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.
An HOA board has three significant roles: to protect, maintain and enhance the Association. Everything the board is responsible for in a homeowners association can be placed into at least one of these three categories.
It’s that time of year—you’ve exchanged your swimsuit from long days at the community Association pool for sweaters and scarves just in time to roll down your sleeves and prepare your home for cooler weather. As we watch the warm days fade into the sunset, consider adding the following items to your winterization checklist, and ensure your home is in tip-top shape for the fall and winter seasons in your homeowners association.
So, your homeowners association is contemplating doing a reserve fund study. Perhaps you are a new HOA and need to establish and start funding the reserves; or, you are an older HOA that has had a reserve for years, but it is time to update it. How many years should your HOA reserve study cover?
Well, it depends. HOA communities vary in size, age and the number and dollar value of the capital assets they own. They choose different maintenance strategies for short-lived and longer-lived capital assets. Let’s explore some of these issues.
Maintaining the common area in a homeowner's association is one of the HOA board's most important responsibilities. Landscape maintenance requires consistent upkeep. It's usually in the board's best interest to contract with a professional company to provide landscape maintenance services in order to save on cost and have consistency within the look of the community.
One common subject that often causes confusion in a homeowners association is grasping the difference between the maintenance responsibilities of an association and the items that are covered by the association’s insurance policy. Often owners and even HOA board members may not understand the differences between these two subjects.
As a member of a homeowners association there are certain things you can and cannot do to your property, as well as maintenance that the association is responsible for. If you remember the three P’s of property maintenance then you’ll be on your way to being a valued member of your HOA.
Common area lighting, pools, club houses, and laundry facilities are just a few areas that a homeowners association can find itself spending lots of dollars on quickly. No one likes it when their HOA dues increase, so how do you help conserve energy and manage costs?
Energy bills, like the temperature, always rise in the summer. While there are big fixes an Association can incorporate to make common area electricity more energy-efficient, there are also many inexpensive energy solutions, as well as some simple and free steps that you can take to cut down on costs and save money.
Homeowner associations with common area buildings and structures are required to stay up to code and should schedule their local fire inspector to assess buildings on an annual basis.
One item on that inspection will be an assessment of the smoke detectors. One major safety concern to also consider is carbon monoxide, or CO.
