We Stop HOA Lien Foreclosures
If you fail to pay and are delinquent on your homeowners' association (HOA) or condominium owners' association (COA) fees, your association can get a lien on your property and foreclose on your home. When you purchase a home, condominium, or town home that's part of a community with covenants, you'll often be required to pay HOA or COA fees and assessments, often collectively called "assessments,".
If you fall behind in the assessments, the association will likely first try to collect the debt by calling you and sending letters. But if that fails, the association might take away your privileges to use the common facilities or file a lawsuit to get a money judgment against you.
Most HOAs and COAs also have the power to get a lien on your property if you are past due in assessments. Not only will an assessment lien cloud the title to your property, which hinders your ability to sell or refinance the home, but the property can also be foreclosed on to force a sale to a new owner.
We have found that in most cases filing a response with the court just ends up costing the homeowner more in legal costs and does not help in slowing down the foreclosure process. As part of our service, we monitor court filings and offer suggestions to stop foreclosures. The key indicators we look for are the official notice opening the foreclosure (lis pendens), the entry of default, the judgment, and decree of foreclosure, a praecipe, then finally the notice of sheriff sale.
Have you received a summons for an HOA foreclosure and are not sure what to do? The first thing to do after you have been summoned is to contact the foreclosing attorney. When you are on the phone with the attorney, propose the idea of a payment plan. As long as the total dollar amount owed is not too high most law offices and HOAs will approve a payment plan. Increase your chances of approval by also proposing a down payment. Be aware, that most law firms would add at least $3,000 to $5,000 on top of what is owed to the HOA to account for the attorney fees.
Once you and the attorney have come to an agreement on the payment plan, the attorney still needs to propose the payment plan to the HOA for final approval. Depending on when the HOA meets, this process could take several weeks to several months. Payment plans are typically approved during board meetings which can happen bi-weekly, monthly, or quarterly depending on the HOA.
Once the payment plan has been approved, the case history will show a stipulated judgment. This stipulated judgment will hold the foreclosure case open until the total dollar amount is satisfied. This means that if you are on a payment plan and miss a payment, the HOA can very easily continue to foreclose without having to open a whole new court case.
If after talking to the HOA attorney, the dollar amount or a payment plan does not work for you, the next option would be to sell the property before the HOA forecloses. We fully realize this is not ideal. If the property goes through the foreclosure process to a sheriff's sale, it will be sold.
You will have the opportunity to redeem the property. Redeeming the property means you pay whatever the buyer paid at the sheriff's sale plus interest. Homeowners who are unable to pay the HOA to stop the foreclosure, will most likely be less able to redeem the property because the dollar amount will be much higher.
If you owe the HOA an unreasonable amount or are unable to keep up with a payment plan, being proactive about selling can save you time in court, which also will save you court fees.
If you’re facing an HOA lien then you need ANSWERS you can count on, but you don’t want to pay to get this information do you? This is why we offer a 100% free consultation. We will evaluate your situation and provide you with the answers you need, so you can have the peace of mind and security of understanding your options. To see if you qualify call us today at (855) 734-7386 and Schedule a Free Consultation with our HOA lien foreclosure advisors.