So a couple months ago, we were taken to court by our association. They claimed that we had not paid three months of association fees. We had paid them, and they were returned to us by the bank. We then figured out that the billing address had changed. By this point they also told us we owed hundreds of dollars of legal fees. We were more than willing to pay our association fees, as we had already attempted to pay them and had the bank records to prove it, but we were not willing to pay legal fees because they didn't give us adequate notice of the change of address.
Long story short, they filed a lien on our house, took us to court for over $1000 of legal fees and other fees. The office manager from the management company testified that they changed the billing address in December but didn't notify us until April. We were sued over January, February, and March's dues. So we won. We were only ordered to pay the three months we originally had attempted to pay. They were ordered to remove the lien and send a letter to creditors.
Fast forward to me getting a copy of our credit report. We had a notice on our credit report that we were ordered to pay the three months of association fees in court. This is factual, but at the same time, it doesn't reflect the fact that we shouldn't have even been taken to court in the first place. Now it is my responsibility to send a letter to the credit reporting agencies and hope that the notation makes it to our credit report and doesn't damage it too much since it will be on there for a minimum of 7 years. That is so frustrating because we haven't done anything wrong and yet we are still being punished. What is recourse do we really have?
I really don't know. I do know that I wrote a letter to Lisa Madigan and her office is very, very helpful. Maybe too helpful.
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