The foreclosure letter everyone fears comes from a bank. The one arriving more often now comes from the clubhouse.
In the first three months of 2026, homeowners associations — the neighborhood groups that collect dues and enforce the rules — started foreclosure filings on 6,376 American homes. That number is up 40% in two years.
And here is the part that got our attention: HOA foreclosures are now growing faster than the bank kind. The dues notice is outpacing the mortgage.
Why the bills jumped
An association has exactly one move when its costs rise: send the owners a bigger bill. There is nowhere else for the money to come from.
And the costs have jumped. HOA insurance premiums rose 91% across 2024 and 2025. Nearly double, in two years, for the same coverage. All of it lands in the dues.
Then come the special assessments — one-time bills for big repairs. Since the Surfside condo collapse, associations have been forced to face decades of put-off maintenance. A new roof or a re-certified structure arrives as a bill that is due whether or not it was in anyone’s budget.
The lien surprise
Miss the payments and the association files a lien — a legal claim against your home for the unpaid amount.
Now the detail most homeowners have never heard. In roughly 20 states, that lien gets what lawyers call super-priority status. In plain words: it can outrank the mortgage.
Think about that. The bank that lent hundreds of thousands of dollars can find itself standing in line behind an association owed a few thousand in dues. The clubhouse cuts ahead of the bank.
Even boxer Floyd Mayweather Jr. had a Las Vegas property hit with a filing, over roughly $25,000 in dues. If the paperwork can find him, it can find anyone.
This is not a story about deadbeats. It is a story about ordinary owners whose monthly dues jumped past what a steady retirement income can absorb.
Why retirees, especially
The households most exposed are the ones that did everything right. They paid off the mortgage. They retired on a fixed income. They planned around a housing cost of roughly zero.
But dues are not fixed, and they are not optional. They behave less like a utility bill and more like a loan whose rate someone else can raise.
We think HOA costs are the stealth housing cost of this decade for retired homeowners. Not interest rates. Not property taxes. Dues.
So here is the practical part — what to actually do, this month, not someday.
First, ask your association for the reserve study. That is an engineer’s report on what will need repair and whether the association has saved enough to pay for it. You are entitled to ask. If there is no study, or the board will not share it, that silence is itself the answer.
Second, read the annual budget, and look at two lines: the insurance cost and the amount going into reserves. If insurance is up sharply and the savings are thin, a special assessment is not a risk. It is a scheduled event that has not been announced yet.
Third — and this is the rule that keeps houses — never let a dues dispute compound. Withholding payment during a fight is how a few thousand dollars grows into a lien. Pay under protest, keep every receipt, and argue afterward with a lawyer.
We are adding the HOA budget and reserve study to the annual review for every client who owns in an association. It takes twenty minutes. It is the cheapest structural inspection in America.