Posted on 08/03/2026 4:35:22 PM PDT by Libloather
America’s homeowners associations are running out of money — and patience.
Amid rising insurance premiums, drained reserve funds and increased safety measures in the wake of the Surfside condominium collapse, the country’s hundreds of thousands of homeowners associations are cracking down on delinquent residents.
Even more startling, HOAs are skipping grace periods and handing delinquent accounts over to attorneys.
**SNIP**
Besides delinquencies, costs have been rising for HOAs in insurance premiums, staffing, lawn care and materials. The annual insurance premium at one Long Island HOA surged to $360,000 from $60,000.
Plus, there’s the expense of meeting stricter safety measures, which were instituted in the wake of the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo, a 2021 tragedy that claimed 98 lives.
As unpaid dues trigger legal battles and delayed upkeep, the mounting cash crunch isn’t just threatening individual homeowners — it’s tanking property values for entire neighborhoods.
In many states, “super priority” laws even let HOAs foreclose over unpaid dues before banks can.
At Fairview Condo 1 in Middle Island, N.Y., 15 of its 202 units are allegedly behind on the $595 monthly dues, amounting to a monthly shortfall of roughly $8,900. Ten of them are in foreclosure. The board is handling it by levying special assessments, and postponing upkeep, the WSJ noted.
Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s Las Vegas home was saddled with $25,000 in unpaid dues starting in January 2025, plus interest and legal fees, the WSJ found.
Mayweather’s attorney said the unpaid dues stemmed from an accounting oversight that has since been settled following a recent overhaul of the boxer’s financial team.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
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Abolish the HOA
They certainly can be. Think a bunch of middle age and older people running to be class president or members of the student council.
All it takes is a couple of hard core Karens and there goes the neighborhood.
If folks want to gamble they should go to casinos.
The original intent is to preserve/improve property values—but if stuff starts to go wrong it has the exact opposite effect.
I live in a HOA. I see lots of residents who want the association to foreclose over unpaid dues.
Uninformed residents.
I ask if they really want to foreclose which means paying off all superior mortgage loans and unpaid property taxes?
Do they really want to take on ownership of a property with $500,000 in legal liabilities and try to sell it? In a market where maybe the actual value is $250,000 to $300,000?
I hope that your neighbor doesn’t open a meth house and prostitution ring. This happened to my husband and me. Our house became almost unsellable, and the police were no help whatsoever. ( I believe they were part of it.)
That was 25 years ago. Since then, we have only lived in HOA communities. They have far more power and control over unsavory activities. Before buying, though, be sure to read at least 5 years of the minutes of the HOA meetings. This will let you know if the members are crazy or not. Our experiences have been excellent.
By the way, unpaid dues are a burden on the other members who do pay promptly. I have little patience for it because it means delayed repairs and upkeep.
Morgana, please read my post #6. Our experience with a neighborhood that had no HOA was truly horrible. In one instance, my 10-year-old daughter, watching from our kitchen window, witnessed a throat-slashing and near murder. The victime spent a month in the ICU.
The condo thing’s a mess... if residents ignore problems and don’t make necessary repairs the state can condemn the building - and EVERYONE’s kicked out.
Then your condo goes from being worth - say - $300,000 to being worth nothing.
Is that the better solution?
In our HOA, if you rat out a neighbor for some covenant violation, the HOA also comes after you. It’s not in the bylaws, but it’s understood.
Definitely not. It’s just that the big things often get buried in perseveration about things that don’t matter - so the important things don’t get done.
Remember the great short in 2008 (”the American subprime mortgage crisis”)?
People were taking sledge hammers to their houses before the banks took them over. And feces. Lots of feces.
I love my HOA.
They serve no purpose and are usually abusive.
” They have far more power and control over unsavory activities. “
Actually, they do not. They have limited authority.
Condos don’t have HOA’S.
“ bunch of middle age and older people running to be…”
Hostile. Nasty FR
some very limited ones are ok. Like if you have a neighborhood pool and they keep their area of focus on just making sure that is maintained. And the if the neighbors mostly have decent humanity and common sense.
But they still wield a ton of power so if you get the wrong group in office it can be hell.
My HOA is worthless. In 2000 our dues were $200 per year. Now its about $800 and that’s because, with only 90 homes, the last electe4d HOA board hired a property management company for $13,000 per year to do what we elected the board to do. The board does absolutely nothing and they let certain homeowners have a jungle for a yard when the covenants clearly say you have to have grass. One of the board members has a jungle yard.
I went to a meeting last year and they were talking like they hadn’t discussed anything at all before I had and I asked them about it since they were just catching up and wasting everyone’s time. They said they couldn’t talk and it was against the “rules.” I said you people are unbelievable. You are supposed to discuss issues prior. You just can’t make decisions prior to offical meetings. SMH.
“before I had”
before Hand
“I ask if they really want to foreclose which means paying off all superior mortgage loans and unpaid property taxes?”
Those are not paid off until after the sale.
“Do they really want to take on ownership of a property with $500,000 in legal liabilities and try to sell it? In a market where maybe the actual value is $250,000 to $300,000?”
The mortgage is in the name of person that takes out the mortgage. He is still on the hook, not the HOA.
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