When a management firm looses your money

Our management firms employee took the money out of our HOA account and others to the tune of around $800.000 dollars;
Now our board in it's wisdom has agreed to asses each homeowner a fee to pay our bills; the best part is that they want to give this money to the firm that stole our money.
Management firm says he will give it back someday.
I'll believe that when I see pigs fly.
What do you folks think of this?

Come on, John.
Your management company should have insurance that covers employee theft. Your board should also file a claim.

Something is missing from your story.

Nothing missing; believe it or not what I say is the way it is.
I agree the employee should have been be bonded;
The insurance co should have covered the loss;
This manager is a con artist of the first class; he could talk you out of your underware; he's that good.
The part that realy bugs me is that the directors agreed to give him more money.
He has these folks in his pocket; anyone disagree and he brings out his attorney and threatens to sue; he uses the homeowners money to pay the attorney so he has a bottomless pit of money; it's like sueing yourself. i've been down that road, last time I just quit to save myself lots of money, One poor sole in Tampa lost his home and is $100,000 in debt trying to fight a simaler management firm.
I been in this home most of my life. I've read stories in the papers about things like mine and some guy will go nuts and just start blasting, not me, I won't do that, but sooner or later someone that lives here will brake. and as the story goes (WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND)
The latest I've herd is he has about 20 condo associations on his tail for screwing them. true or not I don't know.

sometime truth is stranger than fiction

for obvious reasons I will not mention any name.

John, I don't see how you jumped to the conclusion that because an employee of a company took funds the manager is a con artist. I was standing in an office when an employee was taken away in handcuffs and every person in the office was shell shocked. He was the accounts payable person and had been funding his own adventures.

BrianB

there are an army of lawyers that will take you to court for most any reason. win or lose they get paid; you lose no matter if you win. (you always pay).
television is full of them advertizing.

John -

As a follow-up to Robert G's last post, are there one or two incidents you're referring to?

In your first post, you said a management company took $800k of HOA money. Did an individual steal/embezzle it?
And are you saying that the Board of Directors wants to invoke a special assessment to replace this money?

In later posts, you refer to the management company and/or the Board of Directors spending money from a special assessment that you don't know what it was spent on. Is this the same incident or a separate one?

In addition to JO's Qs:

1. How much money is YOUR HOA missing due to the PM's actions?
2. What actions has YOUR BOD taken as far as recovering it?

JohnK3
money missing= a little over $8000
what have the BOD dhad a $35.00 assement payable to the management firm ----to start, (there will be more I'm sure)

Are we on candid camera?

Your BOD is seriously sending more money to a management firm that "lost" over $8000 of your HOA money? And they want the owners to pay an additional amount over and above annual assessments to replace that lost money? Why isn't the management company being held responsible here?

Are criminal charges pending?

Does your HOA insurance cover theft by employees of a contractor?

Are you really the only person appalled by this in your association?

If we're not on candid camera, I'd say either something's missing, we're not getting the full story, or this association is going to be featured on "How not to run an association".

And I thought my association had problems...

How about posting the relevant info here? Just mark out names/address info.

John -

I mean absolutely no disrespect in this reply. After reviewing this thread and the one other thread that you started regarding a New Florida law, I'm starting to "get a sense" about how you perceive your surroundings, your HOA, and how you arrive a conclusions - perhaps without a thorough understanding of either the facts of the case or of the complete history of events.

As I said, I mean no disrespect, and I quite honestly don't like drawing my own conclusions based on very limited information, but in this case I just can't seem to help myself .. .. .. ..

From one of your posts in the other thread, you said,

"I bought my property when it was the only home; everyone built around me then formed a HOA. made all kinds of rules; started putting liens on homes; when these folks start paying my taxes; paying insurance and maintaing my home; they can tell me to water my grass."

You're making this sound like you bought a home whose deed was not legally encumbered by any declarations pertaining to an HOA. Then it sounds like you believe that an HOA (which I don't think you like) sort of "formed around you" and suddenly you were absorbed into it? If your property was not originally subject to an HOA, no one could force you into one without your permission and consent. Assuming you are now part of an HOA, either your property was originally part of this HOA when you bought it or you consented to subject your property to the HOA at some later time. There's no other possibility that I am aware of.

If you are, in fact, part of this HOA, the very first thing you need to do is completely read and understand the governing documents of the association. This will typically be both a "Declaration of Protective Covenants" as well as a set of "By-laws" of the Association. Although chock full of legalese and potentially confusing, these documents WILL describe both (a) the obligations and restrictions that your property is subject to in the HOA, and (b) the rules by which the HOA must run.

Included in this will be your rights as a member of the HOA to inspect documents, budgets, and other records of the HOA. You should be able to see the financial records of the HOA and what money was spent for what purpose. You may or may not be able to obtain a copy of the contract between the HOA and management company. However this contract should describe the responsibilities of the mgmt company and likely will contain language regarding their obligations to carry out the fiduciary respsonsibility of the Board of Directors.

It sounds to me like you have some work to do to educate yourself rather than merely drawing conclusions about the intent of the various parties involved.

Once you're familiar with the facts, rules, covenants, etc, the members of this forum can be of much more assistance to you and can offer much more informed advice.

Happy Reading!

John06
You sound just like the association I'm refering to'
believe nothing even if the facts are directly in front of you'
send me your e-mail and I will send you the newspaper articles and the letters I've gotten from the HOA'
your up John06 put your e-mail where your mouth is.

John - Again, I meant no disrespect, but I did notice that you didn't address any of the points I brought up, particularly regarding how your property ended up in the HOA. Either you bought it that way or you gave permission to be added - to my knowledge there is no other possibility.

If you bought it that way, then you should know what you're buying.
If you gave permission, then you should know what you're agreeing to.

Nonetheless, I'm open to receiving the info you'll email.

My email address is:

[email protected]

I've been ALL over the website for the St Petersburg Times, and I can find no mention of any of this. Was this recent?

I also did this and found the same. I still think there are some facts that a bit scrambled. That is why I asked for the reference posted here.

Ellen

Let's not get our "Johns" mixed up. JohnS25 is the original poster. I, like many of you, are just trying to get the full, accurate story.

I, too, combed the St. Petersburg Times website without a reasonable hit on the OP's story.

Its called the largo times I live in Largo and they attach this paper to the St Petersburgh times she was arrested march 30 I hope this helps. I'll keep looking but I think I copied the article to my computer and it doesn't have a printed date on it. I've e-mailed a copy to two of you if any others want the article just give me youe e-mail address. As to the assesment send your e-mail and you will get it also.

Ok guys---- all the e-mails came back what goes

If anyone finds the article please let me know in the meantime I'll try to figure why all the e-mails came back.

folks believe what you like; Quite frankley Im tired of the whole mess.
I went on vacation last week, got as far as Georga and was T boned on my motorhome I got a lot more things to take care of than try to convince you folks I'm telling the truth.
have a nice day

I thought that most states (like Virginia) had statutory requirements for bonding employees of management companies.

JohnS25 -

OK, so I received the newspaper article from you via email and it's as posted by RobertG above. Don't get defensive about inquiries from forum members here - no one has challenged your integrity as far as reporting what turn out to be facts, particularly those substantiated in the public domain such as the newspaper article.

However, I - and perhaps others - do question your subsequent assumptions and/or conclusions about both the Board and the Property Management firm without an apparent ability on your part to provide greater substantiation of the conclusions you draw. So let's examine this a bit closer .. .. ..

The property management employee was arrested on March 30, 2009 - greater than 3 months ago. That's the latest information you've provided. With a magnitude of alleged embezzlement that approximates $800k, an arrest, and subsequent law enforcement investigation, I would suspect that much more is now known about the role, if any, of others at the property management firm. Have any allegations, charges, etc been leveled at the firm's owner? If not, then perhaps local law enforcement is also part of this grand conspiracy against you and your HOA!?

Critical questions that DO REMAIN relate to the property management firm's insurance against such theft. If no such insurance exists, then certainly the multiple HOAs that lost money have filed civil actions against the firm?

You mentioned a $35 special assessment by the Board - certainly this isn't to replace the lost $8k (unless you have 280+ homes, the simple math here doesn't work out). What HAS the Board done to recover the lost monies? If they are not providing this information in some form to the members THAT is a problem!

This is precisely the type of information that the helpful individuals on this forum need to provide advice and/or perspective - information that you apparently either don't have or are reluctant to provide.

I'm not sure what you expected from your original post .. .. you asked "what we thought" of what you described, but then were unwilling or unable to provide the needed details of your case. If you were hoping that members of this forum would just commiserate and jump on the "how terrible these people are" bandwagon, I expect you will (or already have been) dissappointed.

"When a management firm looses your money"
I contend that your HOA has failed to be prudent in setting up procedures so that the money can not be stolen; or if stolen by anyone it needs to be covered by theft insurance.

DARCO's ad states "Our money handling procedures remove possibilities for theft." That means theft by anyone. Those of you who have read my posts over the years know that I have warned against loss of funds and how to prevent this several times. Atleast twice a week it seems that I read about theft by Managers and Board members ranging from a few hundred to several million dollars. So beware and set up procedures to prevent theft. One procedure which gives a false sense of security is having two signatures on a check, in Colorado the banks only require one, and they do not know whether it is a valid signature.

I need people to help row my boat!!!!