HOA's are never the senior lienholder when a mortgage is in place. Any notice of default must also be served on the senior lienholders (your 1st (and 2nd, if applicable) mortgage lender) who typically pay off the lien to secure the collateral property. HOA legislation in CA has been enacted to prevent HOA abuses of power... but things happen, sadly.
Also... if the woman was depressed how is it the responsibility of the HOA to make that distinction from someone who simply can't or won't pay? If a debtor doesn't respond, creditors can only use the default remedies made available to them, like liens and auctions.
bolding is mine...
Exactly! As unfortunate as it is, it is not the BOD or HOA's job to figure out why someone is not paying their dues/assessments. I served on the BOD for our old community for over 11 years. It is a thankless/payless job. I did it because I did care about the community being kept up and staying nice but not to the point that some BOD members had these 'power authority trips.'
We ALWAYS were willing to listen and work w/ people who came to us w/ financial woes. But if you don't let us know what is going on (and you are clearly just trying to free-load at your neighbor's expense...well that wasn't happening) we had no choice but to assume you just didn't feel like paying. And that is not fair to the other community members. We had one family who hit VERY difficult financial times. One of our BOD members felt so moved by their difficulties that they paid 2 months of their dues out of the kindness. We were understanding and workable. It is not a fun position to be in with your neighbors at times...
The HOA isn't there to tell you what you can and can't do with your house... they are there to keep your next door neighbors from flying Nazi flags and painting their house chartreuse and letting their lawn grow to waist-length or renting to people who do.
As annoying and overempowered as they may seem, they DO in fact provide a functional "safety net" of property value and quiet enjoyment for the neighborhood.
AGREED MOST of the time...but we did have a few BOD members or the architechtural review committee members that were power hungry. No matter how carefully worded the covenants were, there was still a certain amount of subjectivity when it comes to what is seen as asthetically pleasing. I personally, don't want to see huge sunflowers in your front window planters, but someone else may love them. We had one BOD 'group' who were very sneaky when the community was new. They wanted street lights and did not ask the community what they wanted. There was no vote by the majority. Of course, we didn't find out about the lights until they were being installed. And as expected all of the street lights were placed so that they were glowing in the windows of other houses and not in the windows of those on the BOD. Overall, I think HOA's can be beneficial, but our current home is in a non HOA community and we have WONDERFUL neighbors with pride of ownership. It does only take one bad apple though to ruin the whole basket...
I am not against the HOA by all means. We usually buy in neighborhoods with an HOA to protect our property investment. My gripe is the severity of the punishment. We have paid on time for 5 years, I miss 1 payment and within 4 months of it being due they slap a lien on my house and now I owe $325 instead of $100 and I haven't even been contacted. I understand they shouldn't have to go door to door but I see these people all the time, they have my email and phone number. A courtesy "Hey your late" would have been appreciated.
ACTUALLY, the attorney our BOD retained for various matters STRONGLY advised against this. Money is private matter and should be handled professionally and in writing by authorized parties not out on the front sidewalk as casual conversation. And truthfully, I think it is unfairly ackward for the BOD member to have to tell you that on their own time...but that is just my .02
Our BOD only did a lein once or twice. After having our docs reviewed and all, we found a much more effective way to collect our dues. And for the record we had more than one family who said outright that they just didn't feel like paying, so sue them. And then when other households find out that some are not paying, they think 'well, if they don't have to pay, why should we?' I can understand their point, but it comes back to EVERYONE needs to pay. You knew it when you bought the house, no surprises, sorry!
Anyway, we would file suit and get a judgement and garnish wages. Boy, did that get some attention!!! But if people had paid the way they were supposed to or kept in touch with us of how/when they intended to pay, then we would've worked with them. Choosing to ignore us became very expensive because by law we were entitled to collect the costs to collect our money and attorneys fees aren't cheap.
OP, I wish you the best of luck rectifying this situation, but at least you found it quickly and are attempting to address it immediately!!
