Monday, March 31, 2008

Deliquent Privilege Loss

I punted this today question from where it mistakenly landed on February thread -

Re; delinquent maintenance fees what privileges can be taken away by not pay their fees? Thanks Lou


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your ADMIN. speaks:

Hi all,

FS 718 does indeed provide strong sanctions in the case of delinquency of Fees.

In essence they are:

1) Acceleration of all monies due to the end of the Budget year.(Filing of lien)

2) Charging Interest on amount due up to 18%

3) Administrative/Late fee up to greater of $25.00 or 5% of unpaid balance.

4) Rejection of lease if Unit Owner is in arrears.

No mention of “Removal of Privileges” is contemplated in The Act, so don’t get “creative”
Please read the extracts following:

FS 718.112(g)

g) Assessments.--The manner of collecting from the unit owners their shares of the common expenses shall be stated in the bylaws. Assessments shall be made against units not less frequently than quarterly in an amount which is not less than that required to provide funds in advance for payment of all of the anticipated current operating expenses and for all of the unpaid operating expenses previously incurred. Nothing in this paragraph shall preclude the right of an association to accelerate assessments of an owner delinquent in payment of common expenses. Accelerated assessments shall be due and payable on the date the claim of lien is filed. Such accelerated assessments shall include the amounts due for the remainder of the budget year in which the claim of lien was filed.



FS 718.116(3)(4)

(3) Assessments and installments on them which are not paid when due bear interest at the rate provided in the declaration, from the due date until paid. This rate may not exceed the rate allowed by law, and, if no rate is provided in the declaration, interest shall accrue at the rate of 18 percent per year. Also, if the declaration or bylaws so provide, the association may charge an administrative late fee in addition to such interest, in an amount not to exceed the greater of $25 or 5 percent of each installment of the assessment for each delinquent installment that the payment is late. Any payment received by an association shall be applied first to any interest accrued by the association, then to any administrative late fee, then to any costs and reasonable attorney's fees incurred in collection, and then to the delinquent assessment. The foregoing shall be applicable notwithstanding any restrictive endorsement, designation, or instruction placed on or accompanying a payment. A late fee shall not be subject to the provisions in chapter 687 or s. 718.303(3).

(4) If the association is authorized by the declaration or bylaws to approve or disapprove a proposed lease of a unit, the grounds for disapproval may include, but are not limited to, a unit owner being delinquent in the payment of an assessment at the time approval is sought.
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Dave

3 comments:

LARRY KALL said...

As far as I know you have to file a lien on the unit and then foreclose the lien.

LARRY KALL said...

Dave, I was most interested in your comment about not getting creative with overdue assessment and try to curtail services. I did get one call from an association that wanted to have the cable service cut off to a unit not paying their assessment and I advised against it.

We did however have one case last year where this was done in one of the high rise buildings. It seems that one resident felt that since the cable wires ran through her unit she was paying the entire cable bill for the building. As a result she tore out the cable wires in her unit and shut off the cable service to four units in her building. After Comcast repaired the wires three times it was decided to have Comcast rewire the other three units and by pass the lady with the problem. The lady without the cable service still has to pay the cable bill as part of her building assessment. But at least she was happy that she did not have the pay the "entire" building cable bill now that she had no cable in her unit.

UCO President said...

Hi Larry,

I have heard of such approaches as cutting of pool access and not permitting delinquent Unit Owners to vote or attend meetings.

These approaches are to be avoided, as one may well end up in Court with the Court finding against the Association.

The extant law in FS 718 is very powerful, so why not use it and avoid complications.

Dave