Vivian was right about collections--and the California Supreme court agrees with her

Once the members voted in the collection agreement that the board made with Harrison (Vial Fotherhaming law firm), members signed away many of their rights. One of those rights is to pay our association directly after you get behind if the debt has been turned over to the law firm. Vivian Kuntz did a lot of work on this and researched it extensively.

She wrote up a great paper for the members sot hey could be informed, but many members did not see it. One of the things that bothered her about this collection agreement was that a member who is behind cannot even talk to the board or give them money or try to catch up little by little but has to go through the attorney. Recently one couple in Hideaway owed a little over $400 in back dues--they were trying to work with the board and the board refused to work with them (this is in the last few months--but we are withholding names for privacy's sake). After being sent to the attorney, they received a letter demanding around $1500! Part of the cost was an accounting error on the part of the board and the rest was attorney's fees!

Just exactly what Vivian thought could go wrong did! Now the couple is entangled in a legal battle. And why? We are neighbors and they don't treat each other this way--not true neighbors, close neighbors, caring neighbors. Sigh.

In any case, California is taking steps to protect their homeowners from aggressive and inherently unfair collection practices--and hopefully that will come to Utah too--even if our board doesn't watch out for members and use common sense... hopefully we can get some legislative protections in. Here are some of the things California is now dosing for homeowners in associations:

1. homeowners can make assessment payments DIRECTLY to the board – not to the debt collector
2. assessment payments can be made at any point during the collection process, even if the debt collector has recorded an assessment lien and/or Notice of Default or has sued for a judicial foreclosure
3. payments to the association do NOT have to include collection costs levied by the debt collector
4. payments SHALL be applied according to existing state law, that is: to assessments ONLY until paid in FULL and only afterwards to any legitimate collection costs

Read about it here: California Home Law Institute

and at the Justiica Site

After you read this, you will understand that Vivian was trying to protect oweners with fairness and reasonable thinking--don't you wished you'd listened to her?