HOA legal question

[Ksig512]

HOA cannot force a foreclosure on you home in the state of Texas. They can only place a lien and try to collect if and when you ever try to sell it.

[Saltaholic]

To answer some questions- he bought this place a long time ago before it was developed and fees went up. It was a rural community that got developed with tract homes way later and fees tripled. This is in Houston if that matters. I’m just trying to help the fella out lol

[dgilbert]

Another good reason never live in a HOA! Hope he can get it worked out.

[Throwin Darts]

HOA cannot force a foreclosure on you home in the state of Texas. They can only place a lien and try to collect if and when you ever try to sell it.

This is not true at all. Texas Property Code Chapter 209 covers this topic. An HOA can absolutely foreclose on your home if you owe past due normal assessments. They can't foreclose if all that is owed are late penalties and fees. When you pay your past due assessments and fees, any money received has to be applied first to past due normal assessments. So the first thing you would want to do is to pay what you owed to begin with. That will protect you from foreclosure. Then work on paying penalties and fees because they will file a lien on your property and start the meter running. When you sell they are going to get their money.

[sailor]

Why in the world would anyone want to live in a state where your city, county etc. can do the same for failure to pay their (property tax) membership fees?

Yep...... You just think, you own your home...........
Actually, you just rent it from the state........
(mine included).........

[C.W.Ashby]

This is not true at all. Texas Property Code Chapter 209 covers this topic. An HOA can absolutely foreclose on your home if you owe past due normal assessments. They can't foreclose if all that is owed are late penalties and fees. When you pay your past due assessments and fees, any money received has to be applied first to past due normal assessments. So the first thing you would want to do is to pay what you owed to begin with. That will protect you from foreclosure. Then work on paying penalties and fees because they will file a lien on your property and start the meter running. When you sell they are going to get their money.

This...and check with an attorney as to whether they CAN foreclose at this time. COVID changed a lot of rules.

[RWB]

I am on our HOA board of a 400+ home neighborhood. What I would advise him is to communicate with the board and not ignore it. The legal fees seem high for only being a year behind. Board can waive the fees. We rarely waive the legal fees however we will waive late fees and interest. Get with the board or their management company and set up a payment plan. if we had someone come to us and tell us they could not pay their dues due special situation the last thing we would want to do is pile on legal fees. We go the legal route with people who ignore it or set up payment plans and then don't pay. Tell him to talk to them.

[bakin7005]

HOA cannot force a foreclosure on you home in the state of Texas. They can only place a lien and try to collect if and when you ever try to sell it.

This is absolutely false when it comes to non payment of dues. It is true for a monetary penalty for not cutting your grass or parking a boat in the driveway etc.

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[bakin7005]

I am on our HOA board of a 400+ home neighborhood. What I would advise him is to communicate with the board and not ignore it. The legal fees seem high for only being a year behind. Board can waive the fees. We rarely waive the legal fees however we will waive late fees and interest. Get with the board or their management company and set up a payment plan. if we had someone come to us and tell us they could not pay their dues due special situation the last thing we would want to do is pile on legal fees. We go the legal route with people who ignore it or set up payment plans and then don't pay. Tell him to talk to them.

This is how it works. I too am a board member for our HOA. If this was presented to us we would likely waive late fees and penalties, although we will not waive the hard costs. We cannot allow other members to eat hard costs (attorneys fees) incurred by a member that hasn't paid regardless of the reason.
In our association it very rarely gets to this point because there are lots of mailed notifications to inform the home owner of the consequences of non payment and ignoring the notices.
FYI, although HOAs are not for everybody, the biggest benefit is to keep the neighborhood nice and maintaining the home values. Everyone who purchases a home in an HOA signs a document at closing stating they have read and agree with all the restrictions, covenants and penalties.

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[BrianL]

This is not true at all. Texas Property Code Chapter 209 covers this topic. An HOA can absolutely foreclose on your home if you owe past due normal assessments. They can't foreclose if all that is owed are late penalties and fees. When you pay your past due assessments and fees, any money received has to be applied first to past due normal assessments. So the first thing you would want to do is to pay what you owed to begin with. That will protect you from foreclosure. Then work on paying penalties and fees because they will file a lien on your property and start the meter running. When you sell they are going to get their money.

Since mortgage lienholder is in the first lien position, wouldn't they have to pay off any and all existing liens before they could foreclose? Assuming he owes money on the house.

[kcmarullo]

Sure am glad I will never be on a HOA !

[Sackett]

HOA sucks. Most of my clients these days ask me find a house with no HOA.

When I worked at PD, HOAs would call us wanting some rule enforced.


From my Make Believe World

I'm assuming your department informed them HOA Guidelines are not "Laws" and therefore can not be enforced by a police department?

[Ksig512]

This is not true at all. Texas Property Code Chapter 209 covers this topic. An HOA can absolutely foreclose on your home if you owe past due normal assessments. They can't foreclose if all that is owed are late penalties and fees. When you pay your past due assessments and fees, any money received has to be applied first to past due normal assessments. So the first thing you would want to do is to pay what you owed to begin with. That will protect you from foreclosure. Then work on paying penalties and fees because they will file a lien on your property and start the meter running. When you sell they are going to get their money.

Thanks for clearing that up, for some reason i thought he was talking about the extra fees that were added .

[bakin7005]

HOA sucks. Most of my clients these days ask me find a house with no HOA.

When I worked at PD, HOAs would call us wanting some rule enforced.


From my Make Believe World

If a board member of an HOA contacted the PD to enforce a rule they were either an idiot or the weren’t really a board member and just a neighbor that was pizzed about something. HOA boards have finite by-laws they adhere to which includes rules for enforcements.
HOAs only suck until you really need them. If you bought a really nice house in a nice neighborhood and wanted to sell it but nobody made an offer because your neighbors methhead son has his multi colored ‘92 Honda Accord parked in the front grass with a plethora of car parts and tires strewn about the yard and driveway with weeds grown up all around, then you wouldn’t think the HOA sucked but the metheads dad would.
It’s all perspective.

[arrowsmack324]

Oh wow. Never knew they had the authority to foreclose on someone. Insane!

Those are nothing more than scare tactics, they can place a lein on your property but can't outright foreclose on you. In my experience its all just bull**** intimidation tactics.