In my journeys through the community association world I go to a lot of conferences, seminars, board meetings and read hundreds of articles about how to best manage and govern a community association.  It has almost become a cliché that communication is the most important aspect in managing an association.  While I don’t disagree, I also believe that information and facts are just as important and it is a commodity that is sorely lacking. Plainly stated Solid Information Is Critical

Why A Specialized Collection Company Makes Sense For Your Community Association

In good times or bad times community associations (Condos and HOAs) will experience some level of delinquencies that affect the entire association. As a not for profit business your association depends on timely payments every pay period to maintain services to members of the association.  Failure to effectively act on a delinquent account does a disservice to the community and to the delinquent member as well.  By allowing a member of sink deeper and deeper in debt the association only makes it more difficult for them to remedy their problem.

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.

Things have changed in the last two years, and for the most part the news is good for Condos and HOAs.  Nationally prices have begun to rise, banks are finally coming for their collateral, and community associations are welcoming new good paying owners into their developments and buildings.   On the other hand, associations are still not out of the woods yet because there is still a lot of money on the books that has yet to be collected.  Millions if not Billions of dollars are still owed for delinquent maintenance fees and the question remains; How can that money be recovered in a manner that the cost of the recovery does not exceed the recovery itself?