Timely assessment collection is a responsibility of every non-voluntary association. In fact, it is the one responsibility that makes it possible to pay for the others. How can our associations help us to do an even better job for them?
 
Communicate!
 
Happily, a large percentage of collection matters resolve early and agreeably. Often, a delinquent owner simply pays after receiving a demand letter from our firm.
 
Some matters, however, proceed through litigation and judgment collection. In those problem cases, we need information that may be obvious to a delinquent owner’s neighbors, but is not readily available elsewhere. For example, to get a delinquent owner to respond in court, it is necessary to personally serve the owner with a Summons and Complaint. However, the Sheriff’s Deputies or private process servers don’t know when an owner can be found at home unless somebody tells them. For instance, if they know that an owner works nights but can be found at home most mornings, service of process can be accomplished quicker and cheaper than after repeated, unsuccessful trips to the owner's residence.
 
Once an owner has been served and judgment is obtained in favor of the association, the delinquent owner may fail to pay the judgment. However, the amounts due can be collected from the owner’s assets. These include bank accounts, rents (if the owner rents out the property) and wages, all seized by the issuance through the Court of Writs of Garnishment. Of course, to reach those assets, we need to know where they are. A variety of tools are available to verify employment or other assets but they take time and cost money to use. Often, association boards or community managers know where an owner works or banks. Information as simple as an “Ajax, Inc.” parking sticker on an owner’s windshield can short-cut issuance through the court of Interrogatories, service of Interrogatories on a delinquent owner and securing return and analysis of information received. Since the owner ultimately bears legal costs of collection in most cases, the owner as well as the association benefits from quick, simple information.
 
So, how can the association help us collect assessments?

1. Forward copies of checks the delinquent owner may have used to pay the association in the past.
2. If an owner has moved, provide us with a new address, even if the information is incomplete. We can find the right “Jane Doe” quicker if we know she is in Fargo than if we are looking in every state of the union.
3. Tell us where the owner works. The alternatives of credit checks and skip traces take time and cost money and they are only as good as the data in the respective systems.
4. If an owner has vacated the unit but someone else is in it, give us a name and a phone number. If the occupant is renting from the owner, those rents can be garnished and paid to the association.
5. Other information, such as possible impending sales, refinances, foreclosures or bankruptcy, can save costs of ineffective efforts or allow us to avoid steps that only slow down the collection process.
6. Update any information as soon as you can. Time and money is wasted hiring a Sheriff’s Deputy to serve an owner at a place the owner left last month.

Associations need to collect assessments in order to responsibly serve the community. A little shared information makes that responsible service quicker and easier.