Articles Posted in Assessment Collection

The Wall Street Journal reports that there is another sign that California’s foreclosures could jump in 2009: Delinquencies on dues (assessments) owed to homeowner associations have risen sharply. This is not a surprise to those of us in the trenches. Many managers report to us that they can barely keep up with the maintenance and repair issues because they are spending so much of their time dealing with delinquent assessment issues and matters.

The Wall Street Journal Article suggests that “[t]he homeowner association delinquency rate can serve as a leading indicator of sorts because homeowners usually stop paying dues before they stop paying their mortgage.” Click here to read the article in the WSJ.

Association Lien Services has been successfully collecting delinquent assessments, non-judicially, for over twenty years and has weathered a few economic downturns along the way. However, never before have we encountered such a perfect storm of economic turmoil. In the past, as now, when there has been a burst in the real estate bubble (and there have been two others in the past 20+ years), we have seen many owners let their properties go back to their lenders (or in some cases to their associations) because they were not worth what they paid for them. We are also seeing some owners that want to keep their homes, as they believe that they will eventually rise in value.

The “perfect storm” is the unprecedented sub-prime crisis coupled with a stock market collapse, accompanied by a significant increase in unemployment. Several commentators have reported that we would see different waves of foreclosures, and that is exactly what ALS has been experiencing. Starting in September of 2008, ALS experienced the first wave of the “sub-prime” owner defaults, assessment delinquencies and resulting lender foreclosures.
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Never in more than 20 years has ALS experienced a time when assessment collection has been as complicated and difficult as it is today. Many boards of directors are unsure as to what to do when an owner is not paying their association or the senior lien holder/lender is not prepared to foreclose. David Swedelson has prepared an article setting out the analysis that is required to assist boards in making what is truly a difficult decision. Follow this link to read this article, and feel free to share this with your board of directors and/or other managers.

This economic downturn and the significant increase in the number of delinquent homeowners are impacting all community associations. To be sure, some are facing more delinquencies than others. But even the most affluent communities have homeowners that bought their homes at the height of the market with adjustable rate loans that they now cannot refinance, and they are losing their properties. They are also not paying their assessments.

The website HOALeader.com (created to provide support and information to board members and other HOA leaders) recently conducted a survey of HOA leaders on how they were dealing with the problem. Comments from HOA leaders regarding their fears and feelings of helplessness on how this is impacting their communities is interesting; they show that owners are concerned as to how their neighbors’ foreclosures are going to impact the amount of assessments they pay. Follow this link to read the article.

2008 was a banner year and for all of the wrong reasons. Foreclosure activity was way up, and the experts project that we will not see a decline in foreclosures in the near future.

RealtyTrac® (realtytrac.com), the leading online marketplace for foreclosure properties, released its 2008 U.S. Foreclosure Market Report™, which shows a total of 3,157,806 foreclosure filings – default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions – were reported on 2,330,483 U.S. properties during the year, an 81 percent increase in total properties from 2007 and a 225 percent increase in total properties from 2006. The report also shows that 1.84 percent of all U.S. housing units (one in 54) received at least one foreclosure filing during the year, up from 1.03 percent in 2007.

Foreclosure filings were reported on 303,410 U.S. properties in December, up 17 percent from the previous month and up nearly 41 percent from December 2007. Despite the spike in December, foreclosure activity for the fourth quarter was down nearly 4 percent from the previous quarter but still up nearly 40 percent from the fourth quarter of 2007.

With the world’s economy in turmoil and a significant increase in the unemployment rate, experts are forecasting a big increase in the number of bankruptcy filings in 2009. If your Association receives a Notice of Bankruptcy filing by one of its owners, don’t panic as there are some remedies. But you must take quick action to protect the association’s rights.
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Interesting news report on NPR (National Public Radio) on the effect that this financial crisis is having on community associations:

Homeowners associations across the country are being hit hard by the foreclosure crisis. Millions of dollars of monthly dues are going unpaid. Neighbors are left to pick up the tab – if they can.

Rachael Myrow reports. Listen to her 3.5 minute broadcast; it does not tell us anything we already do not know, but it is certainly interesting to see that the plight of community associations is not something that is being ignored.

Click here to read an interesting article discussing what we all know, that some owners cannot afford their homes and are not paying their regular or special assessments. They may lose their homes. And this comes from North Carolina.

Our country and most of the rest of the world are in an economic recession, and we are all suffering the fallout from the most significant and severe economic crisis since the Great Depression. Major corporations are filing bankruptcy and are going out of business, banks are being taken over by the government and record numbers of homeowners are losing their homes through foreclosure. It is no surprise that we are also seeing a steep rise in the number of delinquent homeowner’s assessment accounts and the loss of assessment income among California community associations.

While it is a fact of life that many community associations will not collect the unpaid assessments from those homeowners that cannot afford to keep their homes, or recover assessments from homeowners that have already lost their homes to foreclosure, there are some things that associations can and should do to maximize their chances of collecting and/or addressing the loss of that income.
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