BrendaS5 (Texas)
Posts: 15
Posts: 15
Posted:
http://www.hoatalk.com/Forum/tabid/55/forumid/1/postid/98553/view/topic/Default.aspx
Previously, I brought a topic to the forum about a need for new siding in our 30 year old, 62 unit condo complex.
Today was our annual meeting. I took all of your advice into consideration. Thank you. It was very useful.
Attendance: Our CCRs state that our annual meeeting shall be at the first home conference football game of the local major Texas university. All was going great for attendance UNTIL the televised football schedule was published...it coincided with our meeting time. Fortunately, we quickly organized and contacted members we knew that this would affect (or effect?) and then we held our breath.
This morning, 43 members of 62 were represented in person or by proxy. It's the second time since 1994 that a quorum was represented.
Business conducted:
We raised the dues by 10% to established a routine amount of 5% of dues year by year into a committed reserve fund.
After valuable input from this forum, we advised members that our newly negotiated management contract included a $35 administrative fee for those paying after the fourth day of the month. No more a-willy-nilly-sometimes $5 charge for those who used the HOA like a piggy bank. They agreed. This needs a little more legal clean up to suit me, but I think this will hold the owners' attention until the next meeting when we will change the CCRs.
Members were also advised that a $500 past due balance meant an automatic recorded lien, plus a $2000 balance would guarantee an automatic foreclosure on the unit. This needed no action--these are just limits that we have set; they could actually be lower according to our CCRs.
Then, we got to the assessment. Today, we passed a $336K assessment with a vote of 40 to 3. Over the past month I personally received 15 proxies from people who have been hoping for real progress on the property. An elderly man no one has ever met appeared at the meeting. He wanted to make SURE this went through.
On September 1, I officially resigned as president and took my place as a regular director who will continue to monitor projects and communicate heavily with the membership. The reason I did this was because I knew my effectiveness had waned. I'm female, short, middle-aged and did not present an imposing, assuring figure. My "wingman" for the past year has been a 6'4" detail man with a thick skin and a Franklin planner he uses minute by minute. He took over and where I was often less assertive, he's repeated the refrain that we are not a benevolent organization, we are a business, and thus we will run like one. He took the ball and ran hard with it from September 1 until today. I knew that he would probably create a higher sense of trust among the membership because of his status in our community and his persona. My tenure had been full of cleaning up details that had been neglected, but a good patch of groundwork was laid for this important meeting's decisions. It was time to pitch him the ball and he scored.
The vote was 40 to 3 in favor of the assessment and this also means that 40 people are ready to pay their money--based on what I know of them, I believe this will happen--they will pay. We will quickly collect 40 x $5400, or $216K.
To assure that each vote was counted and acknowledged, we went through the roll and called each person's name and asked for their verbal vote.
I had originally told you that the assessment would be $250K. After review of the final bid, and what we considered the most comprehensive bid, we saw a total of $326K, or $5400 per member. We decided to call the assessment a Replenishment of Funds Assessment (allowed by our CCRs) and explain to the membership that since we have virtually no reserve fund, we (board) decided to go with the $326K number no matter which bid we select to assure that we have plenty of money to do the job.
I think the most critical improvement on our ability to raise a quorum and so much support is that we communicated about five times in two months and previous to that, I sent out quarterly updates as well as established an email list. The heavy hitter lately was a letter wherein our new president wrote the members and told them that this HAD to be done. Hearing someone else besides me say it made a huge difference. Also, he said, that as few as 21 people could conceivably make the decision (yes) for them, and if "no", the number could be as few as 11.
We also wrote and told them we have set up relationships with local lenders. We sent quotes for members who need loans and have told them what their payments will be based on various credit levels.
So now, no matter what, we are positioned to collect $5400 from members. By making it a "replenishment" assessment, we are not locked into finishing the work within a timeframe and can work with the contractors a bit more. The new president did a great job not making promises that we could not keep. He told the members present that if we (the board) will do the best we can. They will just have to trust the board and the property management to see this through to the best of our ability.
A word about our past due monthly assessments...
As some may remember, in another thread I had posted that we had a pile of dues to collect. By the end of August, all dues were cleared up except for two members. One went into lender foreclosure--but we anticipated that...not enough equity in that unit to waste the time and effort of the association to foreclose on it. We lost that $3500 in spite of the lien recorded. Another was behind by $3500. We got her to pay half and she is on a payment plan to pay her dues in a current manner, plus $50 a month to clear up her debt. All the rest of the folks got their dues paid into current status--$7,000 collected in August. As I suspected, the dues were languishing because they were not pressured to get them paid. With pressure on, the checks rolled in. Our books are 100% clear.
Will the remainder be angry? Definitely, some will.
Will some not pay at all? Yep.
Do we have a contingency plan? We are working on it.
The upshot of all this is that progress takes time. We had no working board until May of 2009. Since that time we organized, and started with visible improvements. We fixed a drainage issue as soon as possible ($35K) to save one that was flooding and four others that were going to start flooding. All of those folks were there and behind us 100% today. We repaired carports for a song compared to the "new" carport price saving $34K, we striped parking lots and now this. During it all, we communicated constantly. The majority of people have come to take pride and ownership in their property and they became educated on what it means to live in a 30-year old condo community. They realized they had to be involved and pay attention.
A bed of roses is not my projection of the next year, or the next ten. However, I do know that we have made significant progress and the membership established the means to put this property back on track. Progress just takes time.
Thanks for the input. Also, thanks for the input on the construction work we have ahead. These points are to be incorporated into final negotiations.
Previously, I brought a topic to the forum about a need for new siding in our 30 year old, 62 unit condo complex.
Today was our annual meeting. I took all of your advice into consideration. Thank you. It was very useful.
Attendance: Our CCRs state that our annual meeeting shall be at the first home conference football game of the local major Texas university. All was going great for attendance UNTIL the televised football schedule was published...it coincided with our meeting time. Fortunately, we quickly organized and contacted members we knew that this would affect (or effect?) and then we held our breath.
This morning, 43 members of 62 were represented in person or by proxy. It's the second time since 1994 that a quorum was represented.
Business conducted:
We raised the dues by 10% to established a routine amount of 5% of dues year by year into a committed reserve fund.
After valuable input from this forum, we advised members that our newly negotiated management contract included a $35 administrative fee for those paying after the fourth day of the month. No more a-willy-nilly-sometimes $5 charge for those who used the HOA like a piggy bank. They agreed. This needs a little more legal clean up to suit me, but I think this will hold the owners' attention until the next meeting when we will change the CCRs.
Members were also advised that a $500 past due balance meant an automatic recorded lien, plus a $2000 balance would guarantee an automatic foreclosure on the unit. This needed no action--these are just limits that we have set; they could actually be lower according to our CCRs.
Then, we got to the assessment. Today, we passed a $336K assessment with a vote of 40 to 3. Over the past month I personally received 15 proxies from people who have been hoping for real progress on the property. An elderly man no one has ever met appeared at the meeting. He wanted to make SURE this went through.
On September 1, I officially resigned as president and took my place as a regular director who will continue to monitor projects and communicate heavily with the membership. The reason I did this was because I knew my effectiveness had waned. I'm female, short, middle-aged and did not present an imposing, assuring figure. My "wingman" for the past year has been a 6'4" detail man with a thick skin and a Franklin planner he uses minute by minute. He took over and where I was often less assertive, he's repeated the refrain that we are not a benevolent organization, we are a business, and thus we will run like one. He took the ball and ran hard with it from September 1 until today. I knew that he would probably create a higher sense of trust among the membership because of his status in our community and his persona. My tenure had been full of cleaning up details that had been neglected, but a good patch of groundwork was laid for this important meeting's decisions. It was time to pitch him the ball and he scored.
The vote was 40 to 3 in favor of the assessment and this also means that 40 people are ready to pay their money--based on what I know of them, I believe this will happen--they will pay. We will quickly collect 40 x $5400, or $216K.
To assure that each vote was counted and acknowledged, we went through the roll and called each person's name and asked for their verbal vote.
I had originally told you that the assessment would be $250K. After review of the final bid, and what we considered the most comprehensive bid, we saw a total of $326K, or $5400 per member. We decided to call the assessment a Replenishment of Funds Assessment (allowed by our CCRs) and explain to the membership that since we have virtually no reserve fund, we (board) decided to go with the $326K number no matter which bid we select to assure that we have plenty of money to do the job.
I think the most critical improvement on our ability to raise a quorum and so much support is that we communicated about five times in two months and previous to that, I sent out quarterly updates as well as established an email list. The heavy hitter lately was a letter wherein our new president wrote the members and told them that this HAD to be done. Hearing someone else besides me say it made a huge difference. Also, he said, that as few as 21 people could conceivably make the decision (yes) for them, and if "no", the number could be as few as 11.
We also wrote and told them we have set up relationships with local lenders. We sent quotes for members who need loans and have told them what their payments will be based on various credit levels.
So now, no matter what, we are positioned to collect $5400 from members. By making it a "replenishment" assessment, we are not locked into finishing the work within a timeframe and can work with the contractors a bit more. The new president did a great job not making promises that we could not keep. He told the members present that if we (the board) will do the best we can. They will just have to trust the board and the property management to see this through to the best of our ability.
A word about our past due monthly assessments...
As some may remember, in another thread I had posted that we had a pile of dues to collect. By the end of August, all dues were cleared up except for two members. One went into lender foreclosure--but we anticipated that...not enough equity in that unit to waste the time and effort of the association to foreclose on it. We lost that $3500 in spite of the lien recorded. Another was behind by $3500. We got her to pay half and she is on a payment plan to pay her dues in a current manner, plus $50 a month to clear up her debt. All the rest of the folks got their dues paid into current status--$7,000 collected in August. As I suspected, the dues were languishing because they were not pressured to get them paid. With pressure on, the checks rolled in. Our books are 100% clear.
Will the remainder be angry? Definitely, some will.
Will some not pay at all? Yep.
Do we have a contingency plan? We are working on it.
The upshot of all this is that progress takes time. We had no working board until May of 2009. Since that time we organized, and started with visible improvements. We fixed a drainage issue as soon as possible ($35K) to save one that was flooding and four others that were going to start flooding. All of those folks were there and behind us 100% today. We repaired carports for a song compared to the "new" carport price saving $34K, we striped parking lots and now this. During it all, we communicated constantly. The majority of people have come to take pride and ownership in their property and they became educated on what it means to live in a 30-year old condo community. They realized they had to be involved and pay attention.
A bed of roses is not my projection of the next year, or the next ten. However, I do know that we have made significant progress and the membership established the means to put this property back on track. Progress just takes time.
Thanks for the input. Also, thanks for the input on the construction work we have ahead. These points are to be incorporated into final negotiations.