No one enjoys forcing payment plans, filing liens, or even foreclosing on their friend’s home. But when homeowners don’t pay their homeowners association fees, the rest of the neighbors must pick up the slack through higher fees, special assessments, or minimized spending on community upkeep and amenities.

Just a few homeowners who stop making HOA fee payments can cut into an association’s budget quickly. Annual HOA fees average $420 for single-family homes and $2,400 for condos, the U.S. Census Bureau says. If too many homeowners stop paying their HOA fees, lenders might be unwilling to make mortgages or refinance properties in the community. Fannie Mae, for example, will not guarantee loans in condominiums where more than 15% of the homeowners are 30 days or more overdue on HOA fees. That can hurt property values.

The sooner action is taken to collect past-due accounts, the better off everyone is. With 25 of the 200 units in foreclosure, the association waits only 60 days before telling delinquent owners that the HOA is going to place a lien against the title to their home. Consult your community association’s attorney and read for yourself what the bylaws say you can do about delinquent homeowners. Weigh the costs of the actions your board could take.

Legal fees for letters demanding payment can run $200 to $500 for each home, but every case is different. Suing a homeowner individually and trying to garnish wages to collect delinquent fees could cost $2,000 or more. Your community’s attorney may be able to recommend a collection agency with experience working on HOA cases. Foreclosing on a homeowner who owes back dues could cost much more and won’t result in payment unless the unit is worth more than the value of any mortgages and liens already on the property, plus attorney, home-sale, and court costs.

Offer a payment plan to owners in financial distress. Divvy up the delinquent amount into monthly installments. Some associations may try for a 12-month plan, but a six-month deadline with an option to renew seems to generate better results.

Some, but not all, states permit HOAs to sue homeowners for dues that aren’t paid and then garnish the homeowner’s wages or bank accounts. Taking a case all the way to trial could cost the HOA several thousand dollars. Having an HOA officer take the case to small claims court may be an option in your area.

Talk to your association’s attorney about reverse foreclosure. Many communities in Florida are using a legal technique called reverse foreclosure to force banks to foreclose on unit owners who are making neither mortgage nor HOA fee payments. The move forces the bank to go ahead and foreclose on the unit. Once the bank owns the unit, it then has to make the HOA payments.

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In the first two articles I defined what a delinquent account that had been sent to collection was, how sending late accounts out to an debt collection company benefits a creditor, and the practice of selling an old debt to a third party collection agency.

I described what sort of data a collection company will collect and use in their efforts, and also that third party collection agencies are governed by federal and state laws and are overseen by the FTC.

Some collection agencies will use illegal, deceptive and strong arm tactics to confuse and intimidate consumers including pretending that they are one of their creditors and requesting them to verify information, pretending to be an old friend or neighbor to catch a debtor off guard, repetitively calling or mailing a debtor to the point where it becomes a nuisance, or sending threatening letters or leaving threatening voicemail messages.

Legal but manipulative practices include pressing the debtor, preying on their emotions, and using vague threats like “respond within ten days or further collections attempts will follow.” Other illegal methods include idly threatening lawsuits or pursuing lawsuits when the collection agent has no intention to, threatening to throw a debtor in jail, threatening to garnish wages or seize bank accounts when they have no authority to, lying about the amount that is owed, or asking for more than what is owed are used as well.

For the debt collection industry, time is the enemy and a good debt collector is fully aware of this. Their goal is specifically to obtain money as soon as possible.If you are talking to a debt collector, keep in mind that at any time you have the legal right to tell them you are busy and will call them back if you are flustered, hang up, cool off, develop a game plan, and contact them later. An aggressive debt collector will ask you why you can’t make payment arrangements today.

Rapid Recovery Solution is a commercial collection agency that writes articles on medical collection agencies. This article, Legal And Illegal Tactics A Debt Collector Will Use To Collect: Debt Collection Basics Part Three is released under a creative commons attribution licence.

Collection companies mostly utilize phone calls and letters to achieve collection. Collection letters are usually computer generated, and differ in severity. The first letter generally starts with a simple “reminder” tone and as the letters progress they may build up to a final demand.

The first demand letter must legally state that the debtor has the right to dispute the validity of the debt, or if they choose to, request written verification of the debt. If they would like to receive written verification, the agency by law must send some sort of confirmation after verifying it with the original creditor. Demand letters will also confirm that they come from a debt collector, and that any information obtained will be utilized in the attempt to collect debt.

The envelopes that third party collection agencies use can’t disclose anything pertaining to their nature. Thus, anything embarrassing, such as a post card, would be strictly prohibited. The return address should also be discrete; as a result many collection agencies will simply utilize their company’s initials, or some other type of vague name.

The nature of the additional notices will depend on the debtor’s reaction. If a debtor agrees to pay off the debt this will most likely result in letters written with a gentler tone. Belligerent reactions, or even a lack of reaction from the debtor might result in a more threatening tone to the letter.

The idea of debt collection is to try to achieve a sense of urgency. Most collection agents are aware that a good amount of debtors owe many types of debt and try to instigate the debtor to prioritize their particular account. Deadlines may be set, with vague threatening tones, but failure to respond generally results in only more correspondence. Collection letters will always attempt to convince the debtor to call the collection agency on the telephone directly. If the debtor does not within thirty days, then the collector will often initiate phone calls.

Mallory Megan works for Rapid Recovery Solution and writes articles on medical collection agencies Free reprint avaialable from: How Will A Collection Agent Try To Collect My Debt?.