Foreclosed Homes

HM3,

Good question. Who is responsible for the exterior maintenance and ground maintenance? Is it the owner or the HOA?

I suggest you give us a little more information to work with. Are you a HOA,COA, or POA? What does your governing documents state about maintance? Are we talking painting or lawn care? Your question is vague.

The Owner, whether bank, company, corp or other - if they take possession of title becomes liable for the dues and fees. If it is in your covenants and or Bylaws that if the association does the maintace, the HOA can charge them then that is what you do. If not, you send the bank a CC&R violation letter and fine them as if you would the owner, since they are the owner.
Best bet is for you to look up the property apparaiser's office and find out who owns the property and continue business as you would any other owner. The Banks have been making payments to us for the past year or so on homes we liened on before the foreclosure and they have paid the CC&R violation fines as well. Most banks have maintance of and clean out crews on contract for these issues.

I meant "do". typing to fast, sorry

HM3,

You have a reason to be concerned. Once in foreclosure, the owner -most likely a bank- -is responsible for maintaining the property. The problem is the banks don’t like to spend any money. Unless there is enough of beef in your covenants saying the exterior of homes must be maintained to a certain spec, there may be not much you can do.

You could write a letter to the bank mortgage department and ask them to take care of the property they own. Or, better yet, have your attorney to do that if that is at all possible. Be specific about the $ amount. BUT, in all honesty, I do not think that will do any good either.

May be you could just talk to the bank and reach some mutually agreeable solution? I think I would try that first.

You know, this is very difficult and there is no simple solution or a simple answer I am aware of. Pray, pray the homes are sold. This real estate bubble is hard on every one and we have not seen the end of it yet.

We've had several owners "walk away" from their homes and leave the yards in a deplorable state. What we ended up doing was having the HOA's attorney send a CC&R violation; if after the third notice the owner didn't correct the violation then we filed suit in the district court for an order of specific performance. This is something the owner doesn't want to ignore as ignoring it WILL result in fines and/or jail time.

If the owner abandons the home, it is usually because of some legal stipulation. All though, there may be a few exceptions to this rule.
If your association does not have a resolution, read your bylaws and covenants, call a meeting of the BODs and pass a resolution. No need in changing the CC&Rs.
Keep a running account of the cost the association is incurring and add that to the property.
Once you lien on the property, the lien will withstand foreclosure and if the HOA is not filed on in a bankruptcy the lien with stand. Now, once the lien is in place, when the property sells, the financing bank will require an estoppel letter. At that time, you will disclose all the fees due on the property. That will include any and all exterior maintaince fees. I would caution your association not to enter the structure, as that will constitute burglary.
So, that is how we handle these situations. Sometimes, we do contact the banks and obtain a written agreement to maintain the interior, in which that document is a written document. We only do this if the home is being vandalized, in an attempt secure the structure.