Question: What approaches have you seen to boards take to inform their members about other members who are in arrears? Our board likes to post names and amounts in arrears as well as put the information in the minutes.

Answer: Do not post delinquent member names! And get rid of that stock and pillary! The board should refer to a collection only by the amount owed, time past due and status of the collection process. Naming names is a sure way to alienate neighbors and trigger litigation for defamation of character. Besides, all collections are not created equal. Some may have a legitimate reason for not paying (disabled, unemployed), others don’t pay because of a matter of principle: “I’m not paying until the board (fill in the blank) and some may simply be jerks.

To avoid favoritism, the board should institute and use a Collection Policy which is uniformly applied to all members, including themselves. Even better, that Collection Policy should be enforced by a hired professional manager since no board member should be put in the position of personally enforcing collections on other members. There is a sample in the Policy Samples section of Regenesis.net.