Assessment Information

Assessments:

The increases to the 2025-26 assessment rates were approved by vote in April 2025

The 2025-26 Administrative assessment rate: $100.00 per assessed lot.

The 2025-26 Paved Road Maintenance Assessment: $400.00 per assessed lot.

The 2025-26 Gravel Road Assessment: $200.00 per assessed lot.

Annual Assessment Bills are mailed out on May 1st of each year and are due by June 30th. There is a $25.00 per month penalty for overdue unpaid assessments.

Hermitage Hills has a two-tier assessment structure consisting of both Administrative assessments and Street assessments. Because of this there are also separate Administrative and Street assessment budgets that have to be approved by the owners every year.

The original 1965 plat map of the subdivision is used to determine the individual lots in all possible cases.

An amendment to the indentures approved in 2016 allows the HOA to bill (on a case by case basis) multiple lots that have been combined into a single lot as a single lot. 

The assessment levels and budgets for the next year are presented to the owners and voted on at the annual General Meeting with the owners. If a change to the assessments is rejected by the owners, the previous year's assessment levels remain in place for the next year.

• Administrative Assessments: The adminstrative assessment is calculated from the proposed administative budget the divided equally by all the lots. It covers the associated costs of the subdivision such as insurance, legal fees, common ground maintenance, etc.

• Street Maintenance Assessments: The Street assessment covers the costs of maintaining and repairing the streets of Hermitage Hills, including snow plowing, repairs, and stormwater runoff improvements. The Street Maintenance Assessment is charged against all lots (as determined by the Trustees) that border a street for which the subdivision has maintenance responsibility. Beginning in 2017, there will also be a lower Road Assessment level allowed for properties located on gravel roads (Lazy Oak and Timber Ridge) This is due to the lower costs of maintaining gravel roads compared to paved roads and that they do not get snow plowing in the winter.

• In 2023 voter approved an amendment to permit the assessments for steet maintenance to also be used for stormwater runoff improvements. This allows the runoff issues to be addressed as the roads are repaired.

Assessment Billing, Collections, and Payment Plans:

Assessment billing: Assessment bills for the current year are mailed out on May 1st of every year and are due on June 30th. Additional bills (including late penalties, if needed) will be mailed periodically throughout the year to any lot owners still unpaid for the current year and are due on receipt. The trustees will annually review the mailing addresses of the property owners with the information from the Jefferson County Assessor's Office to ensure the proper mailing addresses are used.

No Online Payment Services: The HOA looked into it, but the online payment services wanted annual contracts. Since over 90% of the assessments are paid between May1st and July 1st, it was decided not to pay for a service that would not be used over 80% of the year. What a lot of people do is manually add the HOA as a biller to their online checking account and pay the HOA the same as other local bills like sewer, trash, or water.

Overdue assessments: There is a $25.00 per month late fee that begins to accumulate 5 days after the assesment bill is due.

Collections and Legal Actions: In order to allow an owner sufficient time to attempt to pay an overdue assessment, the board of trustees have set a threshold that any account owing $1000.00 owed (including late penalties) or having the annual assessments (or road usage fees) of two or more years unpaid will be turned over our the legal representative for collection actions. Any additional expenses incurred as a result of sending it to our legal representative (i.e. legal fees, court costs, etc.) will be added to the total amount owed. Once an account has been turned over for collections, any contact regarding payment or settlement must be made through our legal representative.

Returned Checks: Any payment the HOA receives that is rejected by our bank for insufficient funds will result in the amount of the check being debited back to the account and an additional returned check fee of $25 added to the account.

Payment Plans: The trustees of Hermitage Hills realize some owners may have occasional financial difficulties and we will work to arrange a payment plan with any owner who asks to have a plan arranged. There a several requirements the trustees would require the owner to adhere to as part of the payment plan:

1.    Payments must be made on a regular basis. Any owner on a payment plan that fails to make a payment within 60 days (2 months) of the last payment will be considered in breach of the agreement on the part of the owner. This will result in all late penalties being added to the account from the original date the bill was due.

2.    The owner will not be sent a monthly statement listing the outstanding balance, but a statement can be requested from the HOA at any time. The owner is still responsible for making the regular payment without receiving a monthly statement.

3.    Payments must be a minimum of $100.00. We consider this an amount that will settle the outstanding balance in a reasonable amount of time, without causing undue financial stress on an owner.

4. The entire amount is due by December 31 of the current year unless a previous arrangement is made with the trustees. If the full amount is not paid, late fees will start to accrue until the overdue balance is paid.

5.    Frequently owners on payment plans are making payments on multiple years of unpaid assessments. To avoid confusion for accounting purposes, when an owner is on a payment plan, payments made are applied to the oldest owed assessments first, working to the newest assessments owed.