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Deadbeat condo owners

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aldaron

Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO I live in CO and reside in a 41 unit condo association that pays HOA fees that covers trash, water, heat etc. Theres 2 units that for over 2 years now have not paid thir HOA fees and I feel it isn't fair to the paying owners. Our management co tells us theres nothing that can be done except to turn it over to a collection agency, is this true? Is there anything that can be done to force these deadbeats to payup legally? All of the condo owners are paying higher fees due to these deadbeats. If it matters theres 41 units. Thanks.
 


sandyclaus

Senior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO I live in CO and reside in a 41 unit condo association that pays HOA fees that covers trash, water, heat etc. Theres 2 units that for over 2 years now have not paid thir HOA fees and I feel it isn't fair to the paying owners. Our management co tells us theres nothing that can be done except to turn it over to a collection agency, is this true? Is there anything that can be done to force these deadbeats to payup legally? All of the condo owners are paying higher fees due to these deadbeats. If it matters theres 41 units. Thanks.
Sure. The HOA can sue for the unpaid fees and place a lien on their condos. I'm not sure whether or not they can force the sale of those condos to pay the fees, though. So, while there would be a judgment in force, there would still be the matter of collecting those judgments.

And honestly, I'm not entirely sure that unpaid fees for 2 units out of 40+ should be raising your fees that substantially. Sounds to me like the HOA is passing the buck, so to speak, and passing on their inability to collect onto people it doesn't belong to.
 

aldaron

Member
It just seems these folks can live their forever and use water, sewage, trash, heat for free and our only stick is a judgement. All utilities are shared so theres no way to disconnect the services. I wonder if we contacted their mortgage companies if they would do some thing. My mortgage if i'm not current on HOA fees i'm in violation of the mortgage contract.
 

LdiJ

Senior Member
It just seems these folks can live their forever and use water, sewage, trash, heat for free and our only stick is a judgement. All utilities are shared so theres no way to disconnect the services. I wonder if we contacted their mortgage companies if they would do some thing. My mortgage if i'm not current on HOA fees i'm in violation of the mortgage contract.
No, contacting their mortgage companies would not help you at all. As sandy mentioned the most the HOA could do is to get a judgement and put a lien on the units.

And again, the impact of two units when there are 40 plus would have a marginal impact on expenses. The cost for common areas would have a far greater impact.
 

festival

Member
Some collection agencies specialize in condo collections, and charge nothing to the association. They only get paid from extra fees collected from the deadbeats. There are also law firms that will do the same. You can probably find them on google.

About how much do these people not pay every month? It sounds substantial.

Does your association have a written collection policy, and is it distributed to all owners?

Your association should absolutely file a lien to prevent the sale of these condos unless the fees are paid.

If the non-payers have enough money and equity and if chances are good, then the association can attempt to foreclose the lien. It should be looked into. Sometimes just the idea of foreclosure is enough to get them to start paying.

The board has a fiduciary responsibility to do what they can to collect the money and to not do nothing because they feel sorry for those who do not pay. You might want to research it and then educate your board.
 

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