Should Any Buyer Pay a Seller's Back HOA Dues?

What do you mean the HOA dues aren't current?

Here’s another hot topic of debate for all of you out there thinking of buying a condominium or any type of property that has HOA dues every month.

 If you’re looking at a property that’s listed as a short sale you’d better pay specific attention before you agree to something you’re not going to be happy with.

Properties listed as a short sale sometimes require the buyer, as part of the purchase, to pay the back HOA dues of the seller. Does this sound fair?

Let’s take a closer look at this for a minute.

We know that the seller has stopped paying the mortgage. He would have had to because this is the only way that the bank might agree to short selling the property.

So let me now pose this questions to all of you, if the seller isn’t paying the mortgage every month, what is the seller(s) doing with that money?

This now beckons another question. Why can’t the seller keep up with the HOA dues since he’s not making his mortgage payment? I’m confident that the HOA payment is considerably less than the mortgage payment in almost all of the cases.

Sellers are still receiving services that are paid for out of the HOA dues that they’re failing to make. Does it sound fair to make someone who hasn’t lived in the complex to have to come in and pay for services received by the sellers?

In my opinion sellers have a financial, ethical and moral duty to their neighbors and community to make all efforts to stay current on HOA dues.

It isn’t fair to ask a buyer to pay for back HOA dues as part of the purchase of a condo or home with said monthly fees associated with the property. Do we honestly think that if the roles were reversed the current sellers would be willing to pay back HOA dues?

In addition I can guarantee you that buyers won’t want to go see a listing that’s requiring them to bring the HOA dues current as part of the purchase.

This is very detrimental to any listing because the amount of showing such a listing would get is going to drop significantly. As a Realtor I would definitely point such a condition to any buyer I’m working with and let them make the decision on how to proceed.

In closing I’d just like to suggest to sellers to please do the right thing and pay their HOA every month. HOA dues delinquincies can affect the entire complex and make it at the very least difficult for buyers to get financing if not impossible.

When you look at the big picture, the scope of things comes into focus and how it affects everyone else. Financial hardship can be understood by anyone but greed is understood and/or accepted by usually two people named none and few.