HOA should have notified lien holder before foreclosure

Q: I owned a mobile home in a park, and I sold it Dec. 4, 1998. I carried the loan, so I was the lien holder. After several years, the woman who purchased the home from me stopped paying her homeowners association dues for approximately a little over a year. So, the HOA board filed for a foreclosure but never let me know they were foreclosing on my property. My question to you is did they need to do a title search before foreclosing? That way they would have known I was still the legal owner.

Nevada Revised Statute 116 in 2015 made it mandatory to notify me. The title to the mobile home has her as the owner and me as the lien holder. I still have the title to the mobile home. I called Manufactured Housing Division in Reno, and (a representative) said it appears this may have been handled incorrectly.

He also said that I should get an attorney. I am still owed more than $7,000 dollars, and an attorney would take most of that. Can you recommend anything I can do other then get an attorney?

A: Technically, you sold the mobile home, subject to the buyer paying off the loan, in the same manner that a bank would have a mortgage on it. Whoever initiated the foreclosure process should have noticed you of the default in assessment payment by your buyer, assuming that the loan was recorded with the county recorder’s office. I do not know what stage has been reached in the foreclosure process. At this point, you will probably need to contact an attorney to protect your position.

If the foreclosure process was improperly initiated for failing to notify you, an attorney would be needed to stop the foreclosure action.

In any case, you will still need to deal with your buyer and with the association to protect your position with the mobile home, unless you want to lose that asset and be done with this matter. The association will need to be paid at some point. You may need to foreclose on your mobile home loan.

Q: I know there is much more to this question but how can HOA association become a corporation or is this when an HOA is a declarant? Second, can’t the small-business owner place some sort of lien on the HOA for nonpayment?

A: The organizational structure of an association is normally established by the declarant. Technically, the attorney would need to place a lien on all of the homeowners because associations do not normally own any property. Common area property is owned proportionately by the homeowners. The association has an operating account. You would need to go to small claims for the operating account to be garnished.

Q: The homeowners in this association took up a petition — 10 percent to demand a special meeting under NRS 116.3108.

Can you please refer me to guidelines for such a meeting?

Does the board conduct, take minutes or anything else at such a meeting?

A: Per NRS 116.3108, when the association receives a petition to hold a special meeting of the homeowners, the board of directors shall set the date for the special meeting not less than 15 days or more than 60 days after the date that the petition was received. The notice of the meeting shall state the time and place of the meeting and is to include the agenda for the meeting. In this case, the agenda would be the issue (s) listed on the petition.

The board would conduct this meeting in the same manner as if it was the annual homeowners meeting. Minutes would be taken by the board or by its community manager.