By Deborah Goonan, Independent American Communities
Here we go again. Another not-so-isolated incident of theft and fraud in a homeowners’ association.
New Rochelle Man Charged with Stealing $39,000 from Local Homeowner’s Association-
For those of you who are convinced that management companies are the root of all evil in Association-Governed Residential Communities, note that West End 2000 is a small HOA with only 24 homes, and it is self-managed. In this case, there is no on-site professional management, just some limited help with bookkeeping duties.
The Board President, Salvatore Franciamore, had sole access to the Association’s bank account since March 2015.
The other nugget in this report is the history on this townhouse development. It was supposed to be much larger, but the housing market never created enough townhouse demand to build out as planned.
While it may be more common in a small HOA that is self managed, fraud and theft is not limited by the size of the HOA. Where I live in Nevada our HOA Board of Directors (over 7000 members) was told many times by the members that they were violating the law because they were not returning excess money to the members. Finally the Federal Internal Revenue Service fined the Association (NOT the Board members) 1.3 million dollars for Back taxes. That prompted the Board members to hire lawyers and to re-do the accounting and the books to prove they did not have as much money squirreled away as first thought. The IRS bought it but still a smaller fine was levied which ALL members had to pay. Then the Board of Directors went after the members who alerted the IRS making their lives miserable. Fiscal irresponsibility is not uncommon in Nevada HOA’s because the State never bothers to properly investigate residents complaints.