How to Collect HOA Debt Without Becoming a Villain

For most of us, managing debt is a series of impossible choices. Which bills will we be able to pay down this month? The car repairs? The medical bills? The vet bills? The kids’ tuition? The mortgage? What happens when the unthinkable happens and a tragedy piles on even more debt?

Where on the ever-growing list of dollars owed should our HOA fees end up?

As a Board member, the choice seems obvious. The community needs the money, and you know others will be on the hook for it if you don’t pay—it winds up near the top of the list.

But as a homeowner, the ranking is almost always different. Too many times, homeowners are faced with keeping the lights on, the family fed, or the HOA funded. They forgo the thing that feels like a luxury and hope the community won’t foreclose.

The Dichotomy of Good and Necessary

Being on the HOA board, it’s difficult to reconcile your role in the community with your place in the neighborhood.

On the one hand, you understand the impact every single incoming dollar has on the community’s safety and value. HOA assessments make community upkeep possible, support ongoing and emergency maintenance needs, and generally work to preserve home value. All great things that homeowners should fund, right?

But on the other, you’re a person living through tough times, with family and friends living through tough times. You recognize that when bills are stacked against someone, impossible choices must be made.

At Axela, we’ve seen first-hand how this struggle can hurt a community’s bottom line.

Doing What’s Necessary the Right Way

Because of the nature of the HOA collections process, Board members can sometimes feel that there are only two solutions to delinquency: write it off and assume it will never be

recovered or tell your neighbor you’re going to initiate a process that will take their home away if they don’t pay up.

Unfortunately, this is a pretty accurate description of the typical HOA collections process. And for obvious reasons, being forced to choose between leaving money on the table or foreclosing on a neighbor is unacceptable.

HOAs should never dismiss debt as unrecoverable. It’s a disservice to the community and can put board members in a tricky position. You are obligated to operate in the best interests of the community, and ensuring a strong cash flow is part of the job.

But that doesn’t make initiating a foreclosure any easier.

In other industries, there’s a simple solution for this: find a middle ground. But that’s historically not been an option in the HOA space. And the options other industries have, like selling debt to collections agencies, simply aren’t the answer.

Creating a bridge to effectively and respectfully guide delinquent homeowners through the debt repayment process is Axela Technologies’ number one priority. By coupling intuitive technology with courteous communications, our debt collection platform offers HOAs and condo communities the opportunity to recover unpaid assessments without forcing neighbors out onto the streets.

We Are Here to Help

At Axela, our mission has always been heavily influenced by the needs of the Board. By working with delinquent homeowners to understand their financial priorities, our unique HOA collections platform helps determine and set up achievable payment plans to avoid foreclosure. Your community’s success is critical, but so is having a clear conscience at the end of the day.

Less than 1% of delinquencies in our collections process end in foreclosure.

If you’re ready to compassionately collect your HOA’s delinquencies, contact us today.