Columnist Ken McCall: New group tackling local real estate problems

Ken McCall

Friday, Jan. 17, 1997 | 11:59 a.m.

LOOK OUT, homeowners associations, a new group has crashed the gates and moved into the real estate community.

This isn't your run-of-the-mill organization, though. It has a comprehensive agenda, a combative attitude and the attention of several legislators.

Its name, Justice for Home and Condo Owners, says it all. These folks say they've been harassed, victimized, ripped off and even physically attacked by abusive, dictatorial homeowners association board members.

They tell stories of arbitrary and excessive fines levied by vengeful, petty despots often without due process. They paint pictures of unscrupulous board members, drunk with their first taste of power, running roughshod over their neighbors, especially single mothers and elderly women.

Leaders of a professional group that assists associations, however, say such abuses are the exception rather than the rule. The vast majority of association members, they say, are very happy with their boards and the benefits they provide.

But don't try telling that to Gloria Gonzalez, chairwoman of the new group.

The outspoken writer says she was having trouble with a board member of her condo association when she read stories in the SUN about the problems several families were having.

Gonzalez wrote a letter to the SUN that included her phone number, and the calls began pouring in.

A similar flood hit my desk after publishing those stories: dozens of people telling horror stories and asking who to call.

The problem is, there is no one in Nevada to call with such complaints.

So Gonzalez decided to fill the void, and Justice for Home and Condo Owners was born. The group has held five meetings, including one this week, and the response, Gonzalez says, has been "gangbusters."

The meetings have drawn state Sen. Mike Schneider, and Assemblymen Harry Mortenson and David Goldwater.

"All this has happened in five meetings," Gonzalez says, "because the problems are so ugly and people are being victimized."

Democrat Schneider, a real estate developer who was involved with homeowners association issues as an assemblyman in 1995, agrees. In fact, he's promised the group up to five bills to address their concerns.

An extraordinary gesture?

"It's a fairly extraordinary problem we have in the valley," Schneider says. "These people are real unhappy and I sympathize with them."

Schneider's agenda includes setting up oversight for management companies and homeowners associations.

He's been working with the Nevada Association of Realtors and the Community Association Institute to come up with a system of licensing and bonding management companies.

Associations, he suggests, could be monitored by the state attorney general's Office.

Other of the group's concerns he's promised to "look at":

* Strengthening provisions of the state's Homestead Act to limit associations' foreclosure powers.

* Drafting "universal" covenants, codes and restrictions that would apply statewide.

* Somehow monitoring board elections, though Schneider doesn't know how that would work or where the money would come from.

Dave Johnson, an attorney and president of the Nevada chapter of the Community Association Institute, agrees with Schneider on licensing management companies, but finds many of the other ideas problematic.

The Homestead Act is being misinterpreted by the group, he says. Elections are hard enough for the state to handle once a year, he asks, so how are they going to handle a thousand more?

He also calls universal CC&Rs an "awful" idea.

"What would govern a high-end, exclusive community," he asks, "and still govern a condominium association?"

As for oversight of the associations, he says, it was considered by the Legislature in 1991, but rejected because it would cost money.

So nobody's minding that store.

Still, Johnson insists, most residents believe their homeowners associations make for "good living in the desert."

"Like anything else, a few of them are bad," he says of association boards, "and the people who become annoyed make the most noise.

"What everybody hears is the 10 percent of the people who don't like where they live, not about the 90 percent who love it."

Well, maybe so, but that doesn't negate the injustices that Gonzales's group is fighting. "They've been playing this game for a long time," Gonzales says, "but it stops here. It's over."