State Specific Question About: SOUTH CAROLINA (SC)

We own a couple of units in a condo complex. Another landord owns a number of others including ones adjacent to ours. These people are real tools. They haven't been paying their HOA dues and they've rented to the kind of people you don't want in a decent complex. In this case the tenants are leaving trash everywhere instead of walking it to the dumpster. So far the HOA has written letters to the tenants and the owner. The other owners though have had enough. What can the HOA do to the tennts or the owners? Can we evict someone elses tenants? Can we cut off their water for not paying the HOA dues (which covers water)? Can we sieze the properties?

Someone needs to call a landlord friendly lawyer.

Probably the tenants can be evicted and the owner fined if he doesn't evict them.

You can't do anything at all without risk of being arrested. You can call the health department about the garbage and the police about any other issues if they are doing illegal things.

That way the landlord will have police reports to take to court to evict. I wonder if they are receiving housing assistance from your state, you know, welfare.

State law dependent, but your HOA can probably record a lien against the units for non-payment of common charges, and impose fines for each violation of the CCRs (e.g., the trash issues), which will also become leins. the HOA can then foreclose on the liens.

It is very unlikely that the HOA can evict the tenants -- that is a relationship to which the HOA is a stranger.

What Mike and Reid said. HOA dues are essentially a tax. You don't pay then the HOA can file a lien against the property. Unfortunately this is usually not a short process.

Do you even know the landlord? It may be someone in over their head who could use some assistance.

If, those units were causing my units to not rent, I would personally go and clean up that trash.

I've had a similar situation, as HOA sec/treasurer, I filed liens against the owners who owed as much as $6000. and collected. The thought of going to court scared them into paying.

Concerning the crappy tenants living in the townhomes, we posted their door with cure or quit notices on the HOA letterhead, and they cured or moved. We make all new tenants aware of the covenants and stress that we inforce. Once we started inforcing the covenants all the tenants shaped up, and now we have a pretty nice complex.

GEO, you are lucky the tenants complied instead of telling you "F$#% off." HOA has no legal authority to post a Cure Or Move notice; that is between the LL and the T.

My old HOA actually started foreclosure action against an owner for non-payment of common charges. I was looking forward to our kicking that son of a dog out of the complex by foreclosing on the unit!

Your HOA needs to hire a professional HOA management company to assist your operations, as it seems your HOA does not know what it is doing. You've likely got bigger problems than a few bad tenants. When was the last reserve study done?