What the Company Actually Is

Campbell Property Management is a full service community association management company headquartered at 1215 East Hillsboro Boulevard in Deerfield Beach, Florida, reachable at 954-427-8770. The firm traces its history back more than seventy years, describes itself as locally owned, and operates exclusively in the corridor from Miami to Orlando.

Its clients are homeowner associations, condominiums, high rise condominiums, and developers. The service menu covers licensed association manager staffing, financial management and accounting, vendor and maintenance oversight, covenant enforcement, board education, lifestyle and amenity programs, front desk and concierge services, and administrative support.

That is a different business from residential rental management. A rental manager works for an owner and collects rent from tenants. An association manager works for a board of directors elected by the owners, and collects assessments from those same owners. The manager has no landlord tenant relationship with anybody, and the tools available when someone stops paying come from Chapters 718 and 720 of the Florida Statutes rather than from the eviction process.

Anyone comparing Campbell against a company like Real Property Management is comparing two different industries that happen to share the phrase property management.

How Association Delinquency Actually Works in Florida

The mechanics matter because they are the reason association collections behave so differently from rent.

Assessments are a lien obligation running with the unit. When an owner stops paying, the association's claim attaches to the property itself, which means the debt is secured in a way unpaid rent never is. That single structural fact changes everything about recovery, since the association ultimately has recourse against an asset rather than only against a person.

Under section 718.116, delinquent condominium assessments bear interest at the rate stated in the declaration, and where the declaration is silent, at 18 percent per year. Associations may also charge an administrative late fee up to the greater of $25 or 5 percent of each delinquent installment.

The payment application order is worth understanding because it surprises owners. Payments are applied first to accrued interest, then to late fees, then to collection costs and attorney fees, and only last to the delinquent assessment itself. An owner who sends a partial payment intending to knock down the principal will find the balance barely moved, and the assessment still delinquent.

The Notice Requirements a Manager Cannot Skip

Florida added procedural steps in recent years, and missing them costs the association money rather than just time.

Before an association may charge attorney fees related to a past due assessment, section 718.121 requires delivery of a written notice of late assessment specifying the amount owed. It goes by first class mail to the owner's last address on record and, if different, to the unit address as well. The owner then has 30 days from the date of that notice to pay before attorney fees can be assessed. The statute supplies a form, and the notice must itemize the maintenance amount due with dates, any late fees, interest accrued with the applicable dates and rate, and the total.

Separately, an association cannot obtain a foreclosure judgment on its lien until 45 days after giving the owner written notice of intent to foreclose, delivered by certified mail or personal delivery, stating the delinquent amount with interest and the consequences.

Homeowners associations operate under a parallel scheme in Chapter 720 with its own notice sequence. The direction of travel in both is the same: more notice, more itemization, and real consequences for associations that skip steps. Florida's recent legislative activity in this area is covered in our post on the impact of Florida's HOA legislation on property management.

For a management company, this is the operational core. The notices have to go out on schedule, to the right addresses, with accurate figures that reconcile to the ledger. A community whose manager sends the notice of late assessment with the wrong number has just given the delinquent owner an argument and delayed the whole process.

What Boards Should Expect From a Manager

Whether the manager is Campbell or anyone else, the delinquency questions worth asking are the same and should be answered before signing a management agreement.

Ask at what day past due each step fires, and whether the sequence is automated or manual. Consistency matters legally as well as practically, because selective enforcement invites claims of unequal treatment.

Ask who prepares the statutory notices and who verifies the figures against the ledger. Ask how the ledger handles the statutory payment application order, since an accounting system that applies payments to principal first will produce numbers that do not match what the statute requires.

Ask at what point the account is referred to the association's attorney, whether the board approves each referral, and how attorney fees are tracked and recovered. Ask what happens with owners who enter payment plans, and whether the manager or the board approves them.

And ask specifically about estoppel certificates, since Florida caps what associations may charge for them and requires delivery within statutory timeframes. Sloppy estoppel handling delays closings and generates complaints from owners trying to sell.

Where Assessment Collection Gets Complicated

Three situations regularly consume more of a board's attention than everything else combined.

Foreclosure by a first mortgagee limits what the association recovers. Florida's safe harbor provisions cap the amount a foreclosing first mortgage holder must pay the association for unpaid assessments that came due before it took title, which frequently leaves a shortfall the association absorbs. Boards should understand that number before assuming a bank foreclosure makes the association whole.

Bankruptcy stops collection activity by law and requires different handling, including deciding whether to file a proof of claim and understanding that assessments coming due after the filing are generally treated differently from prepetition arrears.

Investor owned units in communities with many rentals produce a distinct pattern, where an absentee owner treats assessments as optional while collecting rent from a tenant who has no obligation to the association. Florida provides a mechanism in some circumstances for associations to demand rent directly from tenants of delinquent owners, which is a powerful tool and one with strict procedural requirements.

Where a Collection Agency Fits, and Where It Does Not

Association collections are unusual because the strongest remedy, the lien and eventual foreclosure, is a legal process handled by the association's attorney rather than by a collection agency. For assessments where the owner still holds the unit, that path usually dominates.

Agencies become relevant in the situations where the lien does not solve the problem. Deficiency balances remaining after a foreclosure, where the association's claim survives but the collateral is gone. Amounts owed by former owners who sold or lost the unit and are no longer reachable through the property. Damage claims, fines, and other charges that may not be lien secured depending on the governing documents and the statute. And small balances where the cost of legal action exceeds the amount at stake.

Those are ordinary unsecured receivables, and they respond to the same things any receivable responds to: complete documentation, an accurate ledger, contact information for a person who has moved, and placement before the account goes cold. Our post on recovering past due HOA fees covers the recovery side, and the broader discipline of working a backlog is in bad debt recovery strategies for property management companies.

Associations and management companies with post foreclosure deficiencies or former owner balances can reach Advanced Collection Bureau at 321-633-4999 or through the get started page. This is general information rather than legal advice, and association collection procedure in Florida is technical enough that the association's attorney should drive it.