Not only do we need HMO reform and Education reform, but in equal measure we need Housing reform.

32 million Americans live in Managed Housing Organizations(MHO), 6 million in California. It is a $20 billion industry.

Californians in MHOs are duped into buying homes with unlimited taxation and liability.

Who's responsible?

The litigation lawyers and politicians who sell or trade the public rights of those who live in MHOs.

What's been happening in California?

1. Litigation lawyers fund the campaign coffers of those politicians who will sell the public's rights to them.

For example:
It was originally illegal to use MHO reserves (funds collected from homeowners for capital replacements) for legal fees. Litigation lawyers bought politicians to make a law allowing the billions in MHO reserves to be used for their legal fees. They then used the homeowners money to sue builders, banks, contractors, insurance companies, homeowners and anybody else their grasping minds could think of. In addition politicians rewarded these litigation lawyers with a goldmine by allowing unlimited taxation in MHOs.

2. At the behest of litigation lawyers, politicians have been passing laws that hide critical financial information and litigation from MHO homeowners and buyers.

3. The Department of Real Estate, allegedly, a consumer protection agency, is run by and for the real estate agents and the litigation lawyers.

For example:
Their booklet on MHOs was written by the litigation lawyer lobby CAI (Community Associations Institute). In addition the DRE Commissioner lobbied to hobble distribution to home buyers. (The DRE Commissioner is a political appointee of the governor of California)

4. Homeowners in MHOs are led to believe that they are signing a private contract when they buy their homes. Everybody conceals the fact that litigation lawyers buy politicians to pass laws overriding the private contract.

For example:
Some contracts limit annual tax increases to 5%. Litigation lawyers had politicians increase this to 20% per year.

Hence, homeowners lose the protections which they believed were in the contract. They do not realize that they are at the mercy of the litigation lawyers, who have little or no mercy.

As consumers in HMOs need protection, so homeowners in MHOs need protection too.

Dan Lungren is not the person to do this. In addition to his general stance of supporting big money interests at the expense of the people, he recently published an opinion arguing that political candidates have no right to distribute campaign literature in homeowner associations. This is a frontal attack on the constitutional rights of citizens. http://www.caag.state.ca.us/opinions/97-1005.htm

The basic fatal flaw in Lungren's reasoning is as follows:

He argues from the principle that an owner of a property has a right to exclude others from it. However, the board of an association does not own the common property on which the political pamphleteer operates. It is the entire membership which owns it. Therefore, if the entire membership has not voted to exclude such people, the board has no right to destroy such a fundamental political liberty.

As California Corporation Code Section 8734 requires a 100% vote by members of the association to dissolve the association, so a similar 100% should be required in order to deprive a member of his right to receive political information.

Lungren is fundmentally anti-people favoring narrow corporate interests over the broader public good. His refusal to take action against those who violate the laws governing homeowner associations is further proof of this. Paradoxically, when moneyed interests violate the laws governing homeowner associations, he refuses to take action against them. This is another example of where Lundgren's basic sympathies lie.

As the chief law enforcement officer of the state refuses to protect homeowners, and as politicians refuse to pass any laws protecting homeowners, the homeowners in California are left helpless in a sea of sharks.