Boxer: I have spent every penny of my Life Savings, 401K, I.R.A., and my credit union savings building my wife and I, our dream home.

Ok I take blame back from the sons and put is square on the couple. To do what he said above is beyond anything I can comprehend.

[searchandrecovery]

I know nobody wants to seriously discuss armed resistance right now, (despite some of the posts here), but I can see it coming. Regardless of who gets elected.

If things get really bad, I think there would be a possibility of a military coup. Most military folks I know love America, and are pretty conservative - in direct contradiction to the liberal/socialist elements in society. I think it could happen.

[verity]

Please see #40 & #47.

[Savage Beast]

I do not join homeowners' associations, and I do not allow any restrictions on my property if I can help it.

[Ronly Bonly Jones]

So what's the higher authority, the first amendment, or the bylaws?>>

Bylaws, because they're presumed to be "voluntary." You don't HAVE to submit yourself to a weekly buffalo-raping by the Home Owner Nazis. You can either move or not move there in the first place.

[alisasny]

I have spent every penny of my Life Savings, 401K, I.R.A., and my credit union savings building my wife and I, our dream home.....

...which left me with no funds to support my wife and I in our dream home but its not my fault.......

[cupcakes]

This is what I loathe about most neighborhoods today. Instead of getting off of one's a$$ to see if a neighbor whose yard is unkempt or looking in on an aged couple to see if all is allright when you know they have a debt, they choose to take these folks house away. Perhaps if someone had talked to these folks, they could have made a small collection for them--120 bucks is not a lot.

We have never lived in an association for this reason, but we had a butthole neighbor who called the city once on us(this was after the birth of our first baby) because we had some weeds growing along the side of the house(which we had always been told was city property anyway, but we usually kept up with it until, at this small moment in time--3 months--our lives got hectic). Not one person ever asked even in casual conversation if we needed help. After that, we had little to do with our neighbors not knowing which one was a$$hole enough to report a problem instead of offering first time parents some help(even if it was just giving us a reputable landscapers number we would have appreciated it).
It just galls me because when we shovel snow, we do part of our neighbor's sidewalk up to where their driveways start. We just don't think twice to offer help, but nobody seems to want to do this anymore and instead get some glee out of reporting other people for a minor offense and one with which they have never asked their neighbors if they would be willing to cooperate or offer their help to fix. Instead of trying initial, less intensive steps that will probably work with most people, neighbors just go straight to the top and report away.

[wgeorge2001]

It seems that we are living in a time when the left wing liberal communist democrats have devised many ways to steal and rob both taxpayers ( subsidized teachers unions, A.C.L.U. also known by intelligent people as American Communists and Liberals United , Public Broadcasting System, Public School System, etc.) and people who have worked hard all their lives to buy property and own a home on retirement are generally their victims. The amount of incidents of H.O.A. robbing and controlling home owners rights are increasing every year and there agenda needs to be made manifest so that citizens can destroy these robbers.
These H.O.A.'s always are run by liberals whose true motives are to take power and rights guaranteed by our constitution and undermine and rule over communities of people who foolishly believe the lies these monsters use to steal and rob them blind.
The more I read about people,generally patriots and conservatives, who have been attacked by H.O.A.'s, the more I know who and what these people who run H.O.A.'s motives are. It's not about love or protection, it's a big scam to enrich the people who run and control H.O.A.'s and they are worse than man eating sharks(sharks do it for food, I belittle sharks).
H.O.A.s should have no power to even exist.