You have an account in front of you. Someone has stopped paying.

Most collection guides start at the beginning and walk forward. That is not how anyone arrives at this problem. You arrive in the middle, with a balance, a date, and a board meeting that is either next week or six weeks away.

So this is organised by where you actually are. Find your situation, read that section, and check the one rule underneath all of them before you do anything.

The rule: in California, one step in this process is not yours to take. The decision to record an assessment lien belongs to the board, by majority vote, in an open meeting, recorded in the minutes. It cannot be delegated to an agent of the association. That means not you, and not your collection attorney either.

Why This Catches Good Managers

Worth pausing on before the detail, because it explains why competent people get this wrong.

The failure mode here is efficiency.

Every instinct that makes you effective at property management works against you in this sequence. Move quickly. Handle it yourself. Do not bother the board with routine matters. Get the collection attorney to take it from here.

Each of those is correct almost everywhere else in the job. In this process, some decisions belong to the board, and the rules change depending on which decision you are making. The lien decision must be made by the board in an open meeting. A payment-plan request is handled with the board, while a later foreclosure decision is made by the board in executive session.

A manager who treats collections like every other task will do everything right and still end up with a lien that has a problem in it. The defect never shows up at the time. It shows up ten weeks later, when counsel reads the file.

"The payment is late. What can I charge?"

You can act immediately. No board involvement needed.

In California an assessment is generally delinquent 15 days after it is due, unless the CC&Rs allow longer. From that point:

A late charge, capped at 10% of the delinquent assessment or $10, whichever is greater, unless your governing documents specify less.

Interest, up to 12% per year, beginning 30 days after the assessment became due.

Two things that go wrong here.

• Do not assume the same delinquent assessment can support a new late charge every month. A late fee on February's assessment is one charge. A late fee added again in March, April and May to that same February amount is something else, and an itemised statement that cannot survive being read line by line becomes a problem at the pre-lien stage.

• And check how your system allocates an incoming payment. California requires payments be applied first to assessments owed, and only after those are paid in full can they go to collection fees and costs, attorney's fees, late charges or interest. A ledger that clears fees before principal will not match the statute. Worth confirming how your billing actually handles that before you have to defend a balance.

"It has been a few months. What should I be doing?"

You can act immediately, and this is where most delinquencies resolve.

Statements, letters, calls. The Davis-Stirling provisions discussed here do not prescribe a particular sequence of those ordinary collection contacts, which is exactly why two things matter.

Follow the written policy identically for every owner. Selective enforcement can become a problem when an owner challenges collection treatment, particularly if similar accounts have been handled differently.

Date and itemise every charge as it is added. The pre-lien notice will require an itemised statement. Reconstructing eleven months of charges from memory in August is how errors get into a recorded document.

"The owner has asked for a payment plan."

The statute gives the owner the right to request this with the board.

California allows an owner to submit a written request to meet with the board to discuss a payment plan. Your instinct will be to negotiate it yourself and report back. That is faster, and it is probably what the board would have agreed anyway. But the statutory process puts the payment-plan discussion with the board, not solely with the manager.

Two practical points.

• A payment plan request does not, by itself, stop the association from recording a lien. Those are separate tracks.

• And if a plan is agreed, put it in writing with dates, amounts, and what happens on default. An oral arrangement the owner remembers differently is worse than no arrangement, because it becomes their answer to everything that follows.

"I want to record a lien."

Stop. Three things have to happen first, and two of them are not yours.

First, the dispute resolution offer. Before recording a lien, the association must offer the owner, and participate if the owner requests, in dispute resolution under its internal meet and confer programme. Offer it in writing. An offer nobody can evidence is barely better than one never made.

Second, the pre-lien notice. At least 30 days before recording, by certified mail to the owner of record, containing a specific list of items:

• A general description of the collection and lien enforcement procedures and how the amount was calculated

• A statement that the owner may inspect association records

• A warning in 14-point boldface, or capital letters if typed, that the property may be sold without court action if it goes into foreclosure

• An itemised statement separating delinquent assessments, collection fees and costs, reasonable attorney's fees, late charges and interest

• Notice of the right to request alternative dispute resolution before foreclosure

If you are working from a template built years ago and never checked against the current statute, that template is an obvious place for a procedural defect to enter the process.

Third, the board vote. Majority vote, open meeting, recorded in the minutes, per account.
Open meeting means noticed, which means agendised. If your board meets every other month, your lien timeline is governed by the meeting calendar, not by the delinquency. And "the board authorised the manager to proceed on delinquent accounts as needed" is not what the statute requires. The vote is on this account.

"The lien is recorded. Am I finished?"

Not for another ten days.

A copy of the recorded notice of delinquent assessment must be mailed by certified mail to every person shown as an owner in the association's records, no later than 10 calendar days after recordation.

Ten days from recordation, not from when the county sends confirmation back, which can be later.

This is a deadline an association can miss when it outsources recording and assumes the vendor handles the mailing. Establish who owns that step, in writing, before the first lien rather than after.

"Can we foreclose?"

Check the assessment figure, not the balance.

Under California's framework, foreclosure on an assessment lien is generally available where the delinquent assessments secured by the lien equal or exceed $1,800, or where the assessments secured by the lien are more than 12 months delinquent.

That threshold excludes late charges, fees, collection costs, attorney's fees and interest.

So an account showing $2,400, made up of $1,200 in assessments and $1,200 in everything else, does not clear $1,800 on the assessment figure alone.

Which is the itemisation from the pre-lien stage doing work again. An association that cannot separate assessments from other charges cannot tell whether it is eligible.

There is also a further dispute resolution obligation before initiating foreclosure, and the decision itself is the board's, by majority vote in executive session.

"I think we skipped a step."

Do not record another lien on top. That is not a fix.

California addresses procedural failure directly, and consequences range from having to start the sequence again to releasing the lien and paying the owner's costs. Where a lien was recorded in error, there are specific release and rescission obligations with their own timeline.

Four things, in order.

• Establish the dates before the argument:
  When was the pre-lien notice sent, by what method, with what enclosed. When did the board vote, and does the minute record it. When was the recorded copy mailed.

• Take advice specific to the defect:
  Some failures can be cured by restarting. Others cannot.

• Assume it is not one file:
  If nobody had written down which steps require the board, every lien recorded that year has the same defect.

• Then fix the process:
  Which mostly means one thing: put delinquent accounts on every board agenda as a standing item. A manager who does that never waits for a meeting. A manager who raises accounts when they become urgent waits six weeks, every time.

The Board Decisions You Cannot Take Yourself

Strip everything else away and three board-dependent decisions matter most in this sequence.

The payment plan discussion, which §5665 gives the owner the right to request with the board.

The decision to record the lien, which the board must approve by majority vote in an open meeting and cannot delegate.

The decision to initiate foreclosure, which must also be approved by the board by majority vote, but in executive session.

Most of the other steps are operational steps you can plan and manage. The important point is knowing which decision belongs to the board before you act on the account.

Running that timeline across several associations with different meeting schedules is where this stops being a checklist and becomes a system.

If You Manage Outside California

Davis-Stirling is unusually prescriptive. Most states leave more to the governing documents.

What travels is the set of questions. For every association you manage, know these before the first delinquency rather than during it:

When does an assessment become delinquent
What may be added, at what rate, starting when
What notice is required before a lien, and how far in advance
Who is authorised to make the decision
What threshold applies before foreclosure

Texas associations, for instance, sit under Chapter 209 of the Property Code alongside their dedicatory instruments, with its own notice and payment plan provisions. The answers differ. The questions are the same five.

The Statutory Detail

For California readers who want the citations.

Civil Code §5650 covers the debt, late charges, collection costs and interest. §5655 requires payments be applied first to assessments owed. §5658 covers payment under protest and the small claims option.

§5660 sets the pre-lien notice requirements and the 30 day period. §5665 covers payment plans. §5670 requires the dispute resolution offer.

§5673 requires board approval by majority vote in an open meeting and prohibits delegation to an agent.

§5675 sets the lien contents and the 10 day post-recording notice. §5680 covers priority. §5685 covers recording, release and rescission including liens recorded in error. §5690 addresses failure to follow the procedures before recording.

§5700 to §5720 cover lien enforcement, foreclosure procedures, dispute resolution before foreclosure, trustee sale requirements, and the foreclosure thresholds. §5705 requires the board to approve foreclosure by majority vote in executive session.

All readable at California Legislative Information, which is the source to check before relying on any of it.

FAQ

1. When does an HOA assessment become delinquent in California?
Generally 15 days after it is due, unless the CC&Rs allow longer.

2. What late fee can an association charge?
The greater of 10% of the delinquent assessment or $10, unless the governing documents specify less. Interest up to 12% per year may begin 30 days after the assessment was due.

3. Can the manager decide to record a lien?
No. The decision must be made by the board, by majority vote in an open meeting, recorded in the minutes, and may not be delegated to an agent.

4. Does a payment plan request stop a lien?
Not by itself. They are separate tracks.

5. How much notice before a lien?
At least 30 days, by certified mail, with the specific contents the statute requires.

This article describes general concepts and is not legal advice. Collection and lien procedures are governed by state law and by each association's governing documents, and vary substantially. Confirm your position with the association's counsel before taking collection action.