Condo Media - August 2013 - 26

ASKED & NAME
COLUMN ANSWERED

Collect Correct
The Uncomfortable Task of Collecting Overdue Payments

QUESTION: Our small (15-unit)
Massachusetts condominium is having trouble collecting the monthly fee
from some unit owners. As a result,
we are having trouble meeting the association’s expenses. The association’s
rules give the association the right
to impose a $25 late fee on residents
who don’t make their payments on
time, but this has not proven to be
an effective deterrent, and the board
members responsible for enforcing
the rules ﬁnd it awkward to demand
overdue payments from their neighbors. Can you offer any advice on
how to collect the payments and still
keep the residents of this small community on friendly terms?

ANSWER: The collection process
can (and should) be polite, businesslike, and even sensitive. But I’m not
sure there is any way to ensure that
the efforts to collect overdue payments will be perceived as “friendly”
by the residents from whom the
payments are being demanded. On
the other hand, there is nothing
“friendly” about their refusal to make
their payments on time. As you noted,
the collection problems are making
it difﬁcult for the association to meet
its ﬁnancial obligations, which puts
the interests of all the other owners
at risk. Failing to pursue delinquent
payments in a timely fashion may also
limit the association’s ability to fully
recover those costs. The Massachusetts
Superlien statute allows you to collect
up to six months’ unpaid fees plus the
legal costs related to them. So if nine
months of delinquent payments have
amassed before you ﬁle, three months
will be beyond your reach.

CONDO MEDIA • AUGUST 2013

Your desire to
maintain a pleasant
atmosphere is understandable, especially
in a relatively small
community. And
certainly demanding
payment from your
neighbors is awkward,
to say the least — but
not nearly as awkward
as failing to cover
essential expenses
would be for the association. Your board
should certainly try
to talk to the delinquent owners to see if
the problems can be
resolved in a non-adversarial way. If there
are hardships, the
board can try to ﬁnd
solutions outside of
legal action that may
be less painful for the
owners involved. All
of those steps are possible, but the bottom
line is that a condominium is a business,
not a social club — at
least, it should be.
You can be as charitable as you want to
be — but do it with
your own money, not
the association’s. It’s not fair to the
other unit owners to subsidize those
who aren’t making their payments. If
your neighbors are having problems,
you can feel badly for them and you
can try to be sensitive. But ultimately,
your board has a ﬁduciary duty to

pursue the collection efforts as aggressively as necessary. If board members are uncomfortable taking these
measures themselves, they should
retain an attorney or a management
company to handle the process for
them. CM

Condo Media - August 2013

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Condo Media - August 2013