Bella Vista

There seems to be some question as to what to do if you have already been using the automated clearing house or ACH system and The Bank of Tampa to pay your HOA dues each quarter.

Since we have changed property management companys, from Greenacres PMI to West Coast Realty the bank requires all residents who want to sign up for or to continue using this service, to re-submit a cancelled check and the first coupon from your coupon book to them.

It was stated that this is required for security purposes to have to do this once again if you have already been using the service.

I signed up for this service and it works. I saw a debit from my checking account the first part of January for $125 for the first quarterly payment of the annual dues. I was using my bank's 'bill pay' service in the past. But, I figure this way would save me one less manual transaction that I'd have to remember to do myself. It's only $125 every three months and I keep enough in my account that I don't have to worry about an overdraft problem.

From looking at the accounting records I see that we only have six residents that were using this service in 2010.

I guess it's hard for people to get away from the old and tired manual check writing thing. I've gotten as far away from writing checks as I could. I think I wrote maybe two or three checks in 2010. I use my bank's bill pay service for utility bills, insurance payments and anything else that I can. I recently signed up for auto pay for the car insurance.

I've been using TECO's auto pay service also. Again, one less manual payment I have to remember to do each month.

So, what are you waiting for, Christmas, again?