Adding $5 fee to mailed in checks for HOA dues. encouraging people to pay online.

Our 28 year old HOA has never charged fees for accepting checks.
We just switched over to self management and reduced annual dues by 50%
I know for a fact that there are a group of penny pinchers that will bit*h about having to pay a $5 fee. Previous president is one of them who flat out said at a board meeting that he will not pay the fee, it's a cost of doing business, raise dues instead, etc.

The $5 fee is being proposed because it costs the HOA extra money to hire a book keeper to manually enter these estimated 40-50 checks vs them paying online and paying the $4.50 credit card fee or the $2 ACH online check fee. It also forces them to sign up to our HOA online software so we have thier most upto date contact info.

I think it's fair to allow the free market to run it's course and people can choose what fee they want to pay. N reality the HOA is subsidizing the check payers by picking up the processing fees for free.

Many stores no longer accept checks Target announced it'll stop accepting personal checks starting next week. That adds to a list of major businesses, such as Whole Foods, Aldi, Old Navy etc.

I could be wrong but the mentality of checks should be free of fees seems to come from older members.

does your hoa charge a fee for checks?

interesting, but heavily biased IMHO. If someone had an OCD issue and "needed" to pay everything by credit card, but the hoa did not accept credit cards, I doubt anyone would be clamoring to thier defense.

The current system penalized the credit card and ACH payers because they have to subsidize the minority who pay via check, they are gonna argue the same thing you are once they realize they are probably gonna be paying $600 more per year or $4 each so that a minority can save $5 each? And the check writers who think they are saving money don't even realize thier dues are $4 more to allow them to write checks.

Perhaps it would be best to put to a vote that checks will no longer be accepted by the hoa, and just follow that out come, that way members can't say the HOA board are jerks that outlawed check payments. obviously checks are not a part of doing business for large corporations like Target, etc, so that argument does not make sense either.

I agree.

Costs are to be shared.
My past association did not accept credit cards because of those costs and the requirement that all costs be shared.

We encouraged using the banks bill pay service (where they write a check on your behalf and send it to you).

I have no issues with a paper check fee.

the Irony is that your HOA encouraged people to pay by checks which is the most expensive way to pay. If you hadn't done all that work for free then the real cost of hiring an accountant woudl of added an amount significantly higher then then CC fees.

We are doing the opposite encouraging people to use the payment method that causes the HOA to have the least expenses. I'll put it on this years ballot. I suppose we will have to still accept money orders, but the PITA factor will decrease that a lot.

I stand corrected I should of used some other word besides accountant. but the end result is the same. if the hoa paid someone to do 240 to 360 hours of work for processign the checks it would likely cause dues to increase a lot.

I'm a penny pincher too, but time is money and collecting checks is the most expensive way. I will put on ballot maybe next year since I want the focus to be on amending the bylaws and not about tiny fees. I think we should stop accepting them, but will let the membership rule on that.

You want to charge owners a fee for paying their mandatory assessments????? That's a bit of a kick in the groin.
I can understand a fee for Credit Card transactions, but for a paper check, C'mon get real. If the treasurer is the one
doing the books, going to the bank is part of the cost of doing business. What's next a $1.00 fee because you
have to drive to the post office and pick up the mail fee??? Just like the Tax Collector in the movie Popeye (1980).

Find a bank that lets ACH deposits and nix the fees.

I'm wondering, Wendy, why you think that any kind of fees would be in the Bylaws. they already should be in your CC&Rs and Bylaws must be in concert with the CC&Rs and not conflict with them (as I think you know).

of course you are right, been working on revisign the bylaws so I got bylaws on my brain.

Yes everything the bank suggested was more expensive than the online software platform that we use.
Next year I will have them vote on it. Once I have one year's data I can have concrete numbers of how much it costs everyone else to subsidize the check writers.

I dont' buy the old people can't use technology bit. I know a ton of old people with smart phones which is all you need to pay online no PC needed. I do believe that we can stop accepting checks, just like many stores do and it would be legally fine.

Our board does that but also have 3/4 homeowners blocked online so this can occur.

No fee for checks.

It's settled then.

Those who live in Wendy's Association should simply pay in cash. ;D

Do you have the authority in your governing docs to create a new charge?

If the former president or others refuses to pay, what will you do enforce the check fee?

How does the budget give you authority to create and collect a new assessment? It has to be elsewhere I would think.

Jeff brings up a good point - if you're not going to enforce the requirement anyway, what's the point of instituting a fee in the first place? When it comes to enacting new policies, you have to consider the pros and cons, and if it's a new policy, someone might get mad enough to sue. If that happens, you want to have your procedures on point so the judge will rule in your favor going away.

And you still need to check your documents to see what it says - at the very least, what does it say about the board enacting and enforcing additional polices and rules to flesh out the CCRs and Bylaws (you already know they can't supersede them). This is why I personally don't see a need for the homeowners to vote on this next year. Is there a reason you can't say RIGHT NOW:

"It costs the association X amount of money per year (or month) to process paper checks. We've worked hard in reducing costs and while X amount may not seem a big deal, the association could save more time AND money if everyone paid electronically. No one would have to worry about mail delays due to bad weather or checks being lost or stolen, and because the money hits the account immediately or the next day at the latest, we can see exactly how much the association has to work with, etc."

There's still the matter of your colleagues, who can easily outvote you on enacting the policy, and then what? Have you discussed this with them? If their response is "do what you want," that could be a setup to blaming you should this, the bylaw rewrite, etc., goes sideways. In fact, I wonder if that's already going on because I never hear you say what they think, as in "board member 1 agrees, but board member 2 doesn't care about this or anything else that's suggested (which is why she doesn't bother to attend meetings most of the time)". You've worked hard for the community and it would be a shame to see you left without a chair when the music stops.

Anyway, if the board has the authority to enact the rule, just do it, with an effective date. Set that date for next year so the checkwriters have the rest of this one to talk to their banks or talk you out of the policy. Ditto for exploring options with your bank or another one - you said its alternatives are "too expensive" - compared to what? If it's about the same or less than the $250 you'd have to pay a bookkeeper, you may as well pay that and build it into the assessments (at least you'd save time, which is just as valuable as saving money).

As for the homeowners, explain why the policy's being enacted and then they have a choice - pay it or start paying electronically. They may even surprise you by saying "Yes, we appreciate that the board has reduced fees a great deal, so an additional $5 a year (or month) won't kill anyone. Just assess it and keep it moving."

thanks for that language. Now I have a legal reason since the common fees we pay to a book keep to scan, deposit and enter into our ledger manually only benefit the people that pay via check. , and therefore per 47F-3-115 c-2 shall be assessed exclusively against the lots benefitted.

MAKES SENSE TO ME! IF YOU WANT TO PAY IN A WAY THAT COSTS THE HOA HUNDREDS OF DOLLARS MORE YOU CAN PAY THAT FEE, instead of expecting your neighbors to subsidize it.

The law specifically says "(c) To the extent required by the declaration:". It has to be in the declaration, otherwise you are making stuff up.

Wendy,

I hope your HOA board has the ability to rescind its decision to self-manage in due time. You'll burn out and I can see that you want to work hard in your community.

I think I already mentioned it above. 20 checks take 1 hour, scan front and back to deposit via remote deposit then enter into ledger. if we get 60 checks that is 3 hrs. No one else wants to donate 3 hrs to do this once a year.

Since the BOA is requiring an electronic payment, is the HOA buying me a computer and internet service?