Shortly after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941, the architect of that attack, Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was quoted as saying:: “I fear all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant and filled him with a terrible resolve.”
Although the quote is somewhat suspect from a historical standpoint, it nevertheless embodies in it the sense that if you kick a sleeping dog, he is going to bite you.
What Community Club Management has done is kicked me and kicked me and kicked me and awakened me from a fitful sleep. It's time to bite back.
This blog will serve as a clearing house for information about homeowners who have been harassed, intimidated, and threatened with legal actions, fines, and foreclosure supposedly for often unrevealed and usually unsubstantiated violations of the homeowner covenants or failure to pay fines or homeowners' fees.
The more we complain publicly, the more likely those who complain are going to be targeted by CCM. But the more we complain publicly, the more likely it is that more homeowners will stop knuckling under to CCM and start fighting back and provide some strength in numbers instead of doing it individually.
As you can see from these sites http://tinyurl.com/2enouny and http://tinyurl.com/2cglx2w a number of people are complaining about CCM and their tactics but few are doing anything about it. They simply complain and hope CCM doesn't target them as it has some of us.
I hope with this blog to be able to collect enough information about their practices to present a compelling case to the Better Business Bureau and the Georgia Secretary of State's office about how they conduct their business and encourage those agencies to open investigations of CCM.
And, perhaps, if we get enough people interested, we might be able to get an attorney to represent homeowners in a suit against CCM.
If you have had dealings with CCM, either good or bad, and want to post that information here, it will first be reviewed for potentially libelous and defamatory statements against individuals. But feel free to vent against the company in general. Your name will be held in confidence if you so choose.
I will also accept MP3 and .wav files of audio you may have recorded of conversations with CCM employees (Georgia is a one-party consent state in which it is legal to tape record telephone or other conversations as long as one party involved in the conversation is aware that it is being recorded. See 2006 Georgia Code 16-11-66 for additional details at http://tinyurl.com/2f3cnka . Radio Shack can help you out with the details of setting up the inexpensive recording device).
In addition, photos of CCM inspectors and the vehicles they drive through your neighborhoods will be published here when we receive them. Make sure the vehicles and the inspector are on a public street, however, when you take the photos.
And, if you receive a fine or a notice for something you don't feel is warranted, feel free to share it here. What I am trying to do is expose their tactics so anyone who is in a CCM-run community can be aware of those tactics and take the necessary precautions.
The problem with having CCM manage our communities is that the worse their reputation gets, the less likely it is people are going to buy into a community that is managed by them. That means lower property values in an already depressed housing market.
Just check out some of the comments in the two sites I mentioned previously and you'll see what I mean. I look forward to hearing from you.
TFSG
(The Formerly Sleeping Giant)
