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I forgot to make two payments of the homeowners association having it lapse 6 months. Reason was I had melanoma and I guess it just slipped my mind never been later for 21 years. So any come around the first I was paying bills and thought were was my homeowners association payment tickets found them and saw I was late so sent payment for the late ones with the additional amount as posted on ticket for being late. This was on October 4 2012. about two weeks later I received a call from some young lady saying I was late and owed way more than what I did I told her several times that payment had been sent but to no avail she insisted on more money about four days or so after that I received a letter in mail saying basically the same thing that young lady said. I later sent a dispute letter dated November 29 2012. Only thing I ever got back was more letter demanding money. So the check I sent on the 4th of October was cashed on the 10th of October a few days before I was ever contacted about the alleged late payments since they had been paid and really weren't. My question is this am I responsible to pay them this money they are demanding
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Dealing with HOAs can be trickly, particularly when it comes to late fees on HOA payments. If I understand your facts correctly, you pay your HOA fees quarterly and you discovered you accidentally missed two payments so you sent a ‘catch-up’ payment via check on October 4, 2012 that was cashed October 10, 2012. Nevertheless, you received a phone call and follow up demand letter a few weeks later (likely from an attorney) stating much higher amount than you expected to owe. You sent a dispute letter on November 29, 2012 and all you’ve gotten since are more demand letters (likely with higher and higher demands). Well, here’s likely what happened, even though you paid the past due, at that point, you likely had late penalties and legal fees added in. Now, you’re ‘catch-up’ payment should have been credited (especially since it was cashed); however, they may go after you for late fees and legal fees. Of course, I haven’t seen the demands so I can’t say for sure, but they may have also credited your ‘catch-up’ payment forward meaning they are still lumping the past due debt as still owed in full. I would very highly advise sitting down with an attorney to discuss the details and work on getting this sorted out. The last thing you want is an HOA foreclosure. An attorney will be able to sort out whether the additional charges are proper and what options you may have to deal with them.
Answered on Oct 23rd, 2013 at 10:36 AM