[MEDIA] Foreclosures urged for service charge arrears

[jdwex]

Apartment management companies should be allowed to dispossess those member owners who willingly and persistently fail to pay their management service charges. Otherwise there is a serious risk that some owner management companies (OMCs) may go bust.

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He proposed the creation of a dedicated court to fast track collection cases, saying "this would be a far more cost-effective and efficient debt collection system for these struggling companies".
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"It is the mounting level of arrears from those owners who have never paid their service charges, even when times were good, that is the problem and of much greater concern to OMCs."

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.. the OMC should be able to make it a condition of sale that any arrears pass to the successor in title.
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"That will have the effect of arrears being discharged at the time of a sale and by the apartment owner who incurred them," he said.

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[shesells]

Interesting article, and I agree with the premise. You sign legal contracts that say you will pay fees - if you persistently don't, you should forfeit the contract.

I'm not being hard hearted here, we have payment plan options for fee collection but we have one owner who has not paid fees for years and is an absentee landlord who really doesn't care what kind of tenants he puts in there. He could probably afford to buy the entire development but is just belligerent.