CAI concerned about growing strength of advocate arguments for HOA reforms? | HOA Constitutional Government

There are a growing number of advocates for homeowner rights around the country. The CAI (Community Association Institute) is an organization that protects lawyers, managers and other vendors that make money off our dues--they do things like recommend doucments that allow boards to make  decisions without the member vote, that gives major power to boards and makes it impossible for members to reign them in..I personally find them very offensive (I was a member for a while when I believed their hype that they represented owners--learned quickly that was far from the case). You can read about the CAI and some of its horror stories here:

You can read about the Community Association Institutive (CAI), an organization designed originally to "protect" and serve the industry,  and how it morphed. Now it seems that it mainly protects vendors at the expense of the owner. Read, in the HOA primer about why the CAI usually doesn't protect YOU, the owner, even though they like to claim they do:  The CAI: Putting in the Fix

20/20 did a great program on what went wrong in HOAs. The CAI went ballistic and claimed that ABC got it wrong. But an involved Homeowner advocate, Jan Bergemann, wrote her take on their take, 

The CAI is a trade organization trying to advance the monetary interests of their members, mostly attorneys, management companies, landscaping companies etc. For them HOAs are in existence to make money for them, since they have no invested financial interest...(Read Jan's full 'take' here)

Thank goodness HOA homeowner advocates are gaining ground. The CAI is designed to take in money for predatory vendors who suck cash out of homeowners for things they often don't want. They manipulate and scare untrained board members on how to "get" Members to behave--our Attorney Peter Harrison is the president of the CAI chapter in Utah and also is our collection attorney. Do you know what their website says about collections?

• All accounts are followed with aggressive, professional, prompt action with a high rate of success
• (the owner may not see their own account; only the association and manager has access)
•  Individuals who are unable to meet their financial obligations are forced to decide if they should make their car payment, mortgage payment, or homeowner assessment payment. With so many people facing financial strain, it is important that homeowner associations let their owners know their bill must be paid first and, if it is not, there will be serious consequences.
• In order to aggressively collect, associations need a plan-of-attack. 
• once they hear of the hard approach that the association is taking—they will think twice about choosing to not pay their dues. Finally, remember: when taking the hard line approach of aggressively collecting assessments, not only are you attempting to collect from the delinquent owners, but you are also sending a message loud and clear that the association must be paid on time from each and every owner.

These are the words from OUR COLLECTION company that was misprepresented when we were asked to vote on it. Is the above the way you want to treat your neighbors? I hope not. Remember--if owners cannot pay for some reason, we get the money when they sell! Every year the association collects from $20 to 30 thousand when lots sell...When the collection agency is involved WE DO NOT COLLECT ANY MORE MONEY, it simply means that they get a high high fee for collecting it from your neighbor next door who has fallen on hard financial times, and now we have increased their financial burden--now why would we treat our neighbors that way? It is time to change this travesty. Become an advocate with us for homeowner rights.



Attorney George K. Staropoli shares how the CAI is getting nervous--GOOD!

CAI concerned about growing strength of advocate arguments for HOA reforms? | HOA Constitutional Government: "CAI can be beat easily with fundamental constitutional arguments and avoiding CAI’s narrow real property approach to community government. CAI still speaks of community associations while arguing HOAs are businesses. Doesn’t make common sense, does it?  Just demand CAI answer this obvious contradiction, reminding them that advocates are not stupid."

Shelly

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