The slow-down in foreclosures in recent months is not making everyone happy. In fact, homeowners’ associations around the country, strapped for cash as more homes in their communities either become vacant or the homeowners are unable to pay their dues, are hoping to stave off insolvency by pushing foreclosures and the resulting sheriff’s sales through faster. For example, in Miami Beach an HOA has sued JPMorgan Chase & Co. to take control of a unit in their building so that the HOA can receive back dues from the sale proceeds and, hopefully, install a new owner that will pay dues on time[1]. More than four years after the owner stopped making payments, a judge ruled that JPMorgan had lost claim to the mortgage. The unit went on the market and is currently available for $87,500. The owner still lives in the unit and is not paying HOA dues or a mortgage payment. The HOA hopes to get the rights to the property so that they can expedite the foreclosure. “Banks…need to accept the responsibility for the title or walk away,” says the HOA’s lawyer.
Last month, the number of homes entering foreclosure fell to a 44-month low[2]. While some optimistic groups heralded this news as a sign of a real estate recovery, most analysts agree that it is actually a symptom of lenders’ unwillingness to get involved in the foreclosure process until the robo-signer fiasco is resolved once and for all. Currently, major lenders and the majority of state attorneys general are in settlement talks in an attempt to lay this issue to rest and compensate homeowners who were unjustly foreclosed. In the mean time, many homeowners who would normally be in foreclosure are opting to remain in their homes, rent- and mortgage-free, and wait things out. This creates problems for HOAs since many homeowners are not paying their monthly or annual dues either.
Do you think that it is fair for HOAs to foreclose when lenders won’t?
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[1] http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-24/homeowner-associations-in-need-of-cash-sue-lenders-to-force-foreclosures.html
[2] http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/24/homeowner-association-foreclosure_n_935230.html
Yes I have to agree with Mitchell business has to go on and it is their financial responsibility to the board of directors of these HOAs to get their bills paid.
HOA’s have been given to much power they were good and are good but a lot have gone overbaod with rules and dues. They should be able to tie up the property by a lean but not force a foreclosure do to lack of payment. A lean will give them there money when the house is sold and it will put them as 2nd in collecting if the house is foreclosed. This Bnkster issue has to be delt with by the courts so be if the HOA’s have to wait then they have to wait! They sould not be given the power that they have. Everyone is having a hard time and it’s not always that the home owner is at falt. There just going through a bad time and having to make choices eat pay the rent/ Mortgage live on the street, and other choices. I am not saing that they are off the hook for paying I am saying that we need a little bit of understanding now do to the situation at hand!
I hate HMOs and wouldn’t live where there was one!