Debt collecting agency to recover fees owed to Mgmt Co

[zefer]

Hi All,

I was just wondering has anyone that is involved in their management co. ever hired a debt collection agency to recover outstanding fees. We have quite a lot of people that havent paid fees in over 3 years and now owe around €50k in total which is causing severe problems in running the development. We have sent letters upon letters but havent gotten anywhere, so it has now been decided to hand them over to a debt collection agency.

So if anyone has any experience with it, I would be grateful if they could post or PM me.

Thanks

 

[ClubMan]

Does the management company not employ a management agent to deal with day to day management? They would normally have contacts and procedures for this sort of thing. Or is the management done by management company shareholders/members/residents themselves?

 

[zefer]

We have just changed managing agent and he has sent out a letter telling people they have 14 days to pay outstanding fees or they will be subject to legal procedings. But previous to us hiring him, there was an EGM held at which it was agreed to hand over the non paying owners to a debt collection agency.
The new agent was informed and has agreed to it. We are just trying to get a heads up for ourselves before we meet with him in a week or so to discuss it. The 14 days deadline will be up at this stage.

 

[markpb]

My estate has, for various reasons, about €150,000 outstanding from various owners so I'm either the best or worst person to answer your question Most of that figure comes from a small number of people who have almost never paid and incurred huge interest charges.

We used to use Crosskerrys DCS for our debt recovery but we've recently switched to Lennon Heather. Both have been reasonably good but, in my experience, the judicial system is both slow and very biased towards the owners. Sometimes owners can move from my estate and it can take months to find their other residence which slows things down. In most cases we're granted an instalment order over 12 months but when the owners fail to pay from the start, we have to wait a year before we can take further proceedings.

It's worth doing because you can end up extremely short on cash if you don't deal with it. You'll also find that owners who do pay will become discontent when they see others escaping their duties.