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Our HOA is having some trouble collecting dues from the property owners – most of whom live in the US and Canada. One impediment to collection seems to be the cost of transferring money to the HOA’s CR Bank Account. If people want to pay monthly (as many do), these money transfer costs can be prohibitive especially in relation to the Dues, which are very reasonable.
I am looking for advice from other members on how their HOA’s deal with collecting from absentee owners, particularly living in NAM. For example, has your CR HOA been able to establish a US Bank Account? If so, what banks will do this (mine won’t!) Or, are there any CR companies that have US Banking relationships that can be sub-contracted only to do HOA collections?
BTW, we don’t need to hire a Management Company for anything else – our Administrator is a full-time resident and a Costa Rican and does a great job.
Any help would be welcome! Thanks!
How about having your HOA’s treasurer set up a separate, dedicated, bank account in the U.S. Then s/he could establish a PayPal account using a dedicated e-mail address, link it to that bank account, and let your members who have only U.S.or Canadian banking make monthly deposits to the PayPal account. From the PayPal account the money could be transferred to that dedicated U.S. bank account.
Then, from time to time, as needed, a check drawn on that U.S. bank account could be deposited to an account here in Costa Rica.
Payments to a PayPal accountholder are very reasonable or free. Transfers from a PayPal account to a U.S. bank can be done at little or no cost, too. And most Costa Rican banks will accept checks for deposit(at least up to some limit) without charge. There is the matter of the float, of course.
have them mail a check. that’s what some of our part-time residents do here for our guard fees. takes two weeks to clear (and two weeks to get here, ma’o meno’)
David – thanks, that’s precisely what we want to do. What we need to find is a BANK in the US that will let us set up the account on behalf of the CR HOA. My own bank’s Risk Management department wouldn’t allow it (I belong to a Credit Union).
If anyone knows of a US Bank that WILL do this, that’s our key I think!
Maravilla – do you know what CR Bank is being used and is the bank account actually denominated in US Dollars?
almost all bank account are both dollar/colones and we don’t have an entity per se; the checks are written to whoever is collecting guard fees, road fees, etc. so the check are made out to a person and that person deposits the checks and gets the loot two weeks later. i doubt seriously that there is going to be a bank in the US that will accommodate you.
(I belong to a Credit Union).
So, why don’t you use your personal acct at the credit union, aggregate the deposits and then send one wire per month to the acct in CR?
Otherwise, get a DBA (doing business as) for a business as a sole proprietor, and open a business acct. Any bank will open a business acct for you. You don’t have to give them all the scary details about HOA and Costa Rica, etc… Just tell them you want to open an acct in your sole proprietorship, DBA, name.
Good luck.
JerryThe Michigan State University Federal Credit Union will set up as many checking or savings accounts as its members want. If you’re a member of a credit union, why not see if they won’t do the same for you, in your name?
An account in your name but dedicated to your HOA’s exclusive use would give your Treasurer a place to have funds in a PayPal account transferred to. From time to time, you could wire transfer funds to a parallel account here. At Banco HSBC, at least, we can also have additional accounts in dollars or colones. Dunno about other Costa Rican banks.
Try as we might, we have not figured out a way to transfer funds from a PayPal account to any Costa Rican bank. PayPal’s service folks say it cannot be done.
Be real careful about putting any money in someone’s private account. This leaves a big door open to F R A U D. If there is a problem, what recourse do you have against this private individual? This is very bad financial management.
In terms of Costa Rican banks, and check clearing. We have a dollars and colones account with BCT. Checks clear in one week, the fastest of all the public and private banks in Costa Rica. To avoid the high cost of wire fees, we merely deposit a check into our account, to cover expenses and HOA dues, each time we return to Costa Rica.
Banco BCT S.A. They are located in Liberia, San Jose, Alejuela, Santa Ana, Cartago, Heredia, Escazu, Ciudad Quesada, Rohrmoser, Guapiles, Curridabat and perez Zeledon. http://www.corporacionbct.com
Thanks all. Lots of good info here.
As a former Auditor, I agree, opening an account with *my* Credit Union (under my personal account) is not going to pass the smell test and may put off some owners. A US ‘DBA’ could be established, but seems a bit of trouble.
Anyhoo…
The HOA does have a USD account in CR (with BCR) which will accept US checks. After further questioning of the Administrator (who is also our Treasurer), it seems a big part of the collection problem is that some owners simply don’t want to assume the risk of mailing checks to CR.
So…we’ve decided that the HOA is going to open a PO Box in Miami with a forwarding service using Jet Box. (The same could be done with Mail Boxes Etc.) With any luck, this will at least reel-in the people who ‘would like’ to pay but have used wire fees or fear of mailing checks as their excuse not to pay, leaving just the true *deadbeats* exposed 🙂
We have virtually 100% participation in our HOA & almost everyone lives outside of Costa Rica. Most people pay in full by 1 wire transfer for the year sometime in January. A handful wire half in January & the other half in June. Anyone coming for winter vacation simply hand delivers the money (usually in December/January). We do not accept monthly transfers as we felt it would be cumbersome to keep up with the accounting.
Jessica
I believe in “trust but verify” and recently managed to track down over US$3,116 in missing international wire transfers with one of my local banks…
Took them ten days to find it after I emailed them the SWIFT confirmations …
The moral of this story?
When it comes to international wire transfers, whatever payment you are expecting from whatever source, make sure that the sender ALWAYS send a MT103 to the receiving correspondent bank, if possible ask the sender for an email confirmation from the sender that the payment has been made, then email that confirmation to the receiving bank so that they can expect that payment and then confirm that the payment has been received and is sitting in your account.
I am normally very diligent with this so was surprised to discover these payments had slipped through the cracks.
Scott
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