Behind on HOA dues in California? Late charges, liens and the $1,800 floor
When you're behind on a mortgage, the HOA bill is the easiest one to let slide. It's smaller than the house payment, and nobody from the board calls you every week. But California lets an association record a lien and, past a certain point, foreclose. Its rules are different from a lender's, and the extra charges can start 15 days after a due date.
The rules are in the Davis-Stirling Common Interest Development Act, part of the Civil Code. I've put them in the order you'd run into them.
How many Californians this touches
- 51,700
- community associations in California, the most of any state
- 14.5 million
- Californians living in them
- 5.1 million
- homes inside a California association
Source: Foundation for Community Association Research, 2025 Statistical Review, data from the Community Association Fact Book 2025.
That count covers condominiums, co-ops and planned communities with an HOA, all together. If you pay dues to one, this article is about you.
When a missed assessment turns into a debt
Under Civil Code 5650, a regular or special assessment becomes delinquent 15 days after it's due, unless your declaration (the CC&Rs) gives you longer. Once it's delinquent, the association can add:
- a late charge of up to 10% of the delinquent assessment or $10, whichever is greater, unless your declaration sets a smaller one
- interest of up to 12% a year on everything owed, starting 30 days after the due date, unless the declaration sets a lower rate
- reasonable costs of collection, including reasonable attorney's fees
Late charges and interest have hard caps. Collection costs and attorney's fees only have to be reasonable, which is a much looser word, so that's the line on any statement I'd read twice.
One rule works in your favor. Civil Code 5655 says any payment you make goes to the assessments first. Only after those are paid in full does money go to fees, late charges and interest. You can ask for a receipt, and the association has to give you one.
What a $300 assessment grows to
This worked example uses the legal maximums. It assumes dues of $300 due on the 1st, none paid, and it leaves out collection costs and attorney's fees, which vary.
Assumes a $300 assessment due on the 1st, the maximum late charge of $30 each, and 12% simple interest on the unpaid assessments starting 30 days after each due date, measured on the day the next assessment comes due. Collection costs and attorney's fees are not included.
| Assessments missed | Total owed |
|---|---|
| 1 missed | $330 |
| 2 missed | $663 |
| 3 missed | $999 |
| 4 missed | $1,338 |
| 5 missed | $1,680 |
| 6 missed | $2,025 |
| 7 missed | $2,373 |
| 8 missed | $2,724 |
| 9 missed | $3,078 |
| 10 missed | $3,435 |
| 11 missed | $3,795 |
| 12 missed | $4,158 |
Source: Worked example using the limits in Civil Code 5650 and 5720, calculated twice with two different methods. Dashed line: $1,800, the foreclosure floor, which counts unpaid assessments only.
| Missed | Unpaid assessments | Late charges | Interest | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | $300 | $30 | $0 | $330 |
| 3 | $900 | $90 | $9 | $999 |
| 6 | $1,800 | $180 | $45 | $2,025 |
| 9 | $2,700 | $270 | $108 | $3,078 |
| 12 | $3,600 | $360 | $198 | $4,158 |
Watch the highlighted bar. With the sixth missed assessment, the unpaid assessments alone reach $1,800, the line where an association can start thinking about foreclosure. At $150 a month it would take twelve missed payments to reach $1,800. That buys time, but not forever, because an assessment more than 12 months delinquent can be foreclosed on even below the floor.
The letter before a lien
An association can't just record a lien. Civil Code 5660 requires a certified letter at least 30 days before it records one. The letter has to include an itemized statement of what you owe and how the association calculated it. It also has to spell out your rights: to look at the association's records, to ask the board for a meeting about a payment plan, and to dispute the debt through the association's meet and confer process or outside dispute resolution. It also has to carry a warning in capital letters or bold type that your home could be sold without court action if it's foreclosed for unpaid assessments.
Before recording, the association also has to offer to meet and confer with you, and the decision to record a lien belongs to the board alone. Under Civil Code 5673, it takes a majority vote of the directors in an open meeting, recorded in the minutes. A management company can't make that call on its own.
Once recorded, the lien is a notice of delinquent assessment, and a copy has to be mailed to you by certified mail within 10 calendar days.
Asking for a payment plan
Civil Code 5665 gives you the right to ask, in writing, to meet with the board about a payment plan. Timing matters here. If you mail the request within 15 days of the postmark on the pre-lien letter, the board has to meet with you in executive session within 45 days.
While you keep up with an agreed plan, no new late fees pile on. The plan doesn't stop the association from recording a lien, though, and if you miss a payment under it, collection picks up where it left off. Ask what the association's standards for payment plans are. The statute says it has to give them to you if it has any.
When an HOA can foreclose, and when it can't
If you remember one rule from this page, make it this one. Under Civil Code 5720, an association can't foreclose to collect unpaid assessments of less than $1,800. That figure doesn't count late charges, collection fees, attorney's fees or interest. Below the line, it can sue in small claims court or record a lien it can't foreclose on until the assessments reach $1,800 or are more than 12 months delinquent.
Fines are a separate pile. Civil Code 5725 says a penalty for breaking the rules, like a parking or landscaping fine, can't be treated as an assessment that becomes a lien enforced by selling your home. The exception is a charge to repair common-area damage you, a guest or a tenant caused, if the governing documents allow it.
| Step | Minimum or limit | Rule |
|---|---|---|
| Assessment becomes delinquent | 15 days after due | Civil Code 5650 |
| Interest can start | 30 days after due, up to 12% a year | Civil Code 5650 |
| Certified pre-lien letter | at least 30 days before a lien | Civil Code 5660 |
| Ask for a payment plan meeting | within 15 days of the letter; board meets within 45 | Civil Code 5665 |
| Board votes to record the lien | open meeting, majority vote | Civil Code 5673 |
| Lien can be enforced | 30 days after it's recorded | Civil Code 5700 |
| Foreclosure allowed at all | $1,800 in assessments or more than 12 months late | Civil Code 5720 |
| Board votes to foreclose | executive session, at least 30 days before any sale | Civil Code 5705 |
| Trustee sale steps | notice of default, 3 months, notice of sale | Civil Code 5710, 2924 |
| Buying the home back | 90 days after the sale | Civil Code 5715 |
Even past the floor, there are more steps. Under Civil Code 5705, the association has to offer you dispute resolution before it starts a foreclosure, and you choose which kind. The board has to vote to foreclose in executive session at least 30 days before any sale, and if you live in the home, you get notice of that decision served on you in person, the way a summons is served. Then a trustee sale follows the same notice of default and notice of sale steps a lender uses, including the right to catch up until five business days before the sale.
The 90 days after an HOA sale
Here the association rules are kinder than a lender's. Civil Code 5715 gives you a right of redemption after an HOA's nonjudicial foreclosure sale, and it runs for 90 days after the sale. The notice of sale has to say the property is being sold subject to that right. The California Courts self-help page on nonjudicial foreclosure describes it the same way: if your HOA foreclosed, you have more time to pay what's owed and get your home back.
Ninety days goes fast when you're raising money, so treat it as the last exit and plan to be done long before it.
If you sell instead
Selling doesn't make the HOA balance disappear. Under Civil Code 4525, you have to give a buyer a statement from the association showing unpaid assessments, fines, late charges, interest and collection costs that are or could become a lien. So the number comes out during the sale either way, and it's better to know it before you list. 916 Home Offer explains how a cash sale closes in escrow on its site, and has a separate page for West Sacramento cash home buyers if your place is across the river.
What I'd do this week
- Pay the current month's assessment, even if you can't touch the back balance. Under 5655 it goes to assessments first, so it keeps the number that counts toward $1,800 from growing.
- Open the certified letter and mark the date. You have 15 days from its postmark to ask for the payment plan meeting.
- Ask for the itemized statement in writing if you don't have one, and check every fee against the limits in 5650.
- If a charge is a fine and not an assessment, say so in writing. Fines can't support a foreclosure.
- Before you sign a payment plan you can't keep, get advice from a California attorney, or ask a HUD-approved housing counselor whether they handle association debt.
My own trouble in 2010 was the mortgage, and I learned those rules the slow way. The association rules are friendlier in a couple of places, the $1,800 floor and the 90 days after a sale. Both work best while the balance is still small enough to pay.