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Jbb
11-17-2004, 07:41 AM
Stranger pays bill to save reservist's home
Many others also offer to help an Air Force reservist who forgot to pay his annual homeowners fee.
By SHANNON COLAVECCHIO-VAN SICKLER,
November 13, 2004
TAMPA - The calls and e-mails started coming in early, and they flowed all day.
Tampa Bay residents offered to help out Friday after reading a St. Petersburg Times story about a 42-year-old Riverview man who could lose his home because he forgot to pay his $200 annual homeowners association fee while deployed in Georgia for the Air Force Reserve.
In June, the association at the Villages of Lake St. Charles filed a lien against Bernie Haithcock's $95,000 home, and association leaders this week said they would consider foreclosure.
Several readers offered to pay off Haithcock's mounting bill - which includes late fees and hundreds of dollars in legal costs that association leaders say they racked up pursuing the lien.
By Friday afternoon, Haithcock's pro bono attorney, Kenneth Grace, had dropped off a check for $1,148.50 to the association attorney, Elizabeth Frau of the firm Meirose & Friscia.
The check came courtesy of Insurance Consultants & Contractors Inc., a Tampa company whose owner says he knows what life is like for a deployed military man. ICC owner Robert Hoskinson's father served eight years in the Korean War for the Air Force, and on Veterans Day he had open-heart surgery.
"It just got under my skin that these lawyers and association people would do this to that guy," said Hoskinson. "That gentleman's signed up to protect our country, and you've got lawyers who haven't signed up for anything, trying to make him pay hundreds of dollars."
Hoskinson added: "So I'm paying the bill, because God forbid a lawyer in this town goes hungry."
The $1,148.50 is the amount cited in a demand letter sent to Grace by Frau on Nov. 5. Grace said Frau recently told him that Haithcock's bill now is more than $1,400, with more than $1,100 of it for the price of her time spent on the case.
Frau did not return calls from the Times.
"I'm beside myself today," said Haithcock, who has been at Robins Air Force Base near Macon, Ga., since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. "I think this is proof that some people appreciate what we in the military are doing."
Grace said he doesn't consider Haithcock's case closed.
"We are paying this under protest," said Grace, who works for the Tampa firm Bush, Ross, Gardner, Warren & Rudi. "We will look into what we believe is the overbilling of attorney's fees and late fees, and we'll see if my client has any recourse there."
Shannon Colavecchio-Van Sickler can be reached at 813 226-3373 or svansickler@sptimes.com

BarryMac
11-17-2004, 08:14 AM
f-in lawyers, kill em all, kill em all tonight...

jdogginla
11-17-2004, 08:25 AM
JetBoat..........I haven't laughed soooo hard in a long time. Sitting at my desk, just rolling with laughter, as I watch the girl in your sig!@%$
Green chicklets for that!

Racer277
11-17-2004, 08:25 AM
f-in lawyers, kill em all, kill em all tonight...
The lawyers are just a start...

BrendellaJet
11-17-2004, 08:29 AM
would it be bad to mess with this association a little, say give them a couple hundred emails and phone calls letting them know what we think?

rrrr
11-17-2004, 10:21 AM
Diane just got a nasty email....
:hammerhea :220v:

jdogginla
11-17-2004, 12:41 PM
Diane just got a nasty email....
:hammerhea :220v:
F.U.C.K the email..............Diane was not available for a phone call. I let you lady know I'd be calling back on a regular basis :idea:

MsDrmr
11-17-2004, 12:45 PM
see there are still some good peeps in the world, I don't get how people can be so inconsiderate of those individuals fighting for our freedom and safety, for lands sake,,,they can't take the $$ with them when they die, so why destroy people over it???

MsDrmr
11-17-2004, 01:00 PM
Its just another reason why I will NEVER, NEVER, NEVER buy a home with a HOA.
Same for me as well, but there is a difference between someone who just has not paid it/won't pay for it, and those who are deployed to another state and do not receive the bill...

jdf
11-17-2004, 01:09 PM
this just a low down thing to do a guy that is taking care of our freedom .....

MsDrmr
11-17-2004, 01:14 PM
this just a low down thing to do a guy that is taking care of our freedom .....
Amen, like they do not have enough chit to deal with. These men and woman should be cut a break, maybe the ones going after their $$ (what little $ they get) should be sent out to the war in their place for a while and humble the mofos. (sorry, just a sensitive subject), these men/women are doing what they need to do to prevent another attact like 9-11-01....if their building were in danger, maybe they would be more appreciative and understanding

jdf
11-17-2004, 01:16 PM
we have neighbor three house down that try to make us move our jet boat ..she come up to my yard one day and wnated to have a bitch talk to me ...about it and i told her to take a flying leap.. because this is not a hoa area and she could not tell me what to do... bye the away she had about five car's praked at her house all the time ...