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S663Senate2009-2010 Session

Authorizes a lien for unpaid common charges owed to a homeowners' association by a real property owner

Sponsor William J. Larkin Jr.SD-39Affects Legal
Status
In Senate Committee
Judiciary
Impact
Pending
Passage
Pending

Bill progress

Step 2 of 7

In committee · Judiciary

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Who cares

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Sponsors

Primary sponsor
William J. Larkin Jr.

Senator · Senate District 39

No co-sponsors yet.

History

  1. Referred to judiciary
  2. Returned to senate
  3. Died in assembly
  4. Referred to judiciary
  5. Delivered to assembly
  6. Passed senateVote 59–0
  7. Advanced to third reading
  8. 2nd report cal.
  9. 1st report cal.6
  10. Referred to judiciary

Full text

The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.

Sponsor's memo

Title of bill

An act to amend the lien law, in relation to authorizing a lien for common charges owed to a homeowners' association

Purpose

Authorizes a lien for unpaid common charges owed to a homeowners' association.

Summary of provisions

Section 1: Adds a new section 42-a to the Lien Law. This provision adds homeowners' associations to the list of entities that can file a lien to collect homeowners' association common charges owed to such association.

Existing law

Currently, homeowners' associations that have levied common charges must go to either small claims court or the county court to collect common charges. This practice simply increases the costs of collection which must be borne by all other members of the homeowners' association.

Justification

Homeowners' associations have the responsibility of maintaining the neighborhood in which its members live. Some of these responsibilities include snow plowing, road repair, sanitation, signage, lighting, and common grounds maintenance. In order to provide these services, homeowners associations must charge its members a common charge.

The reason for this bill is to provide such associations with a more reasonable mechanism for placing liens on a members' property that has not paid their common charges. Currently, much time and expense is spent in court by having to initiate and proceed with a civil action against the property owner. The average time its takes a homeowners' association in litigation against one homeowner can be as long as 2 to 3 years. During this time period, an attorney needs to appear in court multiple times to obtain a judgment. Once a judgment is obtained, then the association must collect on this judgment. This bill would give homeowners associations the same right as condominium owners associations to file a lien in the office in which the deed to the real property is filed instead of going through the judicial process. The homeowners association lien on real property for unpaid common charges will be done in the same manner as a mechanic's lien.

Legislative history

S.7299/A.10465 of 2006, S.645-A of 2007/2008

Fiscal implications

None.

Local fiscal implications

None.

Effective date

60 days after it shall have become law.

Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.