Tag: CAI membership

CAI amicus brief: candor to the tribunal

Still think CAI is on your side and can be trusted to act in good faith?  Here’s the latest CAI propaganda bordering on a violation of the Rules of the AZ Supreme Court, R42, E.R. 3.3, (found in Rules in every state):

“Candor Toward the Tribunal: (a) A lawyer shall not knowingly:

(1) make a false statement of fact or law to a tribunal or fail to correct a false statement of material fact or law previously made to the tribunal by the lawyer;”

(3) offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. 

(b) A lawyer who represents a client . . .  and who knows that a person intends to engage, is engaging or has engaged in criminal or fraudulent conduct related to the proceeding shall take reasonable remedial measures, including, if necessary, disclosure to the tribunal.”

In CAI’s amicus brief to the AZ Supreme Court in CAO v. PFP Dorsey (Case No: CV-22-0228-PR, 2024), we see repeated half-truths about who CAI represents and what are its purpose and functions.  Some excerpts from “Interest of CAI as Amicus Curiae” (emphasis added),

  • is an international organization dedicated to providing information, education, resources and advocacy for community association leaders, members
  • CAI’s more than 43,000 members include homeowners, board members
  • serving more than 74.1 million homeowners
  • CAI is representing not only itself, but also its tens of thousands of members on this important issue.

CAI misrepresents its position and status.  It’s a miniscule organization and no way close to the estimated AARP’s 66% of 55 plus persons. The shortcomings include:

  • Failure to state it’s a business trade nonprofit, 501(c)6 and not an educational (c)3; (everybody knows does not count)
  • As a business trade entity, it is not allowed to have HOAs, the consumer of CAI’s member services, as members;
  • Not informing the court that “individual volunteers” constitute a minority class of membership, and
  • Failure to inform that the Management of CAI is controlled by a Board of Trustees in which its “volunteers” members are only 13% of the Board that is dominated by the management class;
  • ·         a 15-member Trustee Board supported by 2 groups of 12 representatives and the Homeowners Leadership Council  of only 6 representatives;
  • The current Trustees Board has a president from Dubai and a president-elect from the US, both managers; 6 more managers; 2 “HOA managers,” 2 lawyers and 3 others. (See Board of Trustees).
  • Failure to inform that no HOA board of directors, to my knowledge, has granted CAI the right to represent or speak for the HOA before government tribunals;
  • ·         Exaggerating its scope of influence and alleged representations when its total membership is less than 36% of HOAs or persons living in an HOA.  (Based on 2007 & 2012 data, See HOA homeowner membership in CAI is a mere 36%; Who controls CAI and its 50 state HOA lobbying committees?)
  • ·         As of this writing, CAI claims 45,000 members; 75.5 million residents, and 365,000 HOAs. With an estimated population of some 331 million people, 23% live in an HOA  — .06% of HOA residents are CAI members!

Would you consider the brief being honest and forthwith to the Court?

Why CAI is the Evil Empire

Advocates, the public in general, the media, and especially state legislatures need to understand the power of the miniscule member CAI that has them conned.  CAI dominates the HOA institution, or as I designate the fragmented collection of HOAs, HOA-Land. My initial research was conducted in 2007 and updated 10 years later in 2017.[1]  I summarize my research on the size of CAI and its membership breakdown below.

The research was based on CAI data and the US Census at that time.  To the point, from the 2017 study:

  1. Being concerned about the frequency of fixed ratios found in (A), I came across data from the CAI Indiana chapter for 2015 and 2016.[2] The percent ‘volunteers’ per HOA for both years was 32.7% and 32.8%, respectively. Very consistent.
  1. Of the 69 M people in HOAs, CAI membership, at most, consists of a miniscule .05% (.00048).
  1. Of the 33,000 CAI members, a minority of some 10,800 are ‘volunteers’ and not attorneys or managers.
  1. ‘Volunteers’ (CAVL) represent a miniscule .016% (.00016) of HOA members.

In contrast, AARP is a tremendous national powerhouse lobbyist representing, as reported in the 2014 WSJ article, some 37.8 million members.   In contrast, 2010 AARP states membership of 35,700,000, and that’s  36% of the 50 plus population based on the US Census  estimate.

Analyzing CAI’s membership and governing Board of Trustees structure revealed  HOA “volunteers” are in the minority. “That’s about 14% representation by homeowners on the CAI governing body whose membership consists of 60% homeowner “volunteers.”[3]

So, who’s afraid of Virginia Wolf?  We should be!  Look what this miniscule minority managed to achieve over the years!  Please understand, though, CAI is vulnerable and has made adjustments in the past based on published criticisms by advocates.  We must not be afraid to call it what it is, using concrete documents and especially CAI’s own words.

FYI — Outstanding is a complaint filed with the antitrust division of the DOJ alleging that CAI is a monopoly.[4]

References

[1] See CAI miniscule minority dominates public policy (2007); CAI 2016 Factbook: looking into the ‘facts’.

[2] CAI Indiana chapter document.

[3] Who controls CAI and its 50 state HOA lobbying committees? (2012).

[4]  See The need to regulate CAI monopoly. (2023).

 

HOA-Land Nation “Did you know?” Part 2

HOA-Land Nation “Did you know?”

Release No. 2 —  July 4, 2019

As an HOA member, did you know that:

 ·         Your HOA board (BOD) is unaccountable under state laws with trivial, if any, penalties or punishments for violations of state laws or the governing documents?  Without meaningful enforcement to hold BODs accountable and to serve as a detriment to continued violations, you are forced to sue just to get compliance.

 ·         The much touted HOAs are democratic because members can vote is utterly without merit?  Fair elections protections, as compared with those in the public arena, do not exist under a corporation law.  Members do not have equal access to HOA newsletters, website, member lists, and use of common amenity meetings rooms, among other denials.  

 ·         To bring about equal protection of your rights, the HOA attorney sides with the BOD, his client and not you, the membership.  And as a CAI member, lobbies the legislature to maintain conditions as they are – authoritarian HOA government.

 ·         You still retain your rights, privileges and immunities as a citizen but are denied these rights under the private HOA legal scheme, functioning outside constitutional protections.

 Discover the truth about HOAs!  The truth shall set you free!  Read The HOA-Land Nation Within America exposé on sale at Amazon.com. 


CAI recognizes HOAs DO have problems

In a recent Associations Now article, “Study: Homeowners Associations Hit New Population Peaks, CAI Skiba is quoted as saying: “‘Not all associations operate as well as they should, and we’re never happy when we see a community in the news for the wrong reasons, but at least we know struggling communities are the exception to the rule,’ CAI chief executive Thomas Skiba, CAE, said in a comment on the study.”  I believe CAI is waking up to the fact that it can no longer hide the real lives of HOA members.  I expect a mia culpa (I am guilty) announcement by a repentant CAI. It has no other choice to stave off being completely discredited if it refuses to come into the light.

To assist CAI in its path to enlightenment, I have prepared another critique of CAI’s views about the HOA legal scheme and operations in reality.  CAI has published its “Community Associations Fundamentals” with the stated purpose that “CAI developed the Community Association Fundamentals to foster a better conceptual understanding of how associations function and the roles of residents and association leaders.” I will attempt to “decode” and examine what is really being said or not being said with the understanding that the word “fundamental” has the following generally accepted meanings, “forming a necessary base or core” or “of central importance.”

Please read CAI’s HOA “fundamentals” analyzed and “decoded.” You can help CAI in its hour of need — spread the word.

 

CAI background

In 2006, and followed up in 2012, I published the following analysis of CAI’s membership. In Who controls CAI and its 50 state HOA lobbying committees? I used census and CAI data to show that only 5.9% of HOAs are CAI members, based on all ‘volunteers’ belonging to different HOAs with no duplication. If all CAI members were counted then there would be only 9.8% HOA representation.  Furthermore, a miniscule .6% (.006) of Americans are CAI members. The CAI quoted “63 million Americans” is that number of people, not CAI members, living in HOAs.

On CAI’s 14 member Board of Trustees, HOA ‘volunteers’ (misguided individuals who are mainly HOA board members) hold only 2 positions. Vendor members hold the other positions as HOAs are not allowed to be a member.

In spite of the miniscule minority representation of HOAs and HOA members, CAI Legislative Action Committees (LACs) lobby and dominate HOA legislation in all states.