Residents being laid off

Are their HOA’s in MD that are starting to experience having homeowners being laid off from the federal government? If so, is this affecting your community with folks not being able to pay their dues? What kind of measures of being put in place?

Donte,
I was on my Ca. board during the housing crisis in 2008 and 2009. It was different but similar at the same time. People who bought more house than they could afford get caught up in these short-term issues and unfortunately are not prepared because they live paycheck to paycheck. No jobs are guaranteed for life. From what I have heard the DC area is one of the richest areas in the country with the exception of New York and parts of California. The government and the business that feed off the government obviously had not been trimmed for decades and has become overgrown.

As board members your job is to collect the HOA fees and pay the bills of the association. If you start making exceptions, you can't stop. Your HOA will crumble and everyone in it will be affected. Bills can't be paid with excuses and if they could we would except them.

You need to have your collections policies and procedures in place now. Figure out at what point or how much behind in fees an owner needs to be before you can place a lien on their property - if allowed in your state. Have a collections agent or attorney in place to file those liens. If they file for bankruptcy it’s important to have the lien in place. Also, decide when to file for foreclosure if necessary.

This all sounds hard hearted, but when an owner doesn’t pay everyone else picks up the slack. It can become a strain on the budget. You will need to become vey proactive with collections.

Just as Shelia recommends, during the '08-09 Great Recession, our Board made sure we could offer a payment plan flowing along the lines Shelia discuses. In Cali, such payment plans can be discussed with owners in executive session. We. had one taker, who was able to catch up and stay.

A monthly assessment is a payment plan vs the entire balance due 1/1 of each year. Offering a payment plan is your board taking unneeded risks with the paying owners funds.

ElleN,
Thanks for providing that data sheet. While the data shows that that the number of employees may be less than the actual population growth it does not mean that 100% of the government employees are productive. I would say that any business could cut the bottom 20% of any work force and be more productive. I do not want this subject to go down that rabbit hole.

Regarding payment plans I think it is a really bad idea for any board to assume after an announcement or news report about layoffs that payment plans should be proactively discussed. It is assumed that payments are still due and if you have a high % of people that work for any business that is affected let them come to the board on a case-by-case basis. Don't give them a reason to not pay their dues.

I agree that the monthly payments is a payment plan.

The Board typically has discretion over late charges. We would offer to waive late charges if the annual assessment was paid in full at the end of the year. Our monthly statements would show the amount of accumulated late charges as a reminder to the member what could be charged.