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Saturday, December 17, 2011

Maria Cantwell's Marital Status Used By GOP Opponent In Political Attack


""Maria Cantwell believes that the Plan B decision should be based on the best (available science)" said Cantwell campaign strategist Rose Kapolczyns­ki. "Washingto­n voters support {protectin­g} women's health. You don't need to be married to know that Baumgartne­r's extreme anti-choic­e position is out of touch.""



This is called a FRAME. The main point is that she uses (science) and that he will use {moral} code. Now this same moral code allows for the death penalty so don't think it has to be rational. That's the point there is no rational when the FRAME is view with a moral len's.



This FRAME both the left's use of (science) and the rights, which btw both left & right are FRAMES, use of {moral} or "principle­d" mandates to encode message to voters.



One works on conscious level and other on the subconscio­us; And, it don't take a genius to know which one works better.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

Maryland Appellate Court Rules That Individual Unit Owners Have a Right of Action Against the Council of Unit Owners For Failing To File a Timely Suit Against the Developer For Defects In The Common Elements

Hillel Greenstein et al. vs. Council of Unit Owners of AvalonCourt Six Condominium, Inc. has been decided and the six clients seemly have won a decision to hold a board members personally liable for the specials assessments that his six clients don't want to share. This ruling is a major set back in many ways to Common Interest Communities "CIC" The attorney, Raymond D. Burke, is on record saying that he has in his own words.  
"often warned condominium councils about the consequences of failing to take timely legal action to protect the unit owners when there is evidence of construction defects in the common elements."
Well! I have been involved with CIC since 1988 and I don't recall once seeing Attorney Burke talking about that happens to communities that are given no help from the state, county or city government in their efforts to get developers to live up to their contracts, obligation and I would say moral responsibilities; however, I know the crowd where talking about about; so I'll save the lecture.

In this case a Condominium board is being help responsible to the do what inspectors, permitting offices and the government on all levels has been backing out of ~ Ensuring that the community is livable.

The vener that this subject is being plastered over with is nothing but that -vener and these board members are now being held to account. 

These communities often find themselves fighting with the developers by the time the 1st resident moves in and the developer is still in control of the meetings, voting and money. And, all to often these developers leave the community with no money, a completely unworkable budget and often don't hold a transition meeting to let the community know what is even happening. And this group of homeowners have to be do what......run a community as a professional board right out of the gate. 
Meanwhile Maryland politicians are right there with the developers sucking up all those contributions and screwing the people out of any representations.
If you have tried to get a meeting with any Maryland offices about the issues facing these boards you know that Maryland officials want nothing to do with CIC's We have tried to get several meeting with Albert Wynn's office for some communities in Prince Georges, MD and the staffer refused to set one up and said that each owner had to come in on their own. This is not an isolated issues with him as not one Maryland state of federal public servent has done ONE THING for CICs.

The really sorry part about this is that many CIC are handicapped because Maryland refuses to enforce it's Condo ACT and to the extent that it has a HOA act it is pretty much a hollow shell of protecting, considering there is no financial disclosure in HOA in Maryland.

Where is this attorney on the face that banks, Fannie, Freddy, FHA, HUD and the VA aren't paying assessments, making reserve funds contributions and forget about special assessments. In our office we get calls every week by someone that just moved into a CIC in Maryland and they have no documents, financial statement or even clue as to who's even on their association board.

Now the really stupid part about this is that these six owners have sued themselves and they will have to share in the cost of this as there is no president what so ever that says that they are excluded from any special assessment or legal action that impacts the whole community. I'll guess they don't realizes that the insurance company that was covering the community will more then likely be dropping their community from coverage when reconstruction is happening in a condominium.

So who is going to cover this community that this Attorney and his clients are now forcing something


So, Great news all around another attorney got paid and the community gets the bill.

Maryland Appellate Court Rules That Individual Unit Owners Have a Right of Action Against the Council of Unit Owners For Failing To File a Timely Suit Against the Developer For Defects In The Common Elements

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

There is no reason that your community should be on Social Media ~Right?

Since part of our chairman's Nelson Jacobsen, background involves a life time in emergency management and a new area called CrisisData he has been at the forefront of the social media citizen movement.

Specifically, This tread of using social media to communicate during a disaster is changing the whole world of emergency management.  Recently Nelson was part of a team of volunteers that assisted at the National Emergency Managers Association special workshop called SMEMCamp



This event allowed emergency managers "EM" to have access to social media practitioners who shared their experiences and knowledge in social media to help the EMs understand something that is completely overtaking their world.

More important to understand is that social media is 100 percent cloud based and this is really the forest behind the trees of twitter, facebook etc.  So yes what is popular is going to change and board's will have to learn to use new communications technology or skills and there is nothing else to do~  save to adapt.  

It should not be lost on boards and managers of Common Interest Communities that they need to adopt a social media strategy!  Not only because most of their members are already there; we know from recently disasters that citizens are going to turn to social media to communicate during them.

We have to wonder if the property management company in Georgetown, DC been on twitter would they would have seen the alerts that the DC government has posted. We saw them and changed our plans for the day.  They didn't and the outcome is a disaster

When your on social media it is interlinked and your emergency managers and national defense use these open system to look for what we call noise on the wire.

  • For more information about CrisisData visit here
  • To establish your community Twitter visit here


If you do one thing after reading this! We would advise that each CIC establish a twitter feed not only communicate with your membership -- it needs to be connected to you local government, utilities companies and emergency responders and you need to share this account with a couple of board members so what they can monitor and respond with it matters most in your community.

Here is a simple example of how to use Twitter during an emergency.



If your community is interested in Community Emergency Plans or how to establish a social media presence please contact. Hastatus, LLC follow @hastausllc or @intercommassoc

Real Time real-estate blog | The Palm Beach Post » Blog Archive » Dizengoff buys 65 Palm Beach condos in bulk deal

Real Time real-estate blog | The Palm Beach Post » Blog Archive » Dizengoff buys 65 Palm Beach condos in bulk deal: "Dizengoff-Trading Company has purchased the remaining 65 units at 2560 South Ocean Blvd. in Palm Beach for about $6.9 million in a cash."


Really, we are soooooo surprised.....

Tuesday, April 5, 2011

Beware of the Ides of March in CIC land.

So if you think about the state of the condominium market right now with both FHA & Fannie Mae basically not able to back loans in what 100 thousand 1 million condo's single family & townhouse associations. Who knows.  Really?

As with every other case follow the money.  Think! If many urban communities which are largely made up of Condo & Townhouses since the 80s. They are no longer back-able by the annies, thus these  entities no longer have assests to calm as counter to their notes.   The whole market implodes 

Which is what is happening now.

Who is the villains!  You say a villain......Let's just make up a movie plot and you tell me who is whom?

Cut to.  villains And, I do mean the worst kind as they are assembling huge piles of money ( backscene~ these piles are the loans they crammed into the system and resold in a ponzie scheme ) Now they are  ready to descend like the plage upon cities and devour every single condo, townhouse and some partials completed HOA's that unit they can get their hands on
They are basically not re-sellable because the government refused to take steps to stop this train wreak years ago....well you draw your own conclusion.
As to why would villains (errr...investors) would want to buy up a million units at a time...........

VO because the 40 percent of owners that have been paying the bills are about to become totally beholden to the investor owners since their own units are not re-sellable using conventional or any other loan other then cash.  And, who is going to step up and buy those units?  

PLOT TWIST some of villains  are currently advising the government on it's response to the current housing issues.  Did any .GOV or Agency do one thing in regards to state of communities?

CIC's  have been set up like bowling pins to be knocked down and redeveloped any way these Villains see fit.  They will have a captive renter community and who knows after they are done 10 percent of the old owners may even qualify to buy a new home- It's the same as the old home.  

Crux of the PLOT Only now new/oldhome just it generated a new series of transactions and these folks that run things including Congress it seems care more about that then they do your community.

Or the Congress and your Government starts to care about the 100 million U.S. citizens that live in these communities.  The odds are that many of them do and they are going to stop this or be hoisted by the investors/villains.

2012 Elections need to be about the State of Communities and Communities 

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

State of Communities: The Big Picture in CIC land.

State of Communities: The Big Picture in CIC land.: "The Big Picture in CIC land. Community Associations (CA), Common Interest Communities (CIC) or Planned Unit Development (PUD) over the last..."

Yes this is back Storm Water Ponds.

Monday, January 31, 2011

CIC2.0 Open.gov has to come to Condo, Coop & Hoa's

Wow what a giant dark hole we are prying the lid open on when we come to think of Open Gov as it relates to Common Interest Communities (CIC).   This is so far removed from the minds of those enabling, - NO! MANDATING- it that in some US States you don't even have to be told that your home is a combined assets of a nonstock company.  And, as the CIC goes~So does your home.

Eample! Right now in the shadow of Congress and every Agency that is espousing OPEN.data.Gov/.Org new home owners  moving into a Single Family or Townhouse Homeowners Associations (HOA) arn't told about the rules or the finances of the HOA.   That means the biggest financial decision these folks will face in most of their lives~ they will have no information about the investment it rules, finances or even it's existence.   How can our GOV makes disclosure of these things for securities and does not for the homeowner in an associations. How can the Federal Gov back loans in areas that don't offer this basic disclosure to the majority of new home buyers.

Because of this oversight or lack of it the management companies & boards operate in the dark to the membership.  There is no enacted law to ensure this does not happen. Yet there is a uniform law that is being used in VA and partially in MD that would help in the dark homeowners. BTW we can see by resales states that have done so fair better.   I have been to more then one reboot of a HOA after they found the management company or someone with access to the funds stole their money.  It just makes sense a concepts like a Disclosure law;  Yet afters years of seeking one none exist.

In Maryland we get to see the downfall of not enacting the financial disclosure requirements that States like Virginia and Washington  along with the Bylaw, Covenants, rules and regulations (aka CondoHOA Docs) who require financial disclosure for resales in Single Family & Townhouse HOA's.  In Maryland resale buyers when buying their home face a decision about a company/community and they don't get any details in the form of a balance sheet, audited statement or any financial disclosure for that matter . What does the homeowner  have to do to get one leader to step up to the plate this makes no sense.

I am sorry to say that until there is some leadership on the National or State level communities themselves are going to be two steps behind.  However, communities can jump  ahead by making  records available to your members/owners any Gov or Emergency responder that need access to data/info on the cloud.  



Tuesday, January 25, 2011

We launched in 02 to bring attention to Condo, Coop and Hoa's plights



Community Associations (CA), Common Interest Communities (CIC) or Planned Unit Development (PUD) over the last thirty years has become a staple of new home development for many reasons. They may be in the form of a Condominium, Cooperative or Homeowner Associations but they all share in number of characteristic and 1 out of 6 US home fall within one.

Each one of these developments has document and disclosure requirements and they have a responsibility to the membership as a whole to operate the community for the good of all residents and to generally increase the combined property value

What is the affect of non- resident oriented contracts and what are the dangers that may come about because the communities were not making these decisions? It is reported by Community Association Institute, a national trade group of the planned community professionals, that 1 out of 6 homes in the US falls within such a place.


This same group projects that 50 percent of all new home developments are being built as planned communities.




According to the Wayback machine we put this online in Aug 2002. Whois has it up April of 02. 


 It is our opinion that for owners of homes that happen to fall inside a Common Interest Communities it has only gotten worse and the State of the Union Speech tonight will not offer any home for the Millions that find themselves in this situation together. 


Lets see if the Gov has a plan for your CIC we are trying to get them to pay attention and please feel free to visit our new group to do just that.   InternationalCommunityAssociation.org  Help Us Help Your Community.