Notice of fines/late fees

Do your governing documents specify penalties for late payments?

Rod, welcome to the forum. Tim almost always gives good, thoughtful, positive advice. MikeR15, though, has made it his life's work to whine about HOAs. Take his screeds with a huge grain of salt

If the state has no status on notifying you of a late fee, and the HOA has no rules on notifying you of a late fee, they don't need to notify you of a late fee. You are late and owe the fee if you pay after the expected date. Pay your bills on time. (wink)

PS. I setup long term bill notices in Google Calendar and it will SMS text and email me as a reminder, even if its next year. I also use online bill pay at my bank to setup checks to be mailed far into the future, so I don't have to worry about it.

I am to lazy to look at our docs but we have some limit on a late fee but we have no limit also collecting the expenses it costs us to collect, including attorney fees.

Steve has it right, but add another $200 for an attorney to write the letter, and I bill $75 per hour for running errands like going to the post office for and HOA...LOL

More then one way to skin a cat.

My BOD tried to charge ridiculous fees for an invented charge once.

I (publicly) told them to pound sand on both counts.

We wound up firing the Association Manager, whose sole job seemed to be being the asshole front man for the cowards

attempting to attack homeowners.

Worked pretty well too!

They (the BOD) still go off the reservation occasionaly, but they know that someone in the community (guess who?)

will publicly upbraid them every time.

As their egos are the most fragile componant of their personalities, and this is a VERY effective means of controling their

behavior.

Yeah, we have to remember that because of Mike's lawsuits he keeps losing, he's taking money out of this 92 year old man's pocket. I am sure the fact that the HOA has to raise dues or have a special assessment to pay for Mike's tirades really makes this guys retirement or Social Security checks stretch... See there are more than one way to rip off a 92 year old. Sometimes it is by our own actions... Which here is pretty obvious the only protection you provided this man, was protecting your own ego not the man involved. It seems you would rather keep your neighbors paying for that than actually running/operating the HOA.

Hi, Rod:

Look in first in your CC&R. See if it says something about penalties for assessments. There is probably a whole section about the monthly HOA fees/dues/assessments or however you CC&R chooses to call them. Fines are usually different than late penalties for assessments, but you'll have to check your CC&R/bylaws.

There might be something about notification there.

Otherwise, look at your HOA CC&R about notification or delivery of documents. From there you might have required formats.

By looking at these two things, you'll have an idea of what you should do and the vocabulary words you can use to do a search of state legislature/civil code.

Typically, the state codes will have a qualifying statement like unless the CC&R/bylaws provides for more. For example, the state of California required four-day notification. Our former HOA CC&R required 10. For that reason, the ten is required. So California state codes supports at least 4, but since our CC&R require 10, the ten is mandatory.

Further, the state might be more current and allow certain documents to be delivered by email. Your CC&R may not. For example, again in California, meeting notification can be electronically delivered with agenda, but hearing notification must be delivered by first-class mail or personal delivery.

I hope this helps.

Rod,

Isn't it a blast that your entire interest in your property can be threatened by a fricking late letter?

Do you feel violated by this carnival con artist trick?

Does it "protect your property value" to be able to lose your property so easily?

Of course not! This power to "fine" needs to be stripped away from these organizations, with as much pain and humiliation as

possible.

Kind of like ripping duct tape off the face of some terrorist prisoner.

I am suing my HOA here in MA for just this reason, lets see what our wonderful courts here do about it!