File Lien(s) for unpaid Assessments

Looking to obtain the proper forms to file liens for non payment of Scheduled Assessments. As our funds have been depleated over the past few months, wish to avoid the expense of our attorney. Understand, we (Association) can do this on our own with a filing fee. Have been getting just a little run around from the County who I would think could provide one with the proper form to file. However, said we could obtain them at OD or Staples. All I found were contractor forms. Time is of essence as we have one going into forclosure, and two who just want to be a pain in the rear as they have since they purchased property in our small community of twelve. Clearly did read the docs they were signing at their closing. In addition, can't locate any documention as where they (Homeowners) can just resign their membership from the Association. Any info appreciated.

Welcome Charles,
I will leave this Florida question up to Donna or one of the Florida experts, they will set you straight.

However with 12 members, I have to wonder what benefit you devive from being an HOA. I really would suggest you expand your question on this site to encompass the value of being an HOA. Are you in the city, how old are you (not you, the HOA), when did you get control, are your documents complete and registered at the courthouse? Do you have a BOD, how many, what common elements do you have?
In general if you go to the court house and ask for a form or ask for advise and it is not forthcoming and they refuse to help you, I would start doing the step dance, just keep going up the boss ladder until you get the answers you need. No reason a court house can not direct you to the right office and give you the correct Form# and provide you with a copy. I would strongly suspect you want a Mechanics lien form, but don't quote me. This would put you in the priority list for payment (maybe) when the property changes hands. The other thing you could do is see if you can work out a payment schedule for the owners to agree to that would allow them to stay in the property. Probably, this will not work as your fees is not going to be the cause of their problems.
Good luck

Well, if it's mandatory, a homeowner can't opt out.

That's why the governing documents are attached to the DEED.

Charles,
I just noticed, there is an active thread submitted by RobertS17. Go to discussion page and click his thread. Donna just posted there and her information may help you.

Charles,
Now it becomes apparent why you kept qualifing or hedging on the information you posted.

You have 12 units, you have a strong absentee and a no participating fraction. There is you, the president, and I assume a couple other board members and you are running out of money, and they pay you, the ex-president by agreement with the new president (no mention of Board approval), you remain a consult to the new president, and your request was how can you get forms to help you from paying the cost of protecting your association from foreclosures.

This is my opinion only and it is only an opinion and not endorsed by this site. I would get your house in order. What you are doing and how you come to do it is not the image you want to project. I also offer this as a warning to other associations, this foreclosure business may well get much worse and there are and will be more associations effected to the point of being unable to continue operations because they are not receiving enough money. Some will end up in court because they will be sued by owners that may or may not understand all the ramifications, or more likely they will need to go to court to restructure their association. Woe to the association, that in the judges eyes, have suspect organizations.

Charles as much as the employees at the court house may wish to help, as a general rule they are prohibited with offering anything that may be construed as legal advice. You can search the net for free legal advice or if you have a nearby law school, they may have a free service that can help you. But I would advise you to find an attorney to file them. We use an attorney that specializes in collections and he charges us nothing to file the liens. He adds all the fees and his costs to the lien and he gets paid when the lien is paid. While it can be done without an attorney, just as home dentistry can be done, I wouldn't do it.

I don't think so at all. 12 units, 120 units, if a certain percentage don't pay, the HOA still needs to do everything it can to collect, up to and including liens.

The only reason it's a "lot of trouble" is because they've obviously never had to take that next step before, and he doesn't quite know how to do it. Doesn't mean the association is in any way screwed up. Just means he has a learning curve.


Please don't misunderstand, I'm not necessarily defending the poster. On the other hand I think you might be a little to hasty in your assessment that their "house" is out of order, that's all I'm saying. I'm not jumping on you, just pointing out. . . "just sayin'"


I'm not ignoring that he is being paid to do the books, I just don't think that fact alone tells us anything untoward is going on, or even hints of any problem.

I don't know that there is any "situation" that is being described that is untenable. I don't have a problem with him being paid a fee for doing the books. He's not on the board. So what's the problem? If they would pay a bookkeeper to do it. . . the point is, we have no idea the details regarding that. He didn't go into the long story of the association, and I seriously doubt that it's relevant to the search for forms or a format to use to file liens themselves. What I can read from it is that they are trying to cut corners/costs and do some things themselves, filing liens, collections, taking care of the books, rather than pay someone else the full rate to do it.


And Glen is absolutely correct. In our County Recording office, depending on which clerk is on the desk on any given day will depend on how much assistance and advice one would get from one here, too. Some do consider even providing forms a form of "legal advice." It sounds simple enough, but that's often what gets people into trouble. If teh clerk misunderstood and provided the wrong form, well, you get the idea.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, Florida had a huge ordeal a few years ago with legal aid companies providing forms, templates, etc., to people and some of that activity was restricted. The courts considered it practicing law without a license since the people providing the forms were not lawyers.


Were I to make a guess on what the problems with this association is, I would imagine they would point to the most common culprit: owner apathy.

I don't see a mess here, but I do see an association that has slipped into complacency, with only a small handful of resident owners caring to keep it going.

I see a resident (past president) who probably had high expectations for a decent return on his homeownership investment, not to mention having a decent place to live during the home's appreciation period, slipping away due to many shifts in recent years: new, less involved owners, falling home prices, rocky economy. . . etc.

The bills of the association still need to be paid; I can feel his frustration in finding ways to pull the blood out of the turnips.

Filing liens would just be a start, to be honest, but it is a start. It just shouldn't have to cost them more than their budget can handle to get to that point.

**chuckling**

Sorry! Didn't mean to!

Wouldn't it be so much easier if we could, like, do real-time voice chat for this thing?

Charles, one more thing you might try is going on-line to your County Recorder's Office if you have the names of other HOA's in your area. You can view copies of liens that they have filed to give you an idea of the form they use and the information required. Make sure you add the filing fee to the amounts owed and when the H/O pays to have the lien released, don't forget to add the fee to release the lien to the amount you collect.