healeydave
Junior Member
What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? Florida
Hi,
I am a UK resident with an investment property in Florida that I use for short term rental.
I recently had a letter from a Law Firm asking for 5 years of backdated HOA fee's along with late fee's and interest charges.
They were threatening to put a lien on the property etc.
This was the first request we have received for HOA fee's for the property!
I spoke to friends of ours who have a property in the same development and they said they get a voucher book sent to their UK address every year with quarterly bills for the HOA fee's. I have never received this or any documentation from the HOA at all, so as you can imagine it came as quite a shock to us.
When asked why we never had anything from the HOA, the lawyer said that they are not obligated to send this information out and that its our responsibility to ensure fee's are paid on time. This I find rather strange because in my opinion even if not a legal requirement, it would be a common courtesy to expect an invoice if only to know who, when & where to pay!
Given a time-line to respond in the first contact letter from the lawyer, I did dispute the bill on the basis that I wanted breakdown of the fee's, especially the interest charges that seem extortionate!
Also, the fact that if we hadn't received any communication from the HOA, I disputed that it was not fair to have interest charges levied on me when the HOA had not notified me of such charge would be imposed (due to no contact) and hence they had not given me an opportunity to pay in a timely fashion to avoid said charges.
This has fallen on deaf ears and they just keep simply insisting that full payment of all fee's are necessary and they want them immediately.
Rightly or wrongly, I took the pro-active approach of sending the backdated HOA's fee's which was a crippling $8,400 directly to the HOA asking them to write off the other charges because I didn't think they were fair given the HOA had never previously given me an invoice or a chance to pay and avoid said charges.
I have still not had any form of communication from the HOA, just another demand from the Lawyer acknowledging the check for HOA fee's and demanding the rest of the interest and other fee's. If the HOA refuses to communicate with me (unlike other home owners) I am concerned that I will still have no invoices for payment from the HOA for future fee's.
So that's the background, I guess my main questions are:
Do I have no option but to pay these interest fee's?
Do I have no case that I should at least expect some form of communication and bills from the HOA prior to any additional fee's being levied?
Is it really my responsibility to ensure these fee's are paid despite previously not knowing when they are due, how much I should be paying and where I should be sending payment?
Hi,
I am a UK resident with an investment property in Florida that I use for short term rental.
I recently had a letter from a Law Firm asking for 5 years of backdated HOA fee's along with late fee's and interest charges.
They were threatening to put a lien on the property etc.
This was the first request we have received for HOA fee's for the property!
I spoke to friends of ours who have a property in the same development and they said they get a voucher book sent to their UK address every year with quarterly bills for the HOA fee's. I have never received this or any documentation from the HOA at all, so as you can imagine it came as quite a shock to us.
When asked why we never had anything from the HOA, the lawyer said that they are not obligated to send this information out and that its our responsibility to ensure fee's are paid on time. This I find rather strange because in my opinion even if not a legal requirement, it would be a common courtesy to expect an invoice if only to know who, when & where to pay!
Given a time-line to respond in the first contact letter from the lawyer, I did dispute the bill on the basis that I wanted breakdown of the fee's, especially the interest charges that seem extortionate!
Also, the fact that if we hadn't received any communication from the HOA, I disputed that it was not fair to have interest charges levied on me when the HOA had not notified me of such charge would be imposed (due to no contact) and hence they had not given me an opportunity to pay in a timely fashion to avoid said charges.
This has fallen on deaf ears and they just keep simply insisting that full payment of all fee's are necessary and they want them immediately.
Rightly or wrongly, I took the pro-active approach of sending the backdated HOA's fee's which was a crippling $8,400 directly to the HOA asking them to write off the other charges because I didn't think they were fair given the HOA had never previously given me an invoice or a chance to pay and avoid said charges.
I have still not had any form of communication from the HOA, just another demand from the Lawyer acknowledging the check for HOA fee's and demanding the rest of the interest and other fee's. If the HOA refuses to communicate with me (unlike other home owners) I am concerned that I will still have no invoices for payment from the HOA for future fee's.
So that's the background, I guess my main questions are:
Do I have no option but to pay these interest fee's?
Do I have no case that I should at least expect some form of communication and bills from the HOA prior to any additional fee's being levied?
Is it really my responsibility to ensure these fee's are paid despite previously not knowing when they are due, how much I should be paying and where I should be sending payment?
