Q: my HOA hired a collection firm for a miscommunication problem regarding my quarterly payments can they over charge me?
my HOA hired a collection firm for a miscommunication problem regarding my quarterly payments
the initial amount owed did not exceed the 1000 USD but the collection agency plans on charge me over 6K
even after I went and explain the situation to the board regarding the miscommunication and acknowledge and agree to pay the quarterly payments missing they refer me to the collection agency.
is the legal to get legal fees, interest charges and some extra for over 5 times the amount owed?
A:
The short answer is yes. An HOA is usually entitled to recover "reasonable and necessary" attorney fees to collect unpaid dues payments. The amount of attorney fees that is "reasonable and necessary" depends upon the amount of time involved. This amount often exceeds the amount of very small debts like $1,000.
As a general rule, I refer individual litigants to the JP court to resolve disputes involving less than $20,000 because the amount of "reasonable and necessary" attorney fees in most cases easily exceeds the $20,000 jurisdictional limit for small claims in JP court. Individual litigants of even below average intelligence with only a little bit of common sense can usually represent themselves in JP court without the need of an attorney. Corporations and other business entities usually cannot represent themselves in court except through a licensed attorney. So they have to incur "reasonable and necessary" attorney fees of thousands of dollars for even the simplest collection cases.
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