Management Company

Started by MissesU • 12 replies • 1316 views

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MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

Our MC is dragging its feet when it comes to requests submitted by the BOD. Granted, our BOD is dysfunctional and has never worked right, the MC inherited a hot mess from our previous MC and I had a ton of questions when I started my tenure 4 months ago.

But some questions are very urgent and at the very least I would like to get a confirmation that our manager has received our emails and an approximate date when we can expect to get an answer.

What are reasonable rules and how can they be enforced?

PetunkaM (Florida)
Posts: 1,009

Posted:

Have you reviewed the contract with the Management company to begin with?

MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

Yes I have. It doesn't say anything specific about the communication between the BOD and the MC.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

The Board should set some kind of contact protocol between the Board and MC, this is usually between the Board president and treasurer and the MC, to prevent a dozen different or similar questions between each Board member and the MC. While no doubt the questions you have are important to you, that doesn't mean the MC should stop work for other clients just to answer your burning questions. Just because email is instantaneous, doesn't mean you get instantaneous answers.

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

PetunkaM (Florida)
Posts: 1,009

Posted:

Missess,

Sorry, but you have too many things going against you. The only way to manage your HOA is to have a real board of directors. You cannot and should not act as an individual. But, I have already said that.

MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

Glen, I meant important questions as, e.g., whether having 67 units on record instead of 65 has an impact on our insurance bill. This is a question I asked about 6 weeks ago and haven't received an answer to yet. Am I being unreasonable to think that this is too long?

Petunka, you are right. I have too many things going against me to solve all the problems we have. I just thought it might be good to know how things are supposed to be so that I know what has to be done once we get a proper board. And until we do, I want to try and do as much as possible to get it right.

GlenL (Ohio)
Posts: 5,491

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By MissesU on 08/09/2011 9:13 AM
Glen, I meant important questions as, e.g., whether having 67 units on record instead of 65 has an impact on our insurance bill. This is a question I asked about 6 weeks ago and haven't received an answer to yet. Am I being unreasonable to think that this is too long?

It's possible the MC forwarded the question to the insurance agent and is waiting for a reply, remember it is right in the middle of vacation season. Just out of curiosity where did the extra two units come from?

Studies show that 5 out of 4 people have problems with fractions

MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

I guess my question would be whether it would be unreasonable of us to ask our MC to confirm receipt of our email and to inform us if she forwarded it to the insurance agent.

Re. extra units: One home owner was listed under two different addresses one of which doesn't exist, and the other one was a mix-up of home owners and units, one of which again doesn't exits.

DianneL1 (Washington)
Posts: 34

Posted:

Misses,
I terminated our contract with a MC for this reason last month. They were non-responsive to the BoD, but it turned out they were non-responsive in general.
After asking them to confirm receipt to email requests, we got those sporadically, but rarely answered the questions fully nor in a timely manor. They were not paying our bills on time either. We got water shut-off notices to prove that one!
The last straw came when a mortgage broker contacted me to tell me that the MC was not responding to their requests for re-sale information. A sale fell through because of them!
My recommendation: Randomly survey your vendors; that will tell you a lot.
Dianne (President and temporary MC)

EbonyJ (Tennessee)
Posts: 62

Posted:

I would meet get the board to meet with MC and state some guidlines. E-mails answered in 3 days if no research needed for answer, 5 days if it requires interaction with the MC and third party. You probaly need to check how their communication with the homeowners has been as well, If the MC is unresponsive to you, they probaly are no better with the membership. If you can get out your contract, begin to ask other local associations about their MC and find one with good bookkeeping skills and customer service. I've found out that we waste a lot of time and money managing the management companies...

BruceF1 (Connecticut)
Posts: 2,535

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DianneL1 on 08/09/2011 5:38 PM
Misses,
I terminated our contract with a MC for this reason last month. They were non-responsive to the BoD, but it turned out they were non-responsive in general.
After asking them to confirm receipt to email requests, we got those sporadically, but rarely answered the questions fully nor in a timely manor. They were not paying our bills on time either. We got water shut-off notices to prove that one!
The last straw came when a mortgage broker contacted me to tell me that the MC was not responding to their requests for re-sale information. A sale fell through because of them!
My recommendation: Randomly survey your vendors; that will tell you a lot.
Dianne (President and temporary MC)

YOU terminated the contract with the MC? Shouldn't this have been a board decision? If you took this action on your own, who gave you the authority?

MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

Dianne,
it is very frustrating to have to work with a non-responsive MC. Luckily our manager is usually very nice and 80% of the time responds in a timely fashion. It's only in some very important issues where we have to keep asking. BTW, this is one of the things where the entire board is in agreement.

MissesU (Georgia)
Posts: 17

Posted:

Glen,
our BOD is dysfunctional and doesn't comply with the Bylaws in many ways, but the board members still have the decency, respect and professionalism to cc each other when they send questions to the MC that are of common interest. I guess there was some confusion about this aspect.

As you can tell, I am fairly new to this business. Is a PM our manager from the MC? I was under the impression that that was a second person employed by the MC.

Thanks everybody for your patience and help.

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