Collect with out sending bills

Are you saying you didn't know you had to pay association fees?

Have you ever received a tax notice? Usually it says failure to receive a bill is no excuse for not paying it.

The same is true with your HOA fees (or any bill for that matter). Sorry if this sounds heartless, but if some time (like a month) goes by and you haven't received a bill (or a coupon book, or whatever) it is your responsibility to call and find out why. In this case, you should have called the property manager or someone on the board. Or, at least, you could have spoken with a neighbor to learn when and how often the association fees are supposed to be paid. Had you done that, you could have solved the problem and, most likely avoided any additional fees. You might have been able to even get a waiver for any late fee that might have been assessed.

Seeing to it that your association fees are paid is not the associations's job. It's yours.

Luis,

You short posting and simple question actually brought a few questions to mind.

Did you recently purchase the property?

You said that you have a property manager. Are you renting the property?

Did you inform the Association who to contact for assessments?

Was it in the written contract that the property manager would be responsible for paying the assessments?

As for your question about the need to send bills, the answer might be within your governing documents. My Association only requires informing the membership of a change in the assessment rate. If the assessment rate doesn't change my Association is not required to send any notice. Therefore, you should check your CC&Rs and/or Bylaws to see if there are notice requirements there.

Some Associations send coupon books at the beginning of the year. Some just send a single letter. I've not heard of any that does a monthly billing (mainly due to the additional expense in printing and postage).

Most Associations will send letters about late payments prior to turning the issue over to the attorney for collections. This letter would be send to the address the Association has for you. If you did not inform the Association of a new mailing address, they are not required to locate you. Some Associations will take the extra effort and some won't. Since the people are volunteers, it typically depends on how much time they have. Once the late assessment is turned over to the attorney the attorney will usually take the time to locate your correct mailing address. Of course, they charge for the time it took and that charge becomes part of the costs of collecting the debt. Typically these additional costs are the responsibility homeowner.

My advice would be to pay the amount owed. If you do discover that the property manger was to be making the payments, you should charge them for the additional costs. You can request a hearing before the Board of Directors and request that the late fees be waived. The Board does not have to waive those fees but might. Typically, a Board will not waive any attorney fees.

Tim