I am the President of my Home Owners Association. We have a couple of homowners who refuse to pay their home owner dues. It clearly states in our bylaws that we reserve the right to file a lien against your house if you are delinquent in paying your dues. My questions are, do we need a lawyer to file a lien or could your average Joe do it and what is the average cost of filing a lien?

I BELIEVE, but I am not entirely certain, that you can file a lien through the County where your property is located. You would need to go to the County Clerk of Court office (Recording Dept. Public Records Div.), or whatever they may refer to it as in your particular area. I know that you do NOT have to have an attorney. The County Clerk MAY have a form that you can use to fill out with the necessary information to file in the Public Records; however, your best bet would be to call them and ask exactly what is required to file a lien. Once it is filed it will become part of the Public Records of that County and it would show up on a title search in the future. Most likely these people would not be able to refinance, or sell, or do any type of transaction involving their property without first satisfying the lien! Hope this helps! : )

Have an attorney do it AND ask if the HOA can foreclose as it probably can't and you will STILL have to wait for $$$

The question is: does he know what homeowner association management means. If not, he should probably go into something else instead. And if he does, he should be aware that there may be certain licensing requirements he will have to follow.