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Union Bank Online Account Change Information

Union Bank Online Account Change Information

Over the last few weeks, owners may have received several emails from Union Bank detailing some changes to their online payment and autopay system. Union Bank’s system updates have required Common Interest to change account numbers for all homeowners to comply with their new system. Monthly HOA statements have been updated so that the new account number is reflected. All account numbers are now a total of 8 digits long, usually starting with two zeroes. This change only immediately impacts a small percentage of owners in the community.

Before going into more detail, it is important to cover the ways in which owners can currently make HOA payments:

  1. By mailing a check every month to Union Bank’s PO Box
  2. By signing up for autopay through ACH by filling out an ACH form and mailing a voided check to the Association’s bank
  3. By signing up for recurring payments through Union Bank’s website
  4. Making payments through your own bank’s Bill Pay system

How you as a homeowner are impacted by this Union Bank account number change will depend on how you make your monthly assessment payments.

 

Owners who mail a check every month

If you pay monthly by mailing a check to Union Bank’s PO Box, the only change that will impact you is ensuring that your new account number is written somewhere on your check. The statements you get (with the tear-off portion that you can included in the envelope) will already have this updated account number, but please ensure that you also write the account number on the check, just in case that gets separated. The new account numbers are 8 digits long and usually start with a double zero. If you have any questions about this or want to confirm your new account number, please email accounting@commoninterest.com and they will provide it to you. There have been no changes to the mailing address, bank, or due dates. The only change is the account number itself, which you will see updated on the statement you receive. Please call Common Interest’s accounting department at 925-743-3080 for further assistance if you pay by check and have additional questions.

 

Owners who signed up for ACH by mailing a voided check

If you signed up for automatic payments through Union Bank by filling out a form and mailing that along with a voided check to Union Bank directly, you have not been impacted and do not need to take any action. Your automatic payments should continue and the account information will automatically transition over in Union Bank’s system behind the scenes. If you’d like to confirm that your automatic payments were setup through this method, please call 925-743-3080 and as the accounting team to confirm that autopay was setup through Union Bank’s ACH system.

 

Owners who signed up for recurring payments through Union Bank’s website

If you signed up for recurring payments through Union Bank’s website by creating an account at www.hoabankservices.com, you are impacted by this change and need to create a new account using the updated account number! Please note that a very small number of homeowners make payments using this method – most owners use the method above, where a voided check was mailed to the bank directly. However, if you did sign up for a Union Bank account in the past year and initiated recurring monthly payments, that will no longer be processed and you’ll need to create a new account for that to resume. Please note that this method is not through the HOA directly, and this is not technically considered “autopay”. This means that if the assessment amount ever changes, you need to login to this account to make the change manually. The option above, where a voided check is mailed in, is “autopay” meaning that the amount deducted will automatically match the assessment amount every month. If you have questions about this, please contact Union Bank directly at 888-705-0600, Option #1.

 

Owners who make payments through their bank’s Bill Pay system

If you pay through your personal bank’s Bill Pay system, you will likely need to ensure that the updated account number is included on the check that your bank is automatically processing. Bill Pay typically means that your bank cuts a physical check and mails it to the HOA’s bank – and if paying by check, the check itself needs to have the account number on it, so the bank knows what account to credit the payment to. Again, your new HOA monthly statements will include the updated account number, but you can also email accounting@commoninterest.com and that information can be provided to you.

 

We apologize in advance for any confusion or frustration this change may have caused. While you are certainly able to reach out to the General Manager to help answer any questions, the best resource is Common Interest’s Accounting Department:

925-743-3080

accounting@commoninterest.com

The Accounting team has been working with Union Bank once they made us aware of this change and should be able to help answer any questions you may have or assist with issues you run into.