Repay Homeowners for Special Assessment?

I have a question and hope someone might be able to answer it. I live in California and am in an association of just over 100 units (also within a master association). Our association has charged the homeowners each year for special assessments covering the delinquent assessments of homeowners who have been through a foreclosure or bankruptcy. The association manager claims that they will go after the homeowners, (at least the ones they can go after), and sue them for these debts. He says once they receive payment via small claims judgements, they will repay the homeowners for the special assessments or put it into the reserves, whichever is voted on. I doubt that they can collect on the debt because it's already been collected on via the special assessment. Doesn't that amount to collecting on the same debt twice? Does anyone have any insight on the California law and situations like this? We're all sick of paying for everyone else's bad debts, but I hate for everyone to get their hopes up if it's not something that can eventually happen. Thanks.

> I doubt that they can collect on the debt because it's already been collected on via the special assessment.

Nope. The delinquent owners still owe. It may be hard to very hard to collect, but they still owe the money.