CSSE Course Add-On: HOA Liens

We expanded this section of the course because HOA liens are now becoming one of the biggest hidden problems in distressed real estate and understanding how to deal with them is quickly becoming an essential skill for anyone working short-sales, coordinated sales, or REO.

The latest numbers tell the story. Homeowner’s Associations have already filed 285,000 HOA liens just in 2025, and in just the first quarter of 2026, more than 6,300 properties had HOA- foreclosure filings – (this could mean over 25,000 HOA foreclosure filings coming this year alone) a nearly a 40% increase from two years earlier.

This isn’t happening by accident. HOAs across the country are under tremendous financial pressure. Insurance premiums, maintenance costs, taxes, reserves, repairs, and operating expenses have all increased dramatically. As their costs go up, associations are becoming far more aggressive (the most aggressive that we have ever seen) about collecting delinquent assessments, filing liens, turning accounts over to attorneys, and, in some cases, moving directly toward foreclosure and taking homes themselves.

That creates a real problem in a short sale. An HOA lien isn’t always just another bill that gets paid at closing. Depending on the state, some HOA balances may have priority over the mortgage. Then you add attorney fees, collection charges, late fees, fines, and foreclosure costs, and a relatively small delinquency can become a major obstacle to getting the transaction closed.

I’m also hearing these same concerns directly from servicers regarding coordinated sales  (lender-assigned short sales). They understand that HOA liens are becoming a much larger part of the distressed-property problem, which is why we have also developed a separate course specifically for servicers, loss mitigation professionals, and asset managers on this subject that we will begin training them on next month.

Because of that, we’ve expanded this module substantially. We’re going well beyond just identifying an HOA lien. We’re getting into how to research it, understand the priority, review the payoff, challenge questionable charges, negotiate when appropriate, and know when something simply isn’t correct.

Going forward, knowing how to deal with HOA liens is going to be imperative – not only for getting your own short sales closed, but also for successfully handling the coordinated sales being assigned to you by lender and servicing clients.