Sheriff Sale

Due diligence regarding assessments before the seizure occurred was the best option. Presumably your HOA's Treasurer and the Board long ago worked out a trigger amount on when and at what amount past due assessments would result in an automatic filing of a lawsuit for the debt and a judgment lien was filed against the lot with the court when the suit was over. If so, then the HOA need do nothing.

If however there are sizable debts to the HOA and there was no effort in the courts by the HOA to either collect or secure the HOA interest, then the money, or at least the HOA's chances of seeing it, are gone.

Your local sheriff already knows what, if anything, he will need from the HOA. If he doesn't call your board, then there probably is nothing for the HOA to do other than possibly make a bid on the property if the Covenants and By-Laws allow and the available bank account is large enough.

In these economic times any HOA larger than 40 or 50 units has probably already seen several foreclosures and auctions in the past three years.

Not sure what state your in, but our HOA stops all legal/collection action once we get notice of impending sheriff sale. Our experience has been that all non-tax liens prior to sheriff sale are discharged at the sale date, so moving forward between notice and sale is money lost for us.

Typically after the sale date, we proceed with liens, fines, etc and the banks here have paid all costs incurred from the sheriff's sale date forward and prorated dues -- but they pay after the redemption period expires (in our state it's between 30 days to 6 months depending on occupancy). They need to do this to clear title and sell their newly acquired property,

We have 52 homes in our community and have had over 15 sheriff sales in the last two years. The banks have always paid for us, but we feel it's good practice to get the liens in place as soon after the sale as possible.