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Old 05-30-2013, 02:21 PM
 
Location: Great State of Texas
86,052 posts, read 84,118,875 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Komeht View Post
People, beware of incredibly dangerous and incorrect information on the Internet. Poster has NO idea what he is talking about.
I was secretary in my HOA and we did put a lien on a property that did not pay their annual dues.
And it was with Travis county.

The OP needs to carefully read their HOA documents to see what the HOA will and can do if assessments are not paid.

My own land purchase had 2 liens that had to be paid off with the seller's money at closing.

 
Old 05-30-2013, 05:00 PM
 
Location: central Austin
7,228 posts, read 16,015,840 times
Reputation: 3914
Yes, my HOA can also place liens but not foreclosure -- it varies depending on what exactly the HOA docs say. If/when you sell your house, the HOA can require the closing company to clear the debt from the proceeds of the sale, and that debt can included unpaid dues and late fees. It is standard practice to require an HOA sign-off as part of the closing process.
 
Old 05-30-2013, 06:57 PM
 
3,836 posts, read 5,731,029 times
Reputation: 2556
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
I was secretary in my HOA and we did put a lien on a property that did not pay their annual dues.
And it was with Travis county.

The OP needs to carefully read their HOA documents to see what the HOA will and can do if assessments are not paid.

My own land purchase had 2 liens that had to be paid off with the seller's money at closing.
You said earlier HOAs can't foreclose. That is simply incorrect. They certainly can if the covenants provide for it.
 
Old 05-30-2013, 07:41 PM
 
7,742 posts, read 15,033,797 times
Reputation: 4295
If your HOA is that apathetic, you could probably run for president of the HOA and get rid of the management company.

Also as mentioned in another thread you need to take responsibility for your own actions. You chose not to pay you owe the money.

You also chose not to participate to improve the function of the HOA. If you were not happy about how it was run, you could always have started to participate.
 
Old 05-31-2013, 08:56 AM
 
3,423 posts, read 4,412,251 times
Reputation: 3632
Quote:
Originally Posted by HappyTexan View Post
Not actually foreclose but they can put a lien on the property for the outstanding fees and continue to do so each year.
Then they get their money when the property sells.
HOAs can and actually do foreclose. The power to foreclose was what was and still is used by many HOA management companies and HOA attorneys to extort all sorts of junk fees for the benefit of these vendors (not the HOA) from homeowners.

Many HOA management companies were known to "advise" HOA boards to sign "resolutions" that would permit the HOA management company to misapply payments deliberately in order to generate more "late fees", "collection fees", etc. for the benefit of the management company. This was known as the "priority of payment" scam. Typically, it would be combined with a "fining" policy that purported to permit the HOA (i.e. the management company) to impose "fines" for alleged violations of restrictive covenants. The "fine" created a multiple debt condition on paper - and the management company would then decide how to apply payments without regard to instructions on checks or from homeowners.

Once the priority of payment scam was in place, the subdivision would be flooded with letters from the management company proclaiming the homeowners to be "in violation". Assessment payments would be applied to "fines" to leave the homeowner "in arrears" on assessments. The management company contracts provided that the management company (not the HOA) would be entitled to receive "late fees" for unpaid assessments. Because of the priority of payment scam and the misapplication of payments, the management companies could threaten the homeowners with foreclosure in order to extract these junk fees from homeowners. Assessment payments would also be applied to these junk fees in order to leave amounts owing in order to generate even more junk fees to benefit the HOA management companies. So the management companies would work to get the priority of payment scam implemented and then work at creating and maintaining paper defaults in order to pyramid up junk fees benefiting the management companies (and the owners of those management companies).

Getting reform of these laws was difficult because many did not know of Sen. Carona's business practices while he was authoring legislation to protect those practices. In fact, Associa was created and exploded in size only after Carona's self-serving anti-homeowner bills were passed. The Texas Tribune recently published a couple of stories on Carona:

For John Carona, Conflicts and Interests | The Texas Tribune

California Retirees Have Carona's Company in Crosshairs | The Texas Tribune

One significant purpose of the 2011 HOA legislation was to prevent HOA management companies and HOA attorneys from continuing "business" as usual with the priority of payment scam. Condominium owners are not protected from this scam and you will find the practice alive and well there.
 
Old 05-31-2013, 09:02 AM
 
29 posts, read 53,814 times
Reputation: 31
I am probably going to get flamed for this but I am on an HOA Board. As many have mentioned every HOA is different based on their governing documents. We can and do start the foreclosure processes often even though every time we approve one we hate doing it and it is only as a VERY last step in a long line of trying to get them to pay their dues. We are a very large community and we do our best to work with our residents to try and be as fair and reasonable as possible.

In response to the original question, the best option is to usually contact the managing company and board explaining the situation around your late payments. At least in our HOA, almost all cases when someone comes to the board with a logic reason for not paying, we will put them on a payment plan and in many cases waive the late fees as long as you pay in the allotted time. We do not want to take all of your money, we just want you to be responsible and pay what you owe just like all of your neighbors do.

Second, if you are unhappy and have a few extra hours a week, run for a position on the board. You really do not have to have any experience in it, just a willingness to learn. Getting the right people on a board can make all the difference when it comes to giving back to the community. You might be able to organize things like neighborhood picnics, mom-baby walking clubs, after school tutoring sessions, get new playgrounds, virtually anything you or the residents come up with.

Finally, as mentioned by Austin97, if the problem is not really the board but the management company, then if you joined the board you could work on getting them replaced by a company that really wants to work for you and with you. As a board member, you have a direct say in where the money is spent, and the management company is usually right up there with landscaping and insurance.
 
Old 05-31-2013, 09:10 AM
 
473 posts, read 1,322,651 times
Reputation: 410
How about this: Stop being a deadbeat and pay your dues! How nice that you just decided on your own to stop paying while all your neighbors kept paying. Who are you to decide on your own if the dues are worth it or not? You agreed to pay them when you moved in, then welched. Pay up and stop complaining!
 
Old 05-31-2013, 09:14 AM
 
3,423 posts, read 4,412,251 times
Reputation: 3632
Quote:
Originally Posted by arat4 View Post
We have lived in our neighborhood for about 8 years now, at the beginning we paid our HOA dues, but then eventually stopped because they weren't doing anything and not even holding any meetings. Recently, a new company took over our HOA and they sent me a certified letter saying I owed them $616 for past assessments and late fees. I never got any statements from the past company for late fees. When I ask to see an itemized statement of how they came to the $616 amount, all they say is I had a balance forward from the other company and the late fees they charged me. When I asked of they can give me a detailed statement of what months I have paid and what months I hadn't since I've lived in the property they can't give it to me. Do I have any rights here, shouldn't they be able to give me my full itemized statement of what I have paid? How do I know if that balance is accurate if they can't show me how they got it? Also, they said that I can pay the $616 in 3 month payments but it will cost me an additional $150 to do so, can they charge me extra to pay it out?

Btw the HOA does nothing in our neighborhood, we don't have any community areas so all they are in charge of is the front enterence that always looks like crap with dead flowers. Also, we have over $60,000 that they had to move in a money market account because they do nothing with our dues in our neighborhood.

Is this worth pursuing a lawyer or am I just gonna have to suck it up and pay it?

Thanks-
You do not have to hire a lawyer nor do you have to enter a payment plan. The payment plan fees benefit only the management companies - they sought legislative approval for charging "administrative fees" because as a trade group they were going to lose out on the "late fees", "collection fees", "handling fees", "collection program" fees, etc. that they were extorting using the "priority of payment" scam.

The 2011 legislation prohibits the vendors from being able to engage in the priority of payment scam - unless you enter into a "payment plan". Unless you enter a payment plan, they have no choice but to accept and apply your payments first to "forecloseable" items like assessments. Assuming your HOA has restrictive covenants permitting it to foreclose, you might want to ensure that all forecloseable amounts are paid leaving only the alleged management company fees and HOA attorney fees unpaid. See, Tex. Prop. Code §209.0063

An HOA attorney or HOA management company might have tried to get your board to adopt a resolution re-defining "assessment" to include vendor windfall junk fees in the definition of "assessment", however, that does not make it so. That was all part of the way these unscrupulous vendors operated to use the HOA's foreclosure power to extort money from the individual homeowners to benefit of the vendors.

For amounts owed pre-2012 (effective date was Jan. 1, 2012), there is an argument that you can't just pay assessments. However, there is also a four year statute of limitations for collection of HOA assessments and the management contract the HOA had with the former management company probably provided that the management company (not the HOA) was entitled to those fees. Threatening you with foreclosure to collect such assessments is itself a violation of Texas law which gives you negotiating position with respect to pre-2012 amounts to the extent the amount allegedly owed clearly exceeds the cumulative annual assessments.

You'll need to pay assessments but going back no further than 4 years ago. It's difficult to tell you "how much" without knowing what the annual assessments were or how many years were owing. It is also not in the management company trade group's interests to provide accurate records.

I have no doubt that the HOA operates to your detriment. They usually offer nothing of value to anyone except the declarant and vendors during development and then a few board members and the vendors after the period of declarant control. The HOA was imposed by the developer and local government as a control and liability shifting device for their benefit, not yours. Perpetual liens that can never be paid off and which serve only to sustain an organization that benefits only the organization's board members and vendors should be recognized as illicit taxes from a private corporation. Avoiding HOA-burdened property can be a real challenge since local government has been mandating HOAs on new housing for decades and because developers want them as a control and liability shifting device for the period of declarant control.

Last edited by IC_deLight; 05-31-2013 at 09:42 AM..
 
Old 05-31-2013, 09:37 AM
 
686 posts, read 1,759,090 times
Reputation: 436
Quote:
Originally Posted by IC_deLight View Post
...
The 2011 legislation prohibits the vendors from being able to engage in the priority of payment scam - unless you enter into a "payment plan". Unless you enter a payment plan, they have no choice but to accept and apply your payments first to "forecloseable" items like assessments. Assuming your HOA has restrictive covenants permitting it to foreclose, you might want to ensure that all forecloseable amounts are paid leaving only the management company fees and HOA attorney fees unpaid. See, Tex. Prop. Code §209.0063
...
Thanks for the specifics. I want to rep your post, but I am not allowed to .
 
Old 05-31-2013, 09:52 AM
 
447 posts, read 1,039,328 times
Reputation: 756
Quote:
Originally Posted by SickOfCalifornia View Post
How about this: Stop being a deadbeat and pay your dues! How nice that you just decided on your own to stop paying while all your neighbors kept paying. Who are you to decide on your own if the dues are worth it or not? You agreed to pay them when you moved in, then welched. Pay up and stop complaining!
Well said. Thank you.
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