{"id":18,"date":"2009-03-22T15:11:32","date_gmt":"2009-03-22T19:11:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/?p=18"},"modified":"2009-04-26T16:13:52","modified_gmt":"2009-04-26T20:13:52","slug":"legislature-considers-new-law-protecting-associations-in-foreclosure-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/?p=18","title":{"rendered":"Legislature considers new law protecting associations in foreclosure."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

NEW:\u00a0 The hearing on this bill has been rescheduled for April 8, at 1:00 pm.<\/strong><\/p>\n

On April 3, 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Maine Legislature will consider a bill to protect the ability of condominium associations to collect common expense assessments when a unit is under foreclosure.\u00a0 Under the bill, the association will be first in line for payment of up to six months unpaid common expenses charges, ahead of the foreclosing bank.\u00a0\u00a0 This is especially important because, although the association has a lien for unpaid condominium fees, this lien is presently in second place behind the banks mortgage.\u00a0 Since it is common for the bank mortgage to exceed the value of the property, the association can find itself unable to collect condo fees for up to two years during the foreclosure process.<\/p>\n

The bill was presented by Representative Cynthia Dill at the request of the Maine Legislative Action Committee of Community Associations Institute, New England chapter.\u00a0 The Community Associations Institute is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the advancement of condominium and other community associations nationwide.<\/p>\n

The public hearing on this important bill will be held at 9:00 am in room 438 of the State House, Augusta, Maine.\u00a0 If you are interested in attending the hearing or wish to discuss it, contact me at atty@maine.rr.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Set out below is the language which the bill proposes to add to the Maine Condominium Act.<\/p>\n

\u201c(c)\u00a0 The association\u2019s lien securing the priority amounts as defined below is prior to a first mortgage.\u00a0 \u201cPriority amounts\u201d means the amount of the association\u2019s regular assessments established under a periodic budget which would have become due in the absence of acceleration during the six month period immediately prior to the initiating a lawsuit to enforce such lien, the expenses of heat and utilities paid by the Association in order to preserve the unit during such 6 month period, and the association\u2019s costs and reasonable attorneys\u2019 fees incurred in enforcing the lien.\u00a0 Priority amounts shall not include any amounts attributable to special assessments, late charges, fines, penalties and interest assessed by the association. The association\u2019s failure to send notice to the first mortgagee either that the owner is 60 days delinquent in the payment of common expenses or that the Association intends to file an action to enforce the lien within 30 days shall not affect the priority of the lien securing the six months\u2019 regular assessments and heat and utility components of the priority amounts, but such failure to send at least one such notice shall mean that the priority amounts shall not include any costs or attorneys\u2019 fees incurred in the action to enforce the lien.\u00a0 The payment of the priority amounts shall release the lien securing the priority amounts.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NEW:\u00a0 The hearing on this bill has been rescheduled for April 8, at 1:00 pm. On April 3, 2009, the Judiciary Committee of the Maine Legislature will consider a bill to protect the ability of condominium associations to collect common expense assessments when a unit is under foreclosure.\u00a0 Under the bill, the association will be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-legislative"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mainecondo.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}