i been taking to court for homeowners association

Lisa,

Since you mentioned asking for a payment plan, I assume you are not contesting the delinquency. In which case, the judge will review the info presented by the assn and issue a ruling. Most likely the ruling will state you must pay the delinquent assessments together with any associated collection costs, court costs and attorney fees. Whether you can afford to have an attorney represent you or not, make an effort to be at the hearing. I would suggest presenting a copy of the letter you sent requesting payment arrangements together with the HOAs negative reply. Let the judge know you are willing to pay what you owe but just don't have the full amount at this time. Hopefully the judge will be more accommodating than the HOA has been. Perhaps he won't award attorney fees! Delinquent assessments which continue to amount can result in foreclosure. Some assn's jump on this rather quickly, others take their time.

Susan,

How can you say: "the Board is not any happier about having to do this than you are."? Sounds to me like the board couldn't wait to go to court, otherwise they would have accepted partial payments.

Lisa, it would be very unwise for you to go to court. You will lose much more than you currently owe. If the Board will not accept a gracious payment plan then get a loan and payoff your balance before the
Board turns this matter over to an attorney.

I can relate.

We've worked with some residents in the past.

However, there are one or two that we would not likely work with again in the future.

It would depend on how much they were behind, and what type of partial payment plan they offered.

We would like to be fair, but once burned, twice shy.

I agree that it might be worth your while to obtain a loan and try to pay the outstanding amount before going to court.

LisaM9,

I don't see how anyone can make a judgment or give advice without knowing all the details. How delinquent are you?..how many months or quarters past due? has this been chronic and ongoing,etc.? Have you ignored the Associations notices until you learned they would take you to court?

Our board would like to avoid going to court and would work with someone who is in a financial bind temporarily but we have a few owners who let their assessments slide until we file a lien against them. Not too smart of them because they now not only owe the past assessments but the cost of the attorney who writes them and files the lien, with interest running. This usually solves the situation.

Ellen,

I'm not a board hater -- far from it! However, I do feel if a delinquent member makes an attempt to pay part of the delinquency the board should accept it. Isn't a little better than nothing?

Of course, we don't always know the whole story. I only responded to the initial message.

Seriously this does not have enough details for much of any advice to be given.

I know that our board does everything NOT to go to court, but our current situation shows a total of $13k in past non collected dues! We have place liens on property here and with foreclosures and money issues with people.

The original poster did give enough details. Can't answer this without jumping to conclusions.

Being a BOD member, I can understand why we try NOT to take partial payments.
When the budget is set, it is with the understanding that everyone will pay ALL their dues on time.

When you start accepting partials, then everyone in the community should also be given that opportunity to pay what ever they feel like. How do you prove a real need, when the person who is living in the biggest home, driving the biggest Cadillac truck, is asking for special "arrangements".....

You have a disaster when you can't stick to the budget. We are now living with a deficit of over $90,000, and we don't have enough money to run the association.

Those who suffer the most....the ones paying their dues on time.

LisaM9: If you cannot make any of the association rearage payments at all and you dont want to lose you house then you probably would need to file chapter 13- this will save your home from the association to forclose on you...since the association will not work with you a payment plan...the chapter 13 will save you! Once you file chapter 13 then the association will only received very little payments from the trustee and they will have to deal with that.

I been down that road....also you need to make sure that the assocaiton is following what your by-laws state in the book....some oif these associations dont go by what the by-laws are and they need to .

PatR: No I dont suggest everyone no to pay there association and to file chapter-13...but sometimes you have no choice to to do what you have to do to save your home and if your in a rearage of Association pay,ents to avoid forclosure from the association is to file chapter-13 it would put a stop on the florclosure....espacially if the association does not want to woirk out a payment plan.

Dont get me worng yes we all need to be paying our bills and being responible for our debts...but sometimes you get in a finacial situation .

Kirk most BOD's take partial payments and work with H/O's all the time when asked. But the sad fact is most people use the ostrich approach until it is simply too late to do anything but take them to court. If someone doesn't pay their Association fee it's not the Boards responsibility to go to them and ask why, it's their responsibility to come to the BOD. It takes three months before we get an attorney involved. That's three months worth of letters asking them to pay up and telling them exactly what will happen if they don't. Once it gets to the attorney additional fees are attached and it's too late now, the H/O must deal with the attorney. Also we have had H/O's that make payment plans and fail to follow through with them, the second time they ask the answer is generally no.

I detect what I believe to be some short-sighted thinking going on here.

Not accepting partial payments and taking a person to court to attempt to get the full amount just may not always be wise. Consider the following:

By accepting partial payments, you have money today to help meet bills. It may not be all you need, but it's something. By accepting partial payments, there's the hope that, within a reasonbly short period of time, perhaps a few months, the homeowner will get caught up and payments will be up to date. At least, that's what you try to arrange with the homeowner.

But, if you refuse partial payments and attempt to go to court, here are some things to consider:

1. You won't get your money today. It may be months, maybe even close to a year before you can get the case heard and get even a penney. So, if you need money today to pay bills, this won't do that for you.

2. Even if you are successful in getting a judgement, you may not get all the money at once. The court may force you to accept a payment plan anyway. Meanwhile, you've already gone months without even the first payment. You could have had it sooner if you had settled out of court and accepted partial payments to begin with.

3. Even if you get a judgement, you may not get anything at all. You can't get blood from a stone. Consider the O.J Simpson case. How much of that judgement have the Goldmans actually received? Certain income and assets may be protected. When making awards, courts do not take 100% of a person's future income or their assets. They are allowed to keep a certain amount for living expenses. The court can attach certain forms of future income, but who knows when you will actually get all of your money?

IMO, going to court is only a smart move if you have a good reason to suspect the person is really just a deadbeat; that is, the person has the money but simply chooses not to pay the association dues. If the person really is financially strapped, whether the problem is of their own making or not, going to court is not likely to be a smart move. I would think that if a person is honest about wanting to set up a payment plan, they are probably not a deadbeat, and playing hardball is not likely to accomplish the real objective of getting some money in the association's checking account anytime soon.

Board decisions need to be practical and realistic.

Bruce & Brad,

I agree with you wholeheartedly! Remember, great minds think alike. :-)

I am far from smug, but I am responsible for 340 homes.

Out of 340 home owners, only 1 asked for "help".

But the HOA BOD should not be the ones to determine need.

The Home owner needs to go to a non profit counselor, who will help them, free of charge. If you determine need, we will work with you.

I have heard over and over, that this "bill" is not a priority" and it is put at the bottom of the pile. Those that I know, are still driving the big cars, eating out, and sending the kiddies to camp....needy...not in my world.

While 280 pay, those who don't have caused a horrible situation for the rest of the community.

Kirk, it has nothing to do with "being a neighbor" or not.

It's a non-emotional thing, like your electric bill.

You owe it, you pay it.

If you can't pay it, then don't ignore it.

What Glen said is absolutely on target.

We will work with people who contact us immediately when they realize they can't make the full payment. Just like any other business would.

On the other hand, when they IGNORE repeated notices, and notices that CLEARLY inform them of the additional fees that will will apply/accrue, then I have little sympathy, even being a "neighbor," when it gets to the stage where it's turned over for collection.

A "good neighbor" would try to to "stick" their other neighbors will all the costs associated with running the neighborhood to which they belong.

Also unless you are on disability of some kind get a second job. There is no law that says you can only work 40 out of the 168 hours in a week. Sure it may only be minimum wage and unglamorous but if it gets the bills paid then do it.

MicheleD,

I admire your HOA for working with an owner re partial payments. But in my opinion anyone that cannot make a $150 annual payment should not be a home owner anywhere least of all in a HOA. They are aware of when it is due and can put away their pennies so they are able to pay. Let's see divide $150 by 365 days a year....

It is easy for us to sit behind a computer and criticize those who do not pay dues. I wake up every morning and am thankful that I am healthy, have a job and can afford it. Lets be realistic, things in this world are cruel and sometimes not fair and I don't think it is fair of us to lump every single homeowner who is behind in payments into the category of deadbeats...

There are many reasons why people get behind:

1. they are deadbeats, they simply do not care
2. They are mad at the HOA and are trying to make a statement the wrong way
3. Their money situation changes, they have to make critical decisions on what bills to pay, like it or not Dues fall to the bottom of the barrel, their situation could have changed for any of the following reasons...loss of job...accident or serious injury that left them unable to work...death of a spouse...serious illness of a family member...hours and pay cut back at work...etc.

I look at my situation, I recently had to have shoulder surgery which has put me out for a month, my wife had eye surgery which has put her out for a month, my son has a mouthful of braces and my daughter broke her arm. I am lucky I have good insurance and a job that doesn't require me to do physical labor every single day. I see how easily one could fall into that trap, luckily we won't have huge medical bills but we could have and could be facing this situation.

$150 may not seem like much but we also need to remember that gas prices have doubled or tripled in the last 3-4 years. When I bought my home gas was $1.50 four years ago. Now it is $3.79. That means I pay an extra $600 + a year just to get to work in 3 years time. There are a lot of families having to make tough decisions because of this.

I think before we cast stones at people we need to understand the entire situation and in this case we don't. This is a huge reason why I am a big proponent of HOA's being more than a business, an HOA is like an extended family and you need to take care of your own if you can, you never know when it will be you!

Pat...we had this discussion in another thread, so I guess we will have to agree to disagree. The mortgage company, electric company and a bank will work with you. the last thing a bank or a mortgage company wants to do is foreclose or reposses, it is more profitable to work with the loan holder than to just take back the merchandise. You would be suprised how flexible businesses are if you talk to them...

As I have stated before to be almost 100K in arrears and not have the cash flow or operating reserve to be able to survive 100 days of a few owners not paying dues shows poor management, so to lecture us on how running a multi-million dollar HOA business is interesting to me.

If your vendors are awaiting payment, then accept cash when it is offered to you.

Why make them go to a counselor and possibly incur another cost, can't you decide on the merits of what they are telling you? Granted someone may lie but that seems like an unnecessary step.

I don't know your situation, but multi-million $ HOA seems improbable to me. And it certainly isn't done with fees that are in a range I could live inside.

Second, the rest of us can and do get away with partial payments to the electric bill. We call up the company and explain how much we can pay today and when we can pay the rest. And if we are nice and call quickly, this can be stretched over a number of months. Unlike your organization, the electric company's representatives know that life is sometimes rough.

I just hope you realize that sending a person to a credit counselor isn't always the nice thing it is cracked up to be. I would personally only go there if I couldn't get enough places to work with me since many ruin your credit in the process since many such organizations are in fact a collection agency and the payments appear as such.

One day you may find that you desperately need someone else's assistance. I hope you receive more compassionate result then you have given.

Kirk,

You said: "I don't know your situation, but multi-million $ HOA seems improbable to me. And it certainly isn't done with fees that are in a range I could live inside."

My assn budget is approx. $800,000; we have 1701 homes and pay $460/yr. Think of the fact that there are many, many assn's with thousands of members. I know of one here in the Phx area that has over 20,000. Multiply that by $300-600/yr. . . easy to reach 1 million or more. Then add to that the amount in reserves; my assn has over 1 million. Yes, many assn's are multi-million dollar corps.

Kirk,

It appears that this person totally ignored the fact that hoa assessments were due. I seriously doubt she was taken to court without many, many attempts to resolve the situation. No hoa wants to go to court unless they are backed up against a wall. It has nothing to do with compassion but communication. Of course, we don't know all the facts but only the side of the person being taken to court. There are two sides to every story. Perhaps the hoa would have accepted partial payments, perhaps she has taken advantage before with a song and dance. Perhaps she is not in a financial bind but would rather spend her money on other things.

Pat:

One question, if they don't pay their dues why are they allowed to enjoy the amenities of the association?