MD Court of Appeals limits CIC's ability to use court to collect delinquent fees.

Ask Nancy

IN what is a pretty shocking decision for the State of Communities.  The Maryland Ct of appeals has recently ruled that private communities aka condos coops hoas cannot come to the court with leins on properties for small amounts of money.  What the courts decision leave unsettled is who's responsibility is it to establish communities that need the fee to meet agreed to budgets as state in every Resale package other then places like DC that don't require a package because they have not for some reason enacted the Uniform homeowner association provisions which mirror the Condominium Act ones they seems to think are important.   #just saying. 

We are going to be posting a link to more in-depth coverage of this from minds over at AskNancy.Info. 

 

Dodd Chastises Senate's 'Newest Members' For Their Behavior

Hey Senator Dodd how about you get off your decorum and get something done that helps the people and not the bankers and specifically Fannie and Freddy. You know very well that both of these agencies while in possession of thousands of homes are not paying the HOA or Condo dues and, both agencies are failing to provide docs or finical statements at closing... All of which are violations of law and their under writing guidelines.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

It's against the bylaws and just stupid how about these reasons.

Residents furious after HOA fees lost in stock market

A September letter from HOA property manager Nicki Williams to homeowner Jennifer Lowery-Bell states the board opened an account with Ameriprise and made the initial one-time investment in September 2007 of more than $80,000. As of July 2009, less than $77,000 was in the account, posting a more than $14,000 loss as of July 31.

Lowery-Bell said she learned about the investment in late July from board member David Bosworth, a Campus Way South homeowner who joined the board in September 2007. Bell then wrote two letters to Williams in August and September 2009 inquiring how the losses will be refunded and if any other investments have been made.

"They said they would assess the situation and get back with us, and it was never done," Lowery-Bell said of the board's comment at a September meeting about the situation.

The 321 homes in the community each pay $76 per month in homeowner fees, a total of $292,752 per year, said Lowery-Bell, who also is founder and coordinator of Campus Way South Homeowners Neighborhood Watch Program.

Williams, who collects the HOA fees and provides financial management to the board of directors, said she believes the board is acting in the best interest of the homeowners and that the board decided to invest the money in the Ameriprise account because interest rates at the time were low.

"$14,000 isn't a loss unless you want to retrieve your money today. I can't say it's right or wrong [to invest the money]," Williams said. "There was never any real thought that what they were doing was wrong."

Clearly the management company is lying or cant read the Bylaws of the Community they are offering management advice too.  I wonder if someone got a fee for steering this community to this investment firm and how many other communities have done the same?

What we do know is that the State of Maryland or anyone else for that matter could careless about bout issues in private communities which is why they only approve them for new developments.

Homeowner Associations, Bylaws, Stock Market.

Fannie Mae: "Deed For Lease" Program Will Let Thousands Rent Out Homes To Avoid Foreclosure

btw if these homes are in a Condo or HOA that already have too many non- owner occupied units this will further undermine the community. Yet who cares in DC if your whole community is failing, not fannie, freddy or hud they refuse to pay their assessments or even to disclose the financial health of the community to the new buyers they are sucker into them. What's a law or underwriting regulation when it comes to the government? Answer NOTHING.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Foreclosures Are More Profitable Than Loan Modifications, According To New Report

That's funny cuz they are not paying community assessments while they are in control of the property and most in not all of the condo, townhouse and hoa communities have plenty of foreclosed homes and they are running negative budgets and face huge special assessments and possibly bankruptcy in some cases



btw expect no help from the GOV or agencies like FANNIE, HUD, or the VA they are paying either and even raised the delinquency rates to 15 percent cuz they don't want too.



stateofcom­munities.o­rg
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Why no one claims an empty home.

Bank-Owned Homes Surge, Communities Stung « The Washington Independent

The growing number of bank-owned properties in foreclosure scarring neighborhoods across the country.

The volume of bank-owned foreclosed homes — known as REOs, or real-estate owned properties — is growing at an alarming rate, compounding the foreclosure crisis by sticking hard-hit neighborhoods with vacant and often trashed homes that drive down property values even more. REOs are foreclosed homes that lenders take back after they don’t sell at foreclosure auctions or sheriff’s sales. They keep the homes in inventory until they can be sold again.

The bottom line is that many of these homes( as many as 3 out of 5) are in condos, town home or single family homeowner associations. And, the banks or FANNIE don't want to be on the hook for the assessments.

So they just let the homes sit idol. To them nothing is happening. To the community the rest of the owners are dealing with not only the blight of them, they are dealing with the budget shortfall that empty homes cause and there is absolutely no help coming out of Washington DC.

If the number of home in the US that are in common interest communities is any where near the number trade groups like CAI post ( http://www.caionline.org/about/press/Pages/IndustryLeadersFormCAIChapterinNewMexico.aspx ) then this housing debacle is far from over and your government is trying it's best to cover it up.

Forclosures, Condo, Coop, HOA, Fannies, Banks, Homes.

Fannie Mae and Assessments.

It appears that my years of asking that our Government take notice of the rise in delinquent Assessments and the effect this has on communities has not only fell upon cold marble Fannie has gone and done the exact opposite.

Delinquent HOA Dues for Units in Attached Condominium Projects
Announcement 07-18 states that when using CPM Expedited Review and Lender Full
Review for an established project consisting of attached units, no more than 15 percent of
the condominium/association fee payments can be more than one month delinquent.
Fannie Mae is updating its delinquent HOA dues policy for the CPM Expedited Review
and Lender Full Review processes to require that no more than 15 percent of the total
units in a project can be 30 days or more past due on the payment of their
condominium/association fee payments. This new policy applies to the review of both
new and established attached condominium projects.

https://www.efanniemae.com/sf/guides/ssg/annltrs/pdf/2008/0834.pdf

So in simple terms a condo/coop/hoa budget is suppose to equal zero at the end of each calendar year. The budget is made up of line items that are explained in your documents and have a reason for being there. So when up 15 percent of the unit owners are not paying them what does this mean. It means either the services which are mandated by the documents are not preformed (trash pickup, recycling snow removal, common area maintenance, management fees, security street lights) and the community is in breach of it's own operating guidelines or a special assessment has been passed, which truth be told is considered personal debt, to make up for the budget short fall.


So what to guess has not been paying those assessment then look no further then FANNIE, FREDDY, HUD & VA. They have more of the properties then anyone and while they have been in possession of them the lack of good faith effort to pay the back assessment should be considered criminal.

Think about it someone was not paying the mortgage do anyone really think they were paying the community fees.

Why criminal! Because FANNIE requires a 921 Project questionnaire on every loan that it fund in a planned community and prior to this announcement the previous amount of delinquent assessments was no more then 10 percent.

Since they are the owners of so many homes this was starting to be a real problem. Thus the need for them to help the government was clearly greater then the need to help the community actually get the funds they need to fund the budget. How many homes did Fannie sell prior to this new percentage failed to even meet their own requirement? Is Fannie even filling out the 921 when they sell foreclosed properties.

The effect of all this is that anyone that happens to be buying into a community that has 15 percent deficit in income is walking into a huge problem and the government is doing nothing to help and in fact they are the problem.

btw the average community is more like 20 percent late if not higher.