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An Article
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The New Battle For Britain
California lawyer and CAI lobbyist sells homeowner associations to Tony Blair and the British Parliament
February 22, 2001
By
AHRC News Services
Copyright AHRC News Services
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London, United Kingdom - 60 years ago, Britain fought for its very existence as planes from the German Luftwaffe swooped down from the skies. Today, another battle for Britain is taking place.
This time, however, it is largely a secret battle, and the enemy is not across the English Channel, but across the Atlantic Ocean.
The United States has changed dramatically since World War 2 – but one of the most profound changes cannot be seen by the casual observer. Across the length and breadth of the land, in every state from California to New York, and Washington to Florida, the traditional family home has been replaced by an new form of living called common interest developments – CIDs for short.
Currently, over 45 million Americans live in CIDs, each of which is run by a new and far more intrusive government called innocuously a "homeowner association."
In brief, homeowner associations mandate what colors a home must be painted in. They can ban basketball hoops. They demand that permission for even the slightest change to the exterior of a property – including the planting of single flower – be obtained from the homeowner association. Many associations can levy fines for the slightest breach, and if the fine is not paid, they can foreclose on a home without the need for any court order within as little as 90 days.
Across America, a swelling army of homeowners is rising up in protest. Web sites, radio programs, newsletters – all denounce this new form of totalitarianism. They point to the mother of 5 who lost her home before Christmas for a miserly $500.
They cite the case of Dave Donnell who faced becoming homeless as he lay in hospital fighting for his life – 30 pints of blood transfused in the last 2 months – because he fell behind in his assessment payments. Homeowner after homeowner complains of arrogant boards who flaunt fundamental provisions of the constitution, who seek to trample underfoot all homeowners who question their policies, and who regard a person’s home as their very fiefdom.
Homeowners criticize association management companies as the storm troopers of the board, and cite case after case where management companies have run off with millions in homeowner association funds. But the homeowners reserve a special venom for the lawyers.
They document in great detail how lawyers have turned homeowner associations into cash registers for themselves. Not only do they seek to rack up legal expense upon legal expense, but they seek to file suits on homeowners in order to collect their attorney fees – and foreclose on the home if the homeowner is unable to pay them – which is generally the case.
Association lawyers have created a whole new industry – the taking of peoples’ homes. In Harris County, Texas, they have taken over 3000 homes in the last few years.
In every state, these lawyers have honed the fine art of bribing state legislators to pass laws that benefit them. In California, they succeeded in passing a law that allowed association reserves to be used for paying their attorney fees. The evening before a legislative hearing, they would wine and dine key legislators such as Dan Hauser, chair of the Assembly Housing Committee. The following morning, he would do their legislative bidding.
All this and more is being exported to Britain. The author of CID legislation in California, Katherine Rosenberrry, has spent the last 16 months in the Lord Chancellor’s office in England laying the groundwork to introduce similar CID legislation in England – and this despite the fact that she admitted before the California Law Revision Commission on February 2 that the California legislation had failed.
Unless voices in England are quickly raised, England will go the same way as America. The family home, as countless generations of English have known it, will become a thing of the past. Instead of being a castle, it will become a hassle – and much worse. One association in California sued an elderly lady all the way to the California Supreme Court to prevent her from having several cats in her home – and they won.
In many minds, the United States has always been synonymous with the idea of freedom. In the last 50 years, this idea has been receding fast in the rear-view mirror. In all areas of society, mega corporations swallow up individual initiative. Whether it is airlines, auto manufacturers, software developers, the family farm or the family home, the individual citizen merely becomes a puppet on the string of powerful economic interests.
Whatever the justification for other areas of life, there is absolutely no justification for making the family home hostage to these new invaders. A home is where a human being is uniquely him or herself. It is a place where a citizen can breathe the air of freedom, dream his fondest thoughts and share his most precious moments. Homeowner associations spell the death knell for such a vision. Its mountain of regulations cabin, crib and confine the homeowner at every turn.
Each homeowner has to act on those memorable words once again that "We will fight them on the beaches - - - -", so that those who died so bravely in the First Battle of Britain will not have died in vain.
The forces unleashed by the new Luftwaffe seek global dominance – and "globalization" really means "gobblization" – the taking of man’s most precious possession – his home. |
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