America’s homeowners associations are running out of money — and patience.

Amid rising insurance premiums, drained reserve funds and increased safety measures in the wake of the Surfside condominium collapse, the country’s hundreds of thousands of homeowners associations are cracking down on delinquent residents.

HOAs are skipping grace periods and handing delinquent accounts over to attorneys.

HOA foreclosures spiked nearly 40% in two years to 6,376 properties in the first quarter, according to real estate analytics firm Attom, as reported by the Wall Street Journal, putting its pace ahead of overall mortgage foreclosure rates.

These foreclosure sales are “like most foreclosures in that they are typically an auction,” attorney Kirk Pearson, who represents homeowners in HOA disputes, told The Post.

“If the property is sold at auction, the homeowner has a 90-day right to redemption where they can buy the property back by paying any delinquent amounts plus any collection fees and costs. If there are no bidders at the foreclosure sale, then the HOA takes ownership of the property. The HOA can then keep the property, sell it, transfer it to the bank where there is a senior lien holder, or allow bank foreclosure.”

From there, if a homeowner can’t clear their delinquent dues, fees and legal costs during the redemption period following a foreclosure sale, they lose their home and are forced to start over elsewhere.

But the missed dues are often only a fraction of the bill — the real burden comes from ballooning collection costs, Pearson said. HOAs frequently outsource delinquencies to specialized collection firms that profit by tacking heavy fees onto outstanding balances.

Worse, these firms are often owned by the same corporate attorneys advising the HOA, the California attorney noted. That gives the HOA’s legal team a lucrative financial reason to aggressively pursue foreclosures instead of helping residents resolve their debt.

Millions of Americans are part of HOA communities, where dues are rising.

“HOAs are being forced into more aggressive collections to avoid their own financial collapse,” Brian Fox, co-founder of real estate technology firm Benutech, told the Journal.

Families in Magnolia Cove, an 80-home community outside Charlotte, North Carolina, are contending with the increase in their monthly homeowners association dues from $350 to $1,250, with a $10,000 special assessment tacked on for good measure.

In 2025, HOAs filed over 285,000 liens, up about 8.8% from a year earlier, Benutech, which tracks HOA delinquency trends and foreclosures, told the Journal. 

Besides delinquencies, costs have been rising for HOAs in insurance premiums, staffing, lawn care and materials. The annual insurance premium at one Long Island HOA surged from $60,000 to $360,000.

Plus there’s the expense of meeting stricter safety measures, which were instituted in the wake of the partial collapse of the Champlain Towers South condo, a 2021 tragedy that claimed 98 lives. 

As unpaid dues trigger legal battles and delayed upkeep, the mounting cash crunch isn’t just threatening individual homeowners — it’s tanking property values for entire neighborhoods.

In many states, “super priority” laws even let HOAs foreclose over unpaid dues before banks can. 

These foreclosure sales are “like most foreclosures in that they are typically an auction,” Pearson added.

“If the property is sold at auction, the homeowner has a 90-day right to redemption where they can buy the property back by paying any delinquent amounts plus any collection fees and costs. If there are no bidders at the foreclosure sale, then the HOA takes ownership of the property. The HOA can then keep the property, sell it, transfer it to the bank where there is a senior lien holder, or allow bank foreclosure.”

At Fairview Condo 1 in Middle Island, N.Y., 15 of its 202 units are behind on the $595 monthly dues, amounting to a monthly shortfall of roughly $8,900. Ten of them are in foreclosure. The board is handling it by levying special assessments, and postponing upkeep.

Floyd Mayweather Jr.’s Las Vegas home was saddled with $25,000 in unpaid dues starting in January 2025, plus interest and legal fees, the WSJ found.

Mayweather’s attorney said the unpaid dues stemmed from an accounting oversight that has since been settled following a recent overhaul of the boxer’s financial team.

The Community Associations Institute, which represents HOAs, told WSJ many associations offer payment plans to help struggling homeowners.