In this week's tip, we help out an HOAleader.com reader who wants to know if their HOA is allowed to refund a damage deposit in the form of a credit to their account rather than actually paying them back for the deposit collected.
The HOA's practice of crediting and not refunding requires the owner to undo their scheduled ACH payments or sit fuming—as they are now—with a running credit, currently at $785, all for the pleasure of using the HOA's meeting room for their book
club.
Click on the arrow below to hear a short clip in which two of HOAleader.com's experts—Jennifer Biletnikoff, a shareholder in the Naples, Fla., office of Becker & Poliakoff, who has represented condos and HOAs for more than 15 years,
and Phaedra J. Howard, CCAL, a partner specializing in community association law at Hellmuth & Johnson PLLC in Edina, Minn.—explain whether their state law permits condos and HOAs to demand both a nonrefundable reservation fee and a damage deposit when owners book, say, the clubhouse or a meeting room.
