By
Harvella Jones
President – The National Homeowners Advocate Group, LLC©

Texas - The original Homeowner Bill of Rights which is a compilation of the blood, sweat and tears from advocates and homeowners across the country that posted on the website of AHRC (American Homeowners Research Center) is the product of Elizabeth McMahon, Executive Director of the American Homeowners Resource Center and consumer member of the Senate Housing Task Force to Revise the Davis Stirling Act on July 24, 1997. To quote from her website, “This (the Homeowner Bill of Rights) is a compilation of ideas and suggestions by homeowners who either live or have lived in homeowner associations.”
http://www.ahrc.com/oldoldahrc/HOAorg/Billrights/bill.html
You may have to sign up to read the link but it is worth it. If you need to sign in, search for “Bill of Rights/AHRC”.

Now that I have established that Atty. David Kahne’s AARP Bill of Rights for Homeowners was mainly lifted from the website of AHRC, let me explore why Atty. Kahne would take this document from a site where the creators could access it and copy at will and convert it to a copyrighted PDF form that cannot be reprinted without the approval of AARP. Let me repeat, Kahne literally re-arranged a document that was not created by him from someone else’s website into a document that cannot be recreated without permission from an agency that has never shown interest in homeowner issues such as property rights.

Now that it has been firmly established that Kahne did in fact create the guts of his AARP Homeowner Bill of Rights from the site of AHRC, please note the lawyer’s touch in AARP’s version of the bill—the foreclosure for “significant unpaid assessments”. Ah, yes, a foreclosure. Whereas in the original Bill of Rights for Homeowners, in every instance in which foreclosure is mentioned, it is urged not to foreclose:

19. Small Claims court should be used instead of non-judicial foreclosure to collect delinquent assessments.


41. 1. Eliminate the non-judicial foreclosure powers of homeowner association boards 2. Use the small claims process without involvement of attorneys to collect dues and assessments 3. Allow homeowner association to lien after a favorable small claims judgment and collect on the lien at the time of refinance or sale of home. 4. Reinstate the homestead exemption 5. Re-state that no CID law overrides state and federal constitutional protections 6. Cap attorney fees at twice the amount of the delinquencies 7.. Cap attorney fees for enforcement of ARC regulations to no more than $5,000. 8. Set up a reserve fund to enable the association to meet it's obligations when there is a shortfall due to non payment of dues by members. 9.. Forbid the use of the homeowner association reserves to fund litigation 10. Forbid associations to cover non-association entities such as management companies under any of their insurance policies.


43. Associations will not have any foreclosure power nor shall they be permitted to seek foreclosure in any court or any other type of institution.


These are the words from the original Homeowner’s Bill of Rights currently still posted on the AHRC website for homeowners to be able to add to this work in progress.. Real 100% advocates for homeowners do not put their name to any document that promotes homeowner association foreclosures of any kind. There is no homeowner living in a master-planned community or any community for that matter that would become a part of this bogus shameful piece of garbage that Kahne has put together. The only type of homeowner or advocate that would support Kahne’s AARP Bill of Rights are people who believe in compromise. Did Kahne have the right to compromise homeowners’ property and Constitutional rights? Did other advocates have the right to compromise all the work of other advocates? Did other homeowners have the right to compromise all the work of other homeowners? I think not.

Did AARP have the right to take the work product of a group of advocates and homeowners and make it their own? I think not. Several years ago, I tried to get AARP interested in property rights for homeowners. Thinking that the recently foreclosed senior citizen Winona Blevins would help them to become interested, I approached it from the aspect that many senior citizens are being abused just like Winona was in their homeowner associations because they are old and sick and cannot defend themselves against the strength of their own homeowner association who oftentimes has become insensitive to the frailty of its members. It had been noted by me that AARP had taken on some high profile issues for its members although property rights had not yet been one of them and I mistakenly thought they would be interested in this one. Needless to say, I was unable to put a dent into the apathy that surged from the officials of AARP. Now here we are, fast forwarded to 2006, and this great bill suddenly appears with AARP’s name preceding it.

Could it be that AARP also see homeowners as the next best thing to Christmas as so many others do? AARP, a failing and struggling organization out of touch with the times, and with so many baby boomers on the horizon, has now decided to be an advocate for homeowners and why not ensure its success by bringing in a high-profile ACLU attorney like David Kahne to do it with.

Being a firm believer in the rights of others, I propose and support and request that we, the people of the United States, start showing AARP and others, that we still care about what happens to us and better than that, we are still in charge of our lives and refuse to turn our lives into a master-slave community. We wrote the “original” bill of rights and we are the ones who will decide how we live in our communities and we are extremely sick and tired of being an open check book for any and every special interest group that decide they need a shot of advocacy to increase their bottom line.

Now that you know what, why and how, it is time to protest in a way so simple—do not join AARP and if you are a member, cancel your membership and join another senior citizen organization. Do not let AARP redefine how you live. harvellajones@yahoo.com