Questions about HUGE assessments By Elizabeth Rhodes
September 3rd, 2007 by Tish Johnson
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Try to seek compromise when noise annoys
By Elizabeth Rhodes
Seattle Times staff reporter
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Q: During the nine years I’ve owned my Redmond condo, homeowners’ dues and occasional special assessments have been reasonable. Now a new special assessment will effectively triple my housing expense - a real hardship for me.
I feel the homeowners’ association is playing catch-up for all the years they chose to not face the mounting cost of deferred maintenance and improvement.
What are my options regarding this assessment?
If I choose to not pay, can my property be taken from me or can I be evicted?
A: Hitting owners with a special assessment is the uncomfortable solution facing an association that’s failed to set aside adequate funds to pay for long-term maintenance.
The root of that problem is the condo owners who resist setting dues at a level that makes saving possible.
“We’re seeing associations with $30,000 to $60,000 per unit in special assessments,” says Seattle attorney James Strichartz. And he’s hearing more tales of financial hardship for owners.
Associations have a lot of power to ensure owners pay these special assessments; otherwise owners who declined could shift the financial burden to their neighbors, jeopardizing the financial health of the entire association.
That leaves you with two viable options, Strichartz says. “One is to pay the assessment. The other is to sell the unit if you can’t afford to pay the assessment.”
The untenable third option, refusing to pay, puts you on a road to foreclosure. Your association can trigger this action, using the sale of your home to satisfy the special-assessment debt. Your condo documents allow it.
Whether this seems fair or not is for owners to debate. But one possible salve is this: You’ve lived there for nine years, paying less in dues than necessary to stay out of this situation.
So you’ve saved money all these years. Now you’re being required to pay up.
So what’s the solution? To do what your association has probably done.
It likely got a commercial loan to front the money for repairs and improvements.
To pay that loan back, homeowners in your situation often get some form of a home loan.
The Author: Tish Johnson
About: Tish Johnson is a Seattle native; through her real estate printing and marketing company, she identifies properties and markets them through networking and print marketing to secures buyers. She is also active in markets in Dallas Texas, San Diego, CA, Grays Harbor County, WA. Specializing in out of state buyers looking to gain a presence in the Seattle and Northwest Markets, she also works with developers to build green housing/developments for use in independent living facilities.
This entry was posted by Tish Johnson, on Monday, September 3rd, 2007 at 8:17 pm and is filed under Featured, Real Estate-Res., Links. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response below.
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