Highly Unusual Win for a Collection Agency by Association Financial Services, L.C.

Palm Beach, FL (PRWEB) January 09, 2014

SNAP Collections has won the annual Readers Choice Awards for financial services sponsored by the Florida Community Association Journal and Florida Community Association Professionals. “This comes as a complete surprise to us, but is not undeserved,” said Mitch Drimmer, VP of Business Development at SNAP Collections by Association Financial Services.

I recently posted a question on a few social media groups that are exclusive to the community association.  In this question I asked; “How can the good paying members of a community association know who is delinquent in paying their maintenance fees?” It was a simple enough question, or so I thought, because the response was plentiful and a heated debate ensued.

Many felt that such information was not and should not be available to the members of the association.  Others pointed out that in some states financial information, regardless of its content, must be made available to every member by statute. Some felt that it was a violation of the FDCPA (which is not so because a first party creditor (the association) is not subject to the FDCPA).  So as far as the access to such information I would say that every state and almost every association needs to look at their bylaws as well as their local community association laws.  So access is still a debatable issue, and I was not surprised by the responses.  What came next, while not totally a surprise and to a large extent sad.

If you have purchased a condominium or property in an HOA, one of the documents you may be required to sign in connection with your loan is a “Condominium Rider or a Planned Unit Development (PUD) Rider.” This rider is an attachment to the document recorded in the land records to secure the note given by the lender for your purchase.  In most states including Florida, it’s called the Mortgage.

One of the most important items contained in the Condominium Rider/PUD Rider is the information regarding the maintenance fees for that particular community association. It is very important to the lenders that these fees are paid because they have an interest in the condominium unit or HOA property.  It is especially important to them if the unit has equity, because the community association has the right to foreclose on the title for non-payment of maintenance fees.

Community Associations such as Condos and Homeowner Associations often have good reason to report non-paying members to the credit reporting agencies. The only problem is that don’t have the ability to do so, and usually it is not a function of their community association attorney who has taken on the collection of this particular debt. Therefore, one of the most important and potent tools that exist for the purpose of effective collections is not being used. So what can a community association do to get credit collection services delivered to them and have delinquencies reported to credit bureaus?