Foreclosure home and violations

The home in our HOA that is in foreclosure just had a summary judgment for the mortgage company, but they made a deal to give the owner 90 days because she claimed the house was on the market. This is just another stalling tactic - the house is not on the market. She has done this before. But after 90 days the house will be sold at auction if she hasn't paid off the mortgage company already. We are second in line for funds and hopefully she will get enough to pay us the $15,000 she owes us. If it's sold to a private buyer, we will get all that is owed for back assessments, but if the bank buys it at auction, then we will only get the lesser of 12 months of assessments or 1 percent of the original mortgage (about $2000).

Here's my question - she has many violations on her home. She got a settlement from her insurance company to fix her roof (torn up blue tarp all over it) and used the money for other things. Her yard is overgrown and in terrible shape. There are others.

Is it better for us to write those up now and have them on record before the house gets sold, either at auction or to a new buyer before auction? She will never fix the issues, so we could give her 30 days, call her to a fining meeting, and fine her before the 90 days is up.

Florida law says the new and old owners are jointly responsible for any outstanding violations or fines. I just hate to wait on this because if the bank gets the house in September, they may take months or years to sell it.

Has anyone been in this situation before?

I'm assuming the association attorney was involved with collections and starting the foreclosure procedure, so that would be the appropriate person to ask.

Is foreclosure similar to bankruptcy, where the legal filing stops the clock and no additional debt can be added? Sounds maybe logical, but that doesn't mean it's correct. Our one foreclosure happened while I was off the board, so I don't know all the details. I do know that we set the minimum auction amount at a level that would clear the outstanding mortgage plus assessments in arrears (my state treats fines, late fees, and other charges as assessments). But the board would have had to take action to correct any violations before this happened.

There is also language in our CC&Rs that state buyers who acquire homes via auction can't be held accountable for uncorrected violations. Of course I can't find the section that says this, but if I find it I'll post it. In the meantime, you may want to check your CC&Rs to see if there is something similar.

My HOA’s attorneys would have moved this issue to HOA foreclosure about $10,000 ago. Your board slept on their rights and what you will receive at the end of this process will be peanuts.

Lori

I agree. Get the violations on the record.