Your first encounter with a delinquent homeowner may catch you off guard, you may be unsure how to best handle this situation. At Axela, we specialize in homeowner association fee collections. In this article we will discuss the five mistakes to avoid when collecting past due Maintenance Fees
The first thing you need to know is what not to do when a unit becomes delinquent. Collecting Past Due Maintenance Fees is both an art and a science
- Do not send inconsistent messages. Ensure that your past due reminders are consistent, accurate, and sent in a timely manner. Past due reminders can be in the form of written notices, letters, and phone calls.
- Do not be disrespectful. Don’t take an aggressive posture with delinquent owners, always treat them courteously.
- Do not neglect the homeowner’s questions or concerns.Your job as a community association manager or board member is to listen to homeowners’ concerns. If they would like to discuss past due assessments, you should act promptly and address their questions. The more the delinquent homeowner understands, the sooner you will recover the money.
- Do not forget to have an obligation for repayment. An obligation to pay should be established even if the delinquent homeowner cannot pay immediately. Call them and agree on a date when they can pay you in full. If they can’t pay in full, consider accepting partial payments via a written payment plan. Document this agreement and hold the client to their obligations.
- Do not let time pass you by. The longer an account is delinquent, the less likely you are to recover funds. Be persistent in your recovery efforts. If your efforts are not effective, it’s time to hire a collections agency. Collections delayed are collections denied.
So those are the Five Mistakes to Avoid When Collecting Past Due Maintenance Fees but you can be sure that there are more. Please contact Axela Technologies for a free proposal or consultation. Click this link to get a free template of a Uniform Collection Policy that you can put together at your next board meeting.
Axela Technologies is a national company that specializes in collecting delinquent maintenance fees for community associations. We are an accredited collection agency for community associations.
Our goal is to recover your association’s money quickly and at no cost to the community as all of our fees are paid by the delinquent owner and if we don’t collect our fees that is our risk and loss.
Our proprietary community association collections platform is designed to be client facing so that boards of directors and managers can keep track of the status of their collections files by simply logging on and looking in.
