Although this article may seem to be Florida specific it relates to all community associations throughout the nation.

On July 1, 2014 in Florida a new law goes into to effect that was legislated under HB 807 to section 718.111(12) of the condominium act.  This new law obligates “outgoing board members to return all official records … to the incoming board.” Now as benign as this may seem it speaks to a greater problem and that issue is: Where are all the association’s records?   Why did the legislature have to go out of its way to create a specific law to obligate a proper transition from one board to the other?  There must be a problem here.

As a collection agency for community associations, I meet with a lot of boards and am usually greeted with some good natured humor about debt collecting. Television and film have given us a vast amount of stereotypes to choose from that range from a gangster with a baseball bat to a foul mouthed outbound caller. I gently advise the boards that, contrary to their wishes, I will not break anybody’s legs nor will I harass anybody, because both actions are highly illegal and not at all effective. Yet, I do promise resolute action that one may consider aggressive. So what is aggressive community association collections?

The classic definition of a Zombie Debt simply put “the undead.”  That is to say a person is dead but still has some features of being alive so in essence they are not “totally dead.”   It sounds creepy, and it is creepy but in almost every community association in these United States there lurks “Zombie Debt.”  Zombie Debt is best described as money an association has written off because a bank has foreclosed and there were dues owing that the association never received.  The mistake is that this debt is not dead and much like a Zombie it still lives and can be collected.  So why have not boards of directors and management companies not attempted to collect this Zombie Debt?