Condo Fees

[MotorHead]

Rich, what a great summary. Thank you.

Unfortunately some if not most board members do not have the time or the commitment to perform this thankless job.

While they have good intentions, they do not have the time or the energy to research, investigate contractors, landscapers and come up with a good annual budget. Relying on the association managers for recommendations, whom may or may not have the associations best interest.
Have you ever tried to call your association manager for any issue, they are overworked, underpaid 20+ year old’s with little or no experience. I have had personal experience with several local management companies, in my opinion they are nothing but glorified mass mailers with access to an 800 conf call numbers.

This has been my experience.

[Rich]

Originally Posted by MotorHead

Rich, what a great summary. Thank you.

Unfortunately some if not most board members do not have the time or the commitment to perform this thankless job.

While they have good intentions, they do not have the time or the energy to research, investigate contractors, landscapers and come up with a good annual budget. Relying on the association managers for recommendations, whom may or may not have the associations best interest.
Have you ever tried to call your association manager for any issue, they are overworked, underpaid 20+ year old’s with little or no experience. I have had personal experience with several local management companies, in my opinion they are nothing but glorified mass mailers with access to an 800 conf call numbers.

This has been my experience.

Thank you and yes, I understand and agree, I've been on the BOD of a couple different HOAs as well as other organizations from sizes of 50 to about 3,000 members.

Board members seem to forget that they don't have to do all the work, but they can hire people to do any specific task. It's their responsibility to see things are done, which means they can coordinate, or get help via committees, or pay a pro for help. You don't expect a BOD member to climb a roof and swing a hammer when it's time for a new roof, so why expect them to do everything else?

There are professionals that will help especially with coming up with realistic capital reserve estimates, but but it costs money to pay someone to do the work, and most board members don't want to needlessly spend money, and then think they can do it themselves. It ends up not being done fully and can then be questioned as to if they did a complete job, or swayed the results to fit their own agenda. This is where hiring an unbiased pro can help with the credibility of such a report.

[LIforrelaxin]

Originally Posted by Rich

Thank you and yes, I understand and agree, I've been on the BOD of a couple different HOAs as well as other organizations from sizes of 50 to about 3,000 members.

Board members seem to forget that they don't have to do all the work, but they can hire people to do any specific task. It's their responsibility to see things are done, which means they can coordinate, or get help via committees, or pay a pro for help. You don't expect a BOD member to climb a roof and swing a hammer when it's time for a new roof, so why expect them to do everything else?

There are professionals that will help especially with coming up with realistic capital reserve estimates, but but it costs money to pay someone to do the work, and most board members don't want to needlessly spend money, and then think they can do it themselves. It ends up not being done fully and can then be questioned as to if they did a complete job, or swayed the results to fit their own agenda. This is where hiring an unbiased pro can help with the credibility of such a report.

So Totally correct a HOA is only as good as the people on the Board of directors, and then only as good as the people the BOD chose to help them execute their job. I have dealt with HOAs, that work well, and those that don't....

Currently the best running HOA I am part of isn't even all that formal. We have a person on the camp road that is willing to coordinate the upkeep of the road. Which is the only HOA responsibility.... He is retired, and interacts with the town and a good contractor... He has been able to keep the road dues at a reasonable level of $125 per year... and over the last 5 years yearly there have been improvements made, and the last time I inquired he had built up a balance in the account he created for the road work.....