Unpaid Assessments/what to do now?

What state are you in? There are certain laws that pertain to condos in FL. If a lien is placed and not acted on within one year you have to apply the lien again or it is forfeited. The MC should have turned these cases over to an attorney a long time ago. The condo assoc. can force a foreclosure on these condos. If they have no mortgages, they will pay what is owed, plus interest and legal fees. If they do have mortgages, the condo can take the deed until the bank claims it, then the bank will have to pay all costs. They will not want to lose their homes either way.

Sidney, if your CC&Rs allow for late charges these can be made very large. I find this is one effective means of encouraging payment of assessments. Within 6 month a delinquent account should be in the hands of an attorney for filing to garnish wages and bank accounts. Then if necessary, an there is sufficient equity, forclosure is the next step.

Nancy, I am in Flordia but we are not in condo's, these are TH's. One of the other posters said if a lien isn't filed again after the year is up, the lien is no longer any good...Is this really true? Do we have to file again after each semi assessment come due in Jan/July and assessment is late once again? When I requested all the latest paper work (NOL's and anything the attorney had done) I only received a couple of letter(s) sent by the attorney dating back to Dec.8/06. I was sent nothing that showed any action after that. This iss
our second MC that told us they would agressively go aftr these delinquent. The sad thing about this also is that these HO's are investors and have their units rented. They have the money to pay just choose not to. Out of the 77 units there are only about 17 at the most HO's living on the property. Two of those HO's have their place up for sale, trying to get out of this mess.
If our only recorse is to foreclose, whouldn't that cost the HOA big bucks up front?....I'm sure we don't have the money for this....If the states are going to force HO's into these Assiciations than they should make it much easier for the Association to collect. (And we are forced, because there is NOT one subdivision that don't have HOA's.

I have read something on here about PUD as a way of collection....Can someone tell me more about it and just how it works? Any more suggestions would be appreciated....Roger, we have no late fee, I have ask for this to be done since we took over in 2005. It was I who went to the MC after we took over and insisted they sent out the NOL's and then lien. If it weren't for me even this would never have been done.

We have NO amenities to speak of....we pay the street lights, the grass being cut, terminte contract (and we have many HO"s/investors who will net meet for the termiteman to inspect, so they are left undone), keep the Lake maintained and these are things we cannot take away from delinquent HO's....What would our community look like if we did not cut their grass. You're right there is NO incentive for them to pay. That is what is not fair, if we have to wait for them to sell, that may be years and what do we do in the mean time...Keep raising the dues of those responsible HO's, who very well be struggling themselves to pay. And as I said, we will very likely have more HO's stop paying because they see them can get away w/it.

Yes, we are in financial trouble. We could not pay our bills last year and from what I see from the financials I have received, money was not placed in or taken from the small reserves to meet these bills. It appears we are heading in the same direction again this year. Our biggest expense is the MC who has done nothing for us. Their contract ends the end of this month.

I may be wrong in suggesting this but I suggested that we self manage for the next year (only 77 units) to get ourselves financially in order and get the maintance that has been neglected done. I can't see where we can be any worse off. IMO this is the only way to get us on our feet. We are having a meeting Sept.10th, hopefully something will come out of this meeting.

Sidney, the one year is for condo's. First, get an attorney. They can collect for you. Your HOA will send out the 30 day late notice. When the check is not sent in on the 31 day give it to the attorney. He will send a letter to the homeowner (this usually is no cost to the HOA, the HO will have to pay the attorney), with a demand date. When the demand date expires, he will file a lien. Normally you will wait another 1 1/2-2 months. If no check is sent then you advise attorney to foreclose. The attorney will charge for this. You will get all monies back if you do this. (FL statute 720.3085)

When you get a lien you cannot just take the persons car, boat or paycheck. This requires you to find out what property the HO has that has a cash value (no loans or leases). Then go to the Clerk of Courts, with your judgement you were awarded in court, and get a 'Writ of Execution". Then you have to hire a Sheriff, give him a "Instruction to Levy'' (the clerk will supply) in your county, give him the list of the HO property and where it is located. You will have to pay the Sheriff a fee. The sheriff then collects the property and sells it for whatever he can. The sheriff gets a portion of the proceeds then the balance is the HOA's. This is not the way to go!! Very long and dragged out, a lot of footwork for someone, and a little money realized. The HOA is not a bounty hunter.

I know that people don't like to hear foreclosure but it has to be done. It is not fair that the HO lives as you and your neighbor do, and you are supplementing it. FL 720.3085 enacted 7/1/07, now gives the HOA's satisfaction of any past due maintenace, legal fees, and interest at foreclosure. No one wanted to foreclose before because there was little chance of collecting. This law now gives HOA's substance.

Get on your MC. Have them follow my directions above. In FL these are the procedures you have to follow to collect. Get a bi-monthly report from the MC on the status of all delinquent accounts.

I don't know what a PUD is for collection use. The only PUD I know of is "Planned Unit Development". In short,it's the developer of the property.

In this case, can the Association afford to start the process,will the attorney wait to be paid, or will the Association have to pay that bill up front?

"to make sure that all assessments, fees and charges are paid by the delinquent, the law now provides that any payment received by the association shall be applied first to any interest accrued, next to any administrative late fee, then to any costs and reasonable attorney’s fees incurred in collection, and finally to the delinquent assessment."

The section 720.3085(b)where it states how payments are applied is a definition by the state of how payments are applied. It is the states semantics. If you look at 720.3085(2)the previous owner and the new owner are "jointly and severally liable" for all assessments etc. This statement presupposes if all monies were not collected.

Dane, as for the attorney waiting to be paid, that is something the HOA will have to discuss with him. Our attorney still requires payment for the foreclosure when filed. He does not have to wait for his money.

Harold,you are correct. The laws for collection of FL HOA monies are very specific. If they are not followed, first by the HOA, and then the attorney, to the T, the court will not accept a lien or anything going forward until the collection procedure is followed. They are very simple and not anything I would not do for any collection process.

LouiseH: Do not assume anything!!! You know what they say about the word 'ass-u-me'...

The owner of record is the Son, at the address in question. The Son is the one to receive late notices, etc. Send the son (in his name) a letter stating the amount in arrears and explain he has xx number of days to pay, and if no payment is received, you will be forced to go to an attorney and/or start the process to lien his property.

I started this post and now am asking for more help. One of the HO's that is delinquent has just been foreclosed on in the last couple of days by the bank. The last lien amount filed was done by the old MC June/06 for the amount of $769. These delinquents were passed on to the new MC in Sept./06. They did nothing until Dec/06, a letter was sent by the attorney carrying over them same figures when infact dues were due again in July which should have been added. The letter was sent but nothing has been followed up on to this point and another assessment came due Jan./07 and then again July/07 making the amount due over $2,200. The question is, now that someone else has files forclosure, where do we stand?...Do we contact the bank or what? Should that lein be updated?

Warning about going through small claims. The reason a HOA shouldn't use small claims court is because small claims only hands out "Judgements". (Liens are judgements too). A judegement does NOT mean your going to get paid. Just means someone officially owes you money and will eventually have to pay. Yes, you can use it to sometimes garner wages, but that's a whole drawn out mess there as well. Especially if you don't know where this person works or if they don't work at all.

The BIGGEST problem with small claims is that the owner CAN move anytime they want WITHOUT paying a dime! The HOA has no way of keeping the owner from leaving even if they owe money if they take them to small claims. The judgement can follow a person upwards to 7 years before it can then be refiled and deflected for several more years. It can take 7 - 12 years to get paid a court judgement. It costs money to garnish wages or take away a piece of property worth the amount owed. Plus if you take away a car that's worth $10K and they owe the HOA $5K, whatever profit over the $5K has to go back to the owner. So selling the car for $7K means $2K goes back to the owner. Essentially, the HOA sold the car for someone.

A lien is a better option. It does take time to get paid off but the owner can NOT sell their property until they pay the lien. The lien also accumulates and includes legal costs, interest, and possible late fees all added together. It costs us $300 to file a lien but we get that back once it's paid. True the owner can rent their property out for years, but once they decide to sell, they have to pay up all those years of not paying. Plus if the HOA had any special assessments they didn't pay, they can add that to the lien as well.

Foreclosure is the WORST case scenerio and NOT the money making monster people believe it is. Your extremely lucky to break even in a foreclosure. The costs are expensive and the reward isn't much. The HOA could be doing the work for the bank in the end as well. The bank is the FIRST to get paid back in a foreclosure before the HOA is paid back from the auction money. If the HOA gets stuck with the house, then the HOA has to cough up the mortgage payment, repair costs, Realtor costs, and had to pay the opening bid costs which was what they were owed originally. The only benefit is the owner is gone! Although they can come back within a year in some states.

So you may think your small claims option is a good one, but it's not the best one overall. I also highly doubt the small claims route is as cheap you think it is. There's alot of court costs involved beside an attorney. Although they can be written off taxes in some cases.

I don't want to assume anything. We went to the tax assessor's office and looked up who the proerty owner was. The son is the owner, but the father is living in the unit. The dues are six months in the rears. We have asked the father for a address or phone in order to get hold of the son, to no avail. Can we tell the father that we are placing alien on the property or can we get into trouble.?
I don't know if the BOD has sent any mail to the property address in the Son's name or whether the BOD is assuming that the father is not sending to the son. I am new on the board and mentioned about putting a lien on the property.
In our CC& R's say that at any time within ninety (90) days after the occurence of any such defautl, the Association may give a notice to the defaulting Owner, which said notice shall state the date of delinquency, the amount of the delinquency and make a demand for payment thereof. If such delinquency is not paid within ten (10) days after delivery of such notice, the Association may elect to file a claim of lien against the Unit Ownership of such delinquent Owner. The problem the BOD has stated to me was that the son is not living there and since the father won't give us any infomation on the son's whereabouts, what recourse can we take.
I was under the impression, that if we sent certifide letters to the registered property owner at the listed property address and we receive no response during a certain time period, then we can consider the property abandon and file the lien. We are in CA. When I was in the Mobile home business, that was the way our PM, did it. I know that Mobile Homes are different, but just asking.

What is a controlling document. I am not familiar with this.

The legal address is the address the HOA mailed all info to. Unless the homeowner changed it or un-opened mail came back with a correct address. If you certify the mail and it comes back without a signqature you have done all that it needed. Keep the returned envelopes and don't open them. Give them to your attorney to follow through with a legal letter.