💬 Join us to post & get advice from 50,000 HOA & Condo leaders.

Create Free Account →

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in

WilliamH18 (Illinois)
Posts: 3
Posted:
An attorney hired by the management company wrote rules that automatically send the homeowners account over to collection when the a,oint owed is equal to three months of dues.
I asked to have an attorney review the documents by my attorney and they did not even discuss it. Saying that they did not want the attorney to charge us for reading my attorny's letter. Now he is charging us to write collection letters and requiring that several people remove their fences. These fences have been up for years. And we got a bill from the attorney for $9,000. There was not a quorum for the annual meeting. So we have the same hostile president.
JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265
Posted:
Quote:
Posted By WilliamH18 on 10/09/2015 6:40 AM
An attorney hired by the management company wrote rules that automatically send the homeowners account over to collection when the a,oint owed is equal to three months of dues.
I asked to have an attorney review the documents by my attorney and they did not even discuss it. Saying that they did not want the attorney to charge us for reading my attorny's letter. Now he is charging us to write collection letters and requiring that several people remove their fences. These fences have been up for years. And we got a bill from the attorney for $9,000. There was not a quorum for the annual meeting. So we have the same hostile president.

And you point or question is?
SheliaH (Indiana)
Posts: 6,964
Posted:
You've got several issues here, and as John said, you haven't asked a question on how to deal with them, so let's break this down

1 - the collection rules. Were the homeowners advised of the new rules? Our Association sends homeowners the collection policy every year with the new budget, and any updates are included at that time. Do you owe the Association any money? New rules or not, you still owe the money, so you need to be talking to them about paying what you owe. What is the $9000 bill for?

2 - the fences. Do your CCRs address fences? If so, did you read them before you put up the fence? Have the CCRs been updated since then and did you read those updates? If the CCRs required homeowner approval before being amended (and most do), how was that process done? Did you receive any notification about your fence before getting the nastygram from the attorney? If so, what did you do at that time?

3 - the annual meeting. Did you go? What is the quorum and if there wasn't one, did you point that out to the folks who were there? What happened after that? Generally, the homeowners elect the board and the board appoints the officers (like president) among themselves, so if you don't like this president for whatever reason, you'll have to band together your neighbors and either vote him out at the next election or do a recall (and you need to read your Bylaws to see how that's done).

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it. Marcus Aurelius
GeorgeR8 (Arizona)
Posts: 182
Posted:
Quote:
Posted By WilliamH18 on 10/09/2015 6:40 AM
An attorney hired by the management company wrote rules that automatically send the homeowners account over to collection when the a,oint owed is equal to three months of dues.
I asked to have an attorney review the documents by my attorney and they did not even discuss it. Saying that they did not want the attorney to charge us for reading my attorny's letter. Now he is charging us to write collection letters and requiring that several people remove their fences. These fences have been up for years. And we got a bill from the attorney for $9,000. There was not a quorum for the annual meeting. So we have the same hostile president.

Do the CC&Rs prohibit fences? Is Illinois a no waiver state? If it is it can enforce things that weren't enforced before. The fences being there for a long time doesn't matter. I see no problem with the MC having an attorney working on collections. I don't really understand what "wrote rules" means. I don't know if anything has to be done to change the method of collections.

🎯 You've read this entire discussion

Join the conversation with 50,000 HOA & Condo Leaders:

  • ✓ Ask follow-up questions
  • ✓ Share your experience
  • ✓ Get expert advice
  • ✓ Access 350,000 discussions
Create Free Account →

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in here