The arrears test is the one Ohio boards most underrate

Read it precisely. It counts assessments and special assessments more than 60 days past due, and it excludes late fees and administrative charges.

So an association whose collection policy lets balances age past two months — and many Ohio collection policies formally escalate at 90 days — can put itself over the 15 percent line without a single vote being taken and without anyone noticing. Every seller in the building loses the FHA buyer pool as a result.

The fix is entirely within the board's control and costs nothing: collect at 30 and 60 days rather than at 90. That is the same discipline that keeps small balances in municipal small claims rather than in a lawyer's file. Our Ohio collections and liens page covers the escalation ladder.

The investor problem is live in Ohio's cities

The 10 percent individual-owner concentration limit in projects of 20 or more units is a real constraint in Columbus, Cleveland and Cincinnati, where small condominium buildings have been bought up as rental stock. A single investor quietly assembling units past 10 percent disqualifies the whole project for FHA — while Fannie and Freddie no longer care.

Boards that track their own ownership roll can see this coming. Boards that do not will learn about it from a seller whose buyer's loan fell through.

Where the two systems now diverge

It is worth setting out plainly, because the March 2026 changes moved only one side of the ledger.

Retired by Fannie and Freddie, still enforced by FHA: owner-occupancy minimums, investor-concentration limits.

Tightened by Fannie and Freddie, not an FHA question in the same form: the 15 percent reserve floor from January 4, 2027, the ban on baseline reserve funding, the $50,000 per-unit master-policy deductible cap, and the retirement of Limited Review.

An Ohio board cannot optimise for one. It has to satisfy both, and the two are pulling in different directions.

The collection rules that reach your agent, not you

One federal item boards frequently misread. Regulation F, at 12 CFR part 1006, applies to a third-party collector or collections law firm, not to an association collecting in its own name. When an Ohio board collects delinquent assessments itself under R.C. 5311.18 or 5312.12, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act generally does not apply. The moment the file goes to a collection agency or a collections firm, the validation notice, the call-frequency limits and the communication rules attach to that firm — which the association selects, supervises and pays.

The regulation itself has not been amended since March 2023. What changed is guidance: the CFPB withdrew a long list of documents effective May 12, 2025, including its 2022 advisory opinion on pay-to-pay convenience fees and its 2023 advisory opinion on time-barred debt.

The withdrawal of the convenience-fee opinion is the newsworthy part for associations, and it should be read narrowly. The federal enforcement risk around charging owners a fee to pay online or by phone dropped. The statute it interpreted was not repealed. The FDCPA carries a private right of action with fee-shifting, and Ohio's own consumer statutes are unaffected by anything the CFPB does. The practical test remains whether the declaration or Ohio law authorises the fee.

Three things to check this quarter

Run your own numbers before a lender does. Owner-occupancy percentage, units more than 60 days in arrears, largest single-owner holding. Three figures, from records you already have.

Find out whether your project is FHA-approved, single-unit-approved, or neither. Many Ohio boards do not know, and the concentration ceilings are radically different between the first two.

Ask your collection firm what it charges owners to pay. If there is a convenience fee, confirm the declaration authorises it. The federal guidance that used to constrain it is gone; the private right of action is not.