Maintenance, Vendor Contractor, help

Hi Everyone,

I was new elected President in a HOA with 124 units. The old board member been managing the HOA as old school way. Hiring security paying in cash instead through a security company, all contractor working for the HOA also no license. I have clue where to start to fixing all these issue. The community has very low pay dues $190.00 a month. At this time community required alot of repair and maintenance. from carport to roof, and drywood termite back and forth and it never get it done. Reserv funds only roughly about 60K left. As far as I see if we spend the money on repair and fix those wouldn't enought. There also serveral unit have more than 15 people living in one unit with only has 2 Bedroom.

I know here we had alot of experience member who is severing as BOD in alot of different communitiy and have alot of experience. if possible giving me an advised at this point which route I should take for the best beside raising the HOA dues.

Thank you

our community it located in place kind of getho, so security is a must but, i'm trying to work around to cut hours of security instead of having security present there every night.. I proly go with a patrol driving around 4 times a night which might cheaper than having security stay there 6 hour a night for 365 days a year.

Landscaping kind of to much cost 3K per month and came 1 once aweek.
I also looking at the financial statement for last 3 year seem that our ultility pump up by 3K amonth for electric, 3K for wather and trask. (water and trask hard to reduced. electric I tried to reducing usage by remove some light. also replace some low watts light bulb. So I do not know what else I can do to cut more.

really because the community kind of outdated due to lack of maintenace and because of that now it required alot of work to keep the thing in place and it cost alot for professional license. and I do not want to hire a no license to perform the work..Because if anything happen would be liable by the HOA.

Brian,

Priorities, Prioritize, Prioritize otherwise you may drive yourself nuts.

My suggestion would be as follows:

1. Actually read and understand your governing documents. Then take a look at your States HOA laws the davis-stirling.com site is a good start.

This is typically the first thing any new board member should do. However, if your Association has been running well and there have been few complaints, this can go down in the priorities list. HOWEVER, they should be consulted prior to implementing anything to make sure you are in compliance with them.

2. Reserve Study -

Is it current (within the last 5 years)? If not have one done or work on it yourself.
Here is a link to a thread in this Forum that discusses Reserve Studies.

3. Contracts -

Review each Contract to see what is expected and when renewal is due. Solicit bids for new contracts as needed. Even if your happy with a company, requesting bids doesn't hurt anything.

4. Stop paying in cash.

Your technically running a business whose books are to made available to any member that requests it. Demand that the Treasurer starts paying for items using checks. I strongly recommend that two signatures be required on the checks. However, documents might need to be amended.

5. Audit.

If one hasn't been done for two years your due. Either hire a CPA or form an audit committee.

6. Common Area

Identify what common area items need addressed. Prioritize them based on urgency. Solicit bids. Re-prioritize based on available funds to see what will give you the most bang for the buck while increasing Safety and minimizing risk to the Association (i.e. replacing the roofs might be great but maybe some of the playground equipment needs replaced before someone gets hurt).

The main thing to understand is if you identify a lot of things that need corrected, you can't do it all in one year. There may always be an issue at each Board meeting that diverts your attention and energy elsewhere. This is just a fact of serving on the Board that Directors need to accept. It's better to correct one or two issues properly then to correct 5 or 6 poorly.

(In my first year elected to the Board and serving as President, the Association received a simple $60 invoice from our attorney that resulted in a three month process to correct our disclosure package, create a planned unit development statement for banks, create and adopt a resolution for record keeping procedures, update procedures for issuing disclosure statements and amend two other resolutions which required a special membership meeting. As I said, you never know what issues might be presented that requires you to re-prioritize what you would like to get done)

One other note - Remember that everything is not an issue for the HOA. You mentioned that some units have more people in then you believe should be living there. Contact the local authorities to check on it and let them deal with it.

Hope this helps,

Tim