Encouraging owners to autopay

Autopay is offered at my condominium. I pay some of my monthly bills by autopay, but I won't do it with my condominium. I do not trust the manager; I have seen him baldly lie. The current treasurer was convicted of embezzlement some decades ago and has made remarks about managing the accounts that concern me. I think it is important to respect people's desire to pay by check.

We don't use autopay, but our governing docs allow for monthly payment, and in the early days a lot of owners did pay monthly. Many years ago the board recognized that they could cut down on the treasurer workload by getting owners to pay quarterly, bi-annually, or annually. They started with a series of emails requesting owners pay quarterly to help out the volunteer board, and also encouraged annual payments. Our billing is by email, and they started just sending the quarterly bills with the notice that monthly payments were allowed if the homeowner desired. Since the quarterly payment is only around $130, that probably wasn't a hardship for most owners, and it made things easier for them too. At this point I'd say that around 40% pay annually, 40% quarterly, and 20% bi-annually. Occasionally we'll have an owner with tight finances who will make monthly payments, but that doesn't happen too often.

This isn't exactly the autopay situation, but does show that if you frame things as taking workload off the volunteer board, most members are sympathetic to that. That said, I'm not a fan of autopay in general. I prefer to use my bank's bill pay service and just set up monthly payments for my bills rather than have the vendor pull monthly. It just seems to give me more control.

But the problem is thatgetting the money back is like getting blood from a turnip. So it's easier to get rid of shady officers like a treasurer with fraud convictions than it is to recoup the money.

Not quite sure what you are referring to as autopay.

Some would consider it as online banking, but the bank still write a check and it does take longer in many cases than a homeowner personally writing the check themselves and mailing it. The owner can doing online bill paying monthly or automatic. The problem is updating the account when there is an address change or assessment change.

The oher way is ACH and it doesn't take a computer to do that. All that is needed is a voided check, or the routing number and account number of the homeowners. I don't use a coupon book, but send statements on a monthly basis so owners can see that payments are being posted and it is a way to send communication out on a regular by mail at a reduced cost.

On-line bill pay is really what I mean. Autopay is my slang term-mybad.

We had ACH and lockbox when we had MC. Very useful, easy and good for all parties. Since we are going self manage now we probably can't afford this service independently. I will be in touch with local banks after holiday. So we'll see.

We have a hands-on board and have zero problems with violations and a retired contractor keeps our vendors in line ;) Another has real estate background so will be helpful with Certs. and compliance.

Financial only MC was considered but were having trouble finding MC letting us direct access to lockbox deposit info. So we are charging ahead on our own.

Auto pay is a good means for those with the means. Most people especially seniors and those on fixed incomes can't afford that luxury and rely on the grace
period to pay their bills.

I like electronic payments, but what this HOA did, WHOA BABY!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=50A0QwjdV6M

As a business owner, I have more problems with online banking than with people writing check. Autopay, even through you are doing the process online, is still paying by check and takes much longer. If payment is misdirected, tracking is so much harder.

Would I encourage people to do autopay, NO!

The HOA has the power to shut the MC company down and didn't.

I am hoping you meant your comment in good humor. I laughed when I read it. My intent was to leave how this person won election to the imagination of each reader. Because all I (and some of my neighbors) can respond with, is, "Beats me (us)."

Peyton Place has nothing on the modern HOA.

I could really have some fun with that comment.

If autopay means "the HOA initiates a transfer from my account" I don't like it.

However- I DO set up an automatic transfer that I control.

As to how to "encourage"- a very modest discount would do the trick.

So when a owner pays through ACH there is an extra fee added on top of assessment??

We had a number of people who would forget to pay, but would generally pay as soon as we reminded them, which we got tired of. We sent out a letter to anyone who did not pay on time, informing them that:

"There is no late fee this time, but from now on we will be assigning $25 late fees for late/missing payments...However, a late fee can be removed from your account (a unique opportunity) if you do any of the following:..." Then the letter describes four choices: enrolling in Bill Pay, paying for 6 months (or one year) at a time, paying each month on time for six months, or requesting coupons.

This letter converted almost all of our forgetful payers to Bill Pay or six month payment. Some people asked if they could pay 3 months at a time, which we rejected. A few people required two letters.

I think you have to have a some sense of humor to keep any sanity.


I'm not sure that most CCRs would allow a discount, generally they don't give the board discretion to charge certain owners less.