Assessment Collection Policy Checklist: Writing One, and Then Following It the Same Way Every Time

Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA
Founder & Managing Shareholder

• Checklist
• Published September 26, 2026
• Reviewed by Jason Hamilton Mikes, JD, MBA, September 26, 2026
• Florida Statutes as of July 1, 2026
• Applies to: Condominiums · HOAs · Cooperatives

Collection cases are not usually lost on the law. They are lost because one owner got a letter at 45 days and another got one at 120, or because the association charged attorney fees before it sent the notice that lets it charge them. A written policy, followed the same way on every account, fixes both. This checklist builds the policy and then runs it.

The three chapters do not share a notice sequence. Chapters 718, 719 and 720 each require a notice of late assessment before attorney fees and each require a 45-day notice before a lien is recorded, but the delivery methods, the prescribed forms and the pre-foreclosure step are not the same. Sections below are labeled by chapter.

Our page on collection policy covers what a board should decide before it writes one. This sheet is what goes in it.

What the written policy has to fix

• Set the due date and any grace period in the policy, taken from the declaration rather than from what the office has always done.
• State whether assessments are payable annually, quarterly or monthly, and the instalment amount.
• Fix the day on which an account becomes delinquent, and the day each step of the sequence is triggered, counted in days from delinquency.
• Name the person or role who runs each step, so no step sits waiting for a board meeting six weeks away.The most common failure in a collection policy is not a wrong deadline. It is a correct deadline that nobody owns.
• Adopt the policy by board resolution at a properly noticed meeting and place it in the official records.
• Give the policy to owners, and post it to the association website or app if your association is required to maintain one.Condominiums with 25 or more units, § 718.111(12)(g); HOAs with 100 or more parcels, § 720.303(4)(b). Cooperatives have no posting obligation.

Late fees, interest and how payments are applied

• Set interest at the rate the declaration provides. If the declaration is silent, interest accrues at 18 percent a year.The rate may not exceed the rate allowed by law. Eighteen percent is the statutory default, not a target to reach for if the declaration sets a lower number.§ 718.116(3); § 719.108(3); § 720.3085(3)
• Charge an administrative late fee only if the declaration or bylaws authorize one, and cap it at the greater of $25 or 5 percent of each delinquent instalment.§ 718.116(3); § 719.108(3); § 720.3085(3)
• Apply every payment in the statutory order: interest first, then the administrative late fee, then costs and reasonable attorney fees incurred in collection, then the delinquent assessment.§ 718.116(3); § 719.108(3); § 720.3085(3)(b)
• Apply that order even where the owner restricts the payment, marks the check "paid in full," or sends a letter with it.The statute applies although the payment is not accompanied by an accord and satisfaction. A manager who honors the owner's restriction rather than the statute creates an argument the association does not need.§ 718.116(3)
• Write the application order into the policy in those words, so it is not left to the manager's discretion or to the accounting software's default.

Condominiums: the statutory notice sequence

• Send the NOTICE OF LATE ASSESSMENT before charging any attorney fees on a past due assessment. It must specify the amount owed and give the owner an opportunity to pay within 30 days of the date of the letter without the assessment of attorney fees.§ 718.121(5)
• Send it by first-class United States mail to the owner at the last address reflected in the association's records, and if that is not the unit address, also by first-class mail to the unit address.Notice is deemed delivered on mailing. You do not need the owner to receive it, but you do need proof you sent it both ways.§ 718.121(5)
• Use the statutory form substantially as written, rather than a collection letter of your own.§ 718.121(5)
• Then send the NOTICE OF INTENT TO RECORD A CLAIM OF LIEN and wait. No lien may be filed against the unit until 45 days after the notice was delivered.§ 718.121(6)
• Send that notice by registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, AND by first-class mail to the owner's address in the records, and to the unit address if different.Both methods, not either. An unclaimed green card does not stop the clock, because the first-class mailing carries the delivery.§ 718.121(6)
• Before filing suit, give 45 days' written notice of intent to foreclose, by delivery to the owner or by certified or registered mail, return receipt requested, to the last known address.If that notice is not given 45 days before filing and the owner pays before final judgment, the association recovers no attorney fees and no costs. The 45 days are cheaper than the fees.§ 718.116(6)(b)

HOAs: the statutory notice sequence

• Send the notice of late assessment before charging attorney fees, giving the owner 30 days from mailing to pay without attorney fees.§ 720.3085(3)
• Send it by first-class United States mail to the owner at the last address reflected in the association's records, and if that is not the parcel address, also to the parcel address.§ 720.3085(3)
• Then send the NOTICE OF INTENT TO RECORD A CLAIM OF LIEN and wait 45 days after mailing before recording.§ 720.3085(4)
• Use both delivery methods for that notice: registered or certified mail, return receipt requested, and first-class mail to the address in the association's records and, if different, to the parcel address.§ 720.3085(4)
• Before suing to foreclose, give the 45-day notice using the delivery method in § 720.3085(4).The HOA pre-foreclosure notice has its own form and heading. Do not run the condominium letter on HOA letterhead; the two chapters prescribe different documents.§ 720.3085(5)

Cooperatives: what Chapter 719 does and does not require

• Chapter 719 DOES require a notice of late assessment before attorney fees may be charged, on the same 30-day terms, in a prescribed form.§ 719.108(3)(c)
• Chapter 719 DOES require a NOTICE OF INTENT TO RECORD A CLAIM OF LIEN and a 45-day wait before the lien is recorded.§ 719.108(4)
• Chapter 719 does NOT carry a separate pre-foreclosure notice provision in § 719.108 equivalent to the condominium's 45-day notice of intent to foreclose.Treat the silence as a reason to ask counsel, not as permission to skip the step. A demand before suit costs nothing and the cooperative documents may require one.§ 719.108 (absence of provision)
• Foreclose the cooperative lien in the name of the association, in like manner as a foreclosure of a mortgage on real property.§ 719.108(5)
• Read the proprietary lease as well as the bylaws before choosing a remedy. The remedies in § 719.108 do not exclude other remedies in the cooperative documents.A cooperative has a second set of remedies under the proprietary lease that a condominium or HOA does not. See our page on cooperative liens and remedies.§ 719.108(7)

Suspension of use rights and voting rights

• Suspend the right to use common elements, common facilities or common areas only where the owner is more than 90 days delinquent in a monetary obligation to the association.§ 718.303(4); § 719.303(4); § 720.305(3)
• For a condominium, do not suspend limited common elements intended to be used only by that unit, common elements needed to access the unit, utility services provided to the unit, parking spaces or elevators.You are suspending the pool and the clubhouse, not the way home.§ 718.303(4)
• For an HOA, do not suspend vehicular and pedestrian ingress to and egress from the parcel, including the right to park.§ 720.305(3)
• Check the voting-rights threshold for your chapter before suspending a vote, because they are not the same. A condominium may suspend voting rights only where the monetary obligation is more than $1,000 AND more than 90 days delinquent. An HOA needs only more than 90 days' delinquency; § 720.305(4) sets no dollar threshold.This is the single most common mix-up in a policy written to serve both chapters. Running the condominium threshold in an HOA leaves collectible suspensions unused. Running the HOA rule in a condominium suspends votes the association had no right to suspend, and that is an election challenge waiting to be filed.§ 718.303(5); § 720.305(4)
• Approve every suspension at a properly noticed board meeting and notify the owner in writing by mail or hand delivery.§ 718.303(5); § 720.305(2)-(4)
• Lift the suspension when the obligation is paid in full, and record in the minutes that it was lifted.
• Keep fines separate from collection in the policy. A condominium or cooperative fine may never become a lien; only an HOA fine of $1,000 or more may.The $100 and $1,000 caps in Chapters 718 and 719 have no "unless the documents provide otherwise" qualifier. Both HOA caps are overridable by the governing documents. See our page on fines, hearings and suspensions.§ 718.303(3); § 719.303(3); § 720.305(2)

Referral, lien and foreclosure decision points

• Set a referral threshold in the policy: the number of days delinquent or the dollar figure at which the account goes to counsel automatically, without a further board vote.
• Record the claim of lien only after the 45-day notice period has actually run, and diary the date it ran from.
• Confirm the claim of lien states the description of the parcel, the name of the record owner, the name and address of the association, the amount due and the due dates.§ 718.116(5)(b)
• Calendar the life of the lien. A condominium claim of lien must be enforced within a limited period after recording or it expires.The condominium and HOA periods are not the same. Confirm the current period with counsel and put the expiry date on the collection calendar the day the lien is recorded.§ 718.116(5)(b)
• Decide as a board at what point the association will foreclose, and apply that same point to every account rather than deciding unit by unit.
• Consider the rent-demand remedy where the unit or parcel is tenant-occupied and the owner is delinquent, before foreclosing.Where it applies, the association may demand that the tenant pay subsequent rent to the association until the owner's monetary obligations are paid in full. It collects faster than a foreclosure and costs less.§ 719.108(10); and the condominium and HOA equivalents

Payment plans and uniformity

• Decide in the policy who may approve a payment plan, on what terms, and for how long, rather than deciding it account by account.No chapter grants a board payment plan authority or takes it away. What the statutes do control is how payments are applied once received, and that order does not bend for a plan. See our page on payment plans.
• Require every payment plan in writing and signed, with a default clause that returns the account to the sequence at the step it left.
• Run the same sequence, on the same days, on every delinquent account, including a director's.Selective collection is the defense every delinquent owner raises. It is answered by a ledger showing identical steps on identical days across every account, and by nothing else.
• Report delinquencies to the board at every meeting by account age rather than by owner name, and record that the report was made.
• Review the policy against the current statutes once a year and re-adopt it, so the notice periods and the forms stay current.

Contact Hamilton Mikes

Hamilton Mikes drafts and reviews collection policies for Southwest Florida condominium, cooperative and homeowners' associations, and runs the statutory notice sequence from the first letter through lien and foreclosure. Call 239-594-7227 or visit our Assessment Collection page.