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HOA board terrorized by "hard to handle" delinquent owner


Question:

delinquent ownerI am the president of my condo association, and am dealing with a difficult situation. Our condo association has a high delinquency rate. We are a 150-unit property with over 40 homeowners behind in assessments. In total, in arrears is about $100,000. Earlier this year, the board voted to reassign the delinquent owners' spaces to visitors spaces, per our a provision in our bylaws. Residents can still park in front of their homes, but being that their spaces are now marked "Visitor", their spaces are fair game. This action lit a fire under some homeowners to start working out payment arrangements. Per our bylaws, once a delinquent homeowner has paid at least 50% of the amount owned, his/her parking assignment(s) will be restored. Most homeowners, while upset about this, respect the rules and regulations and are working on paying down their delinquencies.

However, we have one owner -- an incredibly rude and defiant woman -- who owes over $8,000 (the most of any owner) and she refuses to abide by the rules. We've had her space spray painted at least three times because she goes and spray paints it back. When we talk to her about it, she lashes out with all kinds of irrational talk and profanity. She said she's not working and is on disability and she knows we can't do anything to her, so she feels she is justified in taking her space back. Yet those who owe less than her are forced to deal with the situation. This woman comes to board meetings terrorizing us with all kinds of demands for work she says needs to be done in and around her unit. Yet we haven't see a payment from her since 2005. We got a judgment against her last year. And when we attempted to file a lien against her, she scrambled to make an effort to pay. We were fooled. The condo attorney is slow-moving on this issue and just refiled the lien 2 months ago. There was a "show cause" hearing last week, and the woman claimed she is on disability and babysits occasionally. Meanwhile, she drives a 2008 Lexus. She's living off of something, but what we don't know. We feel like our hands are tied and this woman is holding us hostage. She said she knows we can't do anything to her because we can't garnish her disability payment. We are looking at possibly pursuing a bank garnishment or putting a lien on her car. She volunteered that someone else already has a lien on her car; apparently she was thinking ahead.

My questions are: (1) what can we do to enforce the parking? The county police said since we are private property they can't enforce. Is there some sort of foolproof paint we can use on her space? and (2) what remedies could we pursue to collect payment?

I cannot fathom the association having to foot the bill for work needing to be done to her unit all the while she's sitting around carefree with no intentions of even trying to pay a dollar towards the thousands that she owes us? We are hesitant to foreclose as we might not be able to resell her unit in this economy. Please help. Thanks.


Answers (17)

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