I've quit paying the HOA dues on one of my rental townhouses. According to some of the posts in this forum, I'm making a big mistake, but...
Our HOA board has quit having meetings, quit doing maintenance on commons, quit taking care of the grounds, and can't tell me how they have or will spend the money. I'm not even sure who the treasurer is (if there even is one) and I've not received any communication from them in over a year.
So I've quit paying the monthly dues. The way I see it, if they get their act together and file a lien or even send me a notice, I'll pay off what I owe. Am I mistaken??
I'm not an attorney, but I believe that you and your fellow homeowners certainly have recourse in this situation. The first thing I would do is consult with an attorney.
If you don't want to go the legal route, why not see if you can do something about the situation?
Why not get together with your fellow homeowners and work as a team to rectify the situation? Get the board thrown out and start fresh.
If not, all of the HOA documents carry legal responsibilities for homeowners and for the board. If the board is shirking on their responsibility, you can probably do something about it.
Again, I am not a lawyer and recommend you contact one to explain all of your rights, and what you can legally do to correct this situation you're facing.
BTW - I do NOT recommend you simply stop living up to your responsibilities by no longer paying your dues.
Good luck!
Edited: 06/26/2010 at 06:21AM
Joshua Dorkin, BiggerPockets, Inc. E-Mail: webmaster@biggerpockets.com Telephone: 877-831-4704 Website:http://www.biggerpockets.com Be sure to check out the BiggerPockets Blog at http://www.BiggerPockets.com/renewsblog/
Whether it is a forecloseable lien or not depends on the wording on your deed.
When an HOA has gone dormant in the manner you described above I have been able to get their entity dissolved. I have not done that in SC but I have done it GA and NC. You contact the secretary of state and they will tell you how to go about it. The bottom line is unless they have held regular meetings as required in their incorporation paperwork and bylaws, they are not a valid entity and the state can dissolve them administratively.
Once they have been dissolved, they have no rights or authority.
Oh, and you can COMPEL them to account for how the money has been collected and spent.
We use to send out letters and you know what people are up todate on their dues. Personal I don't want to be seen as a bum so I paid them. I would contact your attorney on this matter. Most likely it will cost you $60 just to ask the question unless he goes into more detail.
I don't think most associations have enough funds or time to take legal action.
$60?? Where did you find this attorney? You are going to get a 'common sense' response from an attorney for $60. Regardless of what he says, you will still be in a position where your common areas look like crap. He will tell you to keep paying your dues while you take legal action against the HOA. When the HOA problems are fixed they will still know who owes what money, and even if they don't, can probably ask you for copies of cancelled checks.
As much as everyone says, "talk to an attorney", you need to realize that to get anything actually done with that attorney will cost you A LOT of money. Far more than a year or so of your monthly dues.
I like the idea of getting with other's in your shoes. Go around, knock on doors and start talking. Tell them the place doesn't look as good as when you purchased it and ask them what they think. People LOVE LOVE LOVE complaining about HOA's.
This way, if you do pursue legal action, you might have some people that will help you split the costs.
I feel for you man. A few years ago I had to sell my first property because the HOA was starting to slide. You must feel pretty helpless watching the community take a turn for the worse.
Well if you want to spend $500 or more go ahead. I know my RE attorney sometimes doesn't even charge me for most questioins. It's not like your asking him to bring down the whole association.
What I would do is research who is in charge of the HOA through the Court records, former correspondence you might have received, attorney who represents them, etc. Once you have this information I would write a certified letter to them outlining your problems and requesting who are the Board Members in charge etc. If you don't get any response I would then notify them again by certified mail that you will be withholding dues pending receipt of this information and putting your dues in escrow monthly. If you have a mortgage on your place I would also copy the mortgage company. They can help you with this. If the HOA starts an action against you they must first run a title search and they must notify both the tax assessor/collector as well as your mortgage holders. This is because these entities would have a priority over their litigation. I think that would make the powers that be in your HOA take notice and work with you.
The HOA is wrong to not keep you informed and you should always have a contact or go to man - management co? or someone. The HOA could be in financial trouble - many delinquencies etc. I'm not defending the HOA but I'll bet the reason youre not getting services you normally are provided with is because there are a ton of owners either walking away, being foreclosed up etc who are just not paying dues.
Actually Ingrid, I think you and most of the other responedrs are over-complicating this. There are only about 25 homeowners in the HOA. The HOA board would normally be composed of a few motivated individuals that are willing to serve and are elected (or chosed by defalt) by the rest of the owners. In this situation, nobody (myself included) is particularly interested in serving on the board, possibly due to the difficulty of getting participation and cooperation from the rest of the owners.
It's been well over a year since there's been any sort of meeting or anything, as far as I know.
As far as a foreclosure, they can't get very far along without having to notify the owner (me). If "they" even had their act together enough to send me a letter, I would simply pay what I owe -- case closed. I'm not going to send a check to a treasurer whose term expired and may not even own a unit anymore, without some idea of where the money is going and how it will be used.
The commons areas need attention, but even if I got on the board and straightened things out, I doubt very seriously that I could get a majority agreement from the rest of the owners to make any major expenditures. In fact, that's probably the reason for the indifference from the current/former board.
You are probably right to an extent. I have been in your shoes so I understand the frustration. The viability of the HOA becomes at risk if people don't get actively involved. In our project 11 unit owners of 42 went bankrupt/foreclosure. We remaining owners had to "eat" the shortage. Our reserve fund was depleted to almost nothing because the money had to be directly just to keep common services in place (our complex provides water and heat). The effect to all of us remaining was devastating. Our dues increased and no one could sell. Our values decreased and every prospective buyer that applied for a loan was required to produce an HOA questionnaire completed by the HOA. When the lenders saw the financial condition of the HOA (lack of reserves) and number of units either in foreclosure or non-owner-occupant, they backed away and refused to loan. So in the end we had no choice but to become actively involved to insure survival.
Nov 11 '08, 07:59 PM
