HOA Management BlogRecent Posts
As another year begins, HOA board members should consider offering some thoughts about how the Association can make the community an even better place to live in the New Year and beyond.
One of the benefits of living in a homeowners association is having access to common areas and certain maintenance responsibilities covered for you as part of the HOA fees you pay to live in the Association. Do homeowners in your Association know the maintenance items they’re responsible for and the items the Association is responsible for?
A new member has been elected to your HOA board. Suddenly, you learn that they seem to have a general mistrust of any current vendors of the association, perhaps because they did not choose them. They call for at least three bids on every project, no matter how small. This person seems to be trying to fix something that may not have been broken in the first place.
A board of directors will have its fair share of challenges with new board members automatically calling for new vendors, even when the ones they are working with are really solid.
Purchasing a home is a big deal, so when you do, you want to make sure it’s somewhere you can actually live. Just like in any neighborhood, living in a homeowners association has its pros and cons, but the positives outweigh the negatives. That being said, it’s good to consider both.
You live in a homeowner’s association. You have a great idea. You’re not on the board, and elections are months away. What next? Present it! Presenting a good idea, whether to the HOA board, a boss, or anyone else in the position to approve it, isn’t about them or you -- it’s about the idea.
When you live in a homeowners association, you become a member of a community. When you're a member of a community, you want to remain in good standing and do your part. Below are ways that you can receive a gold star, so to speak, in your HOA.
As an HOA board member you're faced with issues in your homeowner’s association day in and day out. Sometimes you have questions that you don’t know the answer to or scenarios where you aren’t sure how to respond. Odds are, other board members are in the same boat. We’ve compiled some questions we’ve recently received and provided expert answers from an HOA manager. Read them below and maybe you’ll be able to relate.
Neighbor to neighbor complaints can come in many forms. For example, the dog barks all day, the smoke from my neighbors barbecue stinks, the neighbor cooks fish and reeks up the place, my neighbor smokes and it comes into my home, my neighbor plays his music all night or the TV is on all day.
An important role of a homeowners association is to maintain and enhance property values by enforcing neighborhood covenants and maintenance of common areas. For this to happen the Association must have a strong Board of Directors and each person who sits on the Board must perform their job. This will also help homeowners find value being a part of the Association community.
Reserve funds are not an extra expense. They are part of the ongoing expenses of the homeowners association which occur at various points in time. The plan provided by your reserve fund specialist will help you in this process. It's much more preferable that homeowners associations have a plan to set the funds aside now, on a year-by-year basis. By doing this, the Association can spread out the collection of assessments for these expenses more evenly over the coming years.
There are other important reasons that Association monies should be put into reserves every month:
