Posts Tagged ‘ Homeowners Association ’

Attorney Bruce Flammey: I knew HOA Situation was ‘Just Wrong’

March 15th, 2011. By BrendaC

Lawyers Giving Back looks at a side of lawyers you don’t hear too much about—the side that gives back…pays it forward..and shares the love. We’ve found quite a number of attorneys who log non-billable hours helping others—simply because they believe it’s the right thing to do. Their stories are inspiring, and hey, who knew lawyers were so…good? If you’ve got a story to share about an attorney who’s doing the right thing, let us know—we’d love to let others know, too. Today, we’re talking with Las Vegas attorney Bruce Flammey…

Attorney Bruce Flammey: “This…involved a colossal level of amount stupidity on a number of interlocking levels”

Bruce Flammey is definitely not a publicity hound—but several weeks ago, the straight shooting Nevada lawyer decided to jump into a local news story after heard about the Trueblood family and its dispute with a local home owners’ association (HOA) in Las Vegas.

“It offended my sense of right and wrong,” says Flammey.

In early December, just before the holidays began, the Tara Villas HOA ordered the water be cut off at Deena Trueblood’s home after she had bounced a check to a collection agency.

“I thought, this is crap,” says Flammey who once served on a HOA board and in fact now does legal work for HOA boards in Las Vegas.

Flammey immediately got in touch with the reporter working the story and offered to provide the family with free legal help. “I said if Deena Trueblood needed any help with this or wanted to talk to a lawyer about this, I would be happy to do so. And literally within hours I got a phone call back.”

The HOA had not only ordered the water cut off, it had ordered that the pipe be cut outside the Trueblood property line to discourage an attempt to have the water reconnected.

When Flammey connected with Deena Trueblood the facts of the case made him even more determined to get everything put right again. Deena and her son by this time had been weeks without water despite the fact that she made good on the bounced check way back in December.

“In fact, it was more like a clerical error than a bounced check,” explains Flammey.

“She was back on solid ground with the collection agency and as far as it was concerned everything was okay—and had been for weeks,” says Flammey.

One Call Does it All

Flammey picked up the phone and called the HOA’s lawyer. “He said he wasn’t actually their lawyer,” says Flammey, “but he would call the HOA and explain how asinine this was.”

And within 48 hours, after almost six weeks in dry-dock, the water was once again flowing in the Trueblood household.

It might seem like a small gesture, but to the family with no running water, fighting a bureaucracy—it was magic.

“This, in my opinion, involved a colossal level of amount stupidity on a number of interlocking levels,” says Flammey.

“I would have told this HOA under no conditions do we turn off the water to peoples’ homes,” says Flammey. “If I had been their lawyer they never would have ended up on the news.”

“It might have been legal, but in my view it wasn’t a good idea.”

Bruce Flammey is an attorney with a strong sense of justice. He is in solo practice at Flammey Law in Las Vegas, Nevada. He handles legal work for multi-family housing units and home owner association boards.

Tags: Attorney Bruce Flammey, HOA, Homeowners Association, Las Vegas, Lawyers Giving Back
Posted in Emerging Issues, Lawyers Giving Back | 2 Comments »

Rally Against Las Vegas HOA Bully Boards Will Only Grow

February 14th, 2011. By AbiK

Thinking of Martha Stewart Gustavian Blue for your home’s exterior reno? Think again. Like that stamped cement driveway you saw on your trip to the northeast? Forget it. Husband travelling and you’re left to ensure the trash cans are tucked out of sight—pronto!—after the garbage truck sweeps by? Get moving. And don’t let me see those kids using sidewalk chalk out front!

Such is the life, apparently, of many a homeowner living within the confines, constraints and—some would say—convoluted constructs of an HOA, or homeowners’ association.

Used to be some odd symbol of “belonging”—or for some, status—to be a part of an HOA (no trailer trash here!) neighborhood. What with all the cookie cutter neatness, lack of individuality and security gates, it’s the facade of a picture perfect community. And a mere facade it’s seemingly become for some folks in Nevada—with a rather ugly behind-the-scenes picture.

An article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal shares what basically boils down to a case of schoolyard bullying—only the playground is now the development, and the bullies are the HOA boards. Those who feel they’ve been bullied (e.g., one homeowner was unjustly fined for the transgression of erecting a fence for which the HOA had previously approved the plans) have now joined voices, if not forces, to rally last Monday against HOA “bully boards”. They’re mad as hell and they want the folks in Carson City to do something about it.

According to the Review-Journal, the rallying homeowners are looking for legislators to, “introduce laws that would cap the amount of HOA fines and collection agency fees, eliminate “kangaroo courts” run by homeowners association boards and limit the mandatory arbitration requirement.”

At issue is Nevada Revised Statute 116—the state law that governs HOA boards. Rally organizer, Jonathan Friedrich, says in the Review-Journal article that 85 percent of decisions in mandatory arbitration go against the homeowner—which obviously brings into question exactly how these decisions are being made.

Friedrich has gone as far as to set up a grassroots website, www.hoa1234.com, to get the word out on the lack of transparency—and honesty—he and his rally mates see in how HOA boards apply rules and penalties. And it goes beyond just current Nevada homeowners—Friedrich and others are quick to point out that HOA bully boards do not exactly serve as an advertisement for prospective home buyers to want to lay down roots in Nevada. Friedrich even notes in the Review-Journal, “It’s interesting that on the MLS (Multiple Listing Service), Realtors are advertising, ‘No HOA.’ What does that tell you?”

We’ll continue to keep an eye on this story as Nevada may just turn out to be ground zero for upcoming HOA-related litigation, and hopefully, change for the better.

Tags: HOA, HOA fines, Homeowners Association, Jonathan Friedrich, Nevada
Posted in Emerging Issues, Real Estate | 1 Comment »