Condos mismanaged by HOA

Hello to all,

Let me start off by stating that I know very little about HOAs, so if I say something that makes no sense, please feel free to correct me.

I am writing to this forum today to ask for some advice on the follwoing situation regarding the HOA of The Crossings at Morganton (TCAM) in Fayetteville, NC:

My husband bought a condo at TCAM in 1997 and lived there until 2002. He is in the Army so when he changed duty stations, he hired a property manager to rent the unit out with the intent that he would eventually move back there. That never happened since we got married in 2004 and have not moved back to Fayetteville. He has faithfully paid his HO dues on time, every month for the 14 years he has owned it, which are now a whopping $127 a month (that seems excessive to me, but I've never lived in a community that had an HOA, so I don't know what a reasonable fee would be).

The HOA was/is an outside company vs. elected homeowners from the TCAM community. My husband is in Fayetteville and just met with his property manager this morning to discuss evicting the current renter (has been late on rent several times and now has completely failed to pay rent for the last two months) and placing the condo for sale. The property manager informed him that the entire TCAM community is in disrepair due to mismanagement of the company that had been serving as the HOA and that the old HOA company was fired and a new one takes over September 1st. --- this whole part is confusing to me because hiring an outside company to serve as the HOA doesn't seem to make sense since the people in the company would have no vested interest in making the TCAM community a better place to live. Why should they, they don't own a condo there, so why do they care? ---

Further, because of the mismanagement of the old HOA company and the now disrepair of the grounds, the property on the outside looks bad which will make it difficult to attract a buyer and obviously devalues the property as a whole.

My husband also stated that the property manager told him that some of the other HO's have not paying their dues and that the old HOA management company didn't enforce getting the dues. It seems highly unfair to me that my husband has paid all of his dues in good faith for all of these years and now we are left holding a property that is devalued and in disrepair.

My questions to the forum are - what recourse(s) do the HO's of TCAM have on the company that was fired? Can the HO's actually band together and sue that company? Can the outgoing company be held financially liable for mismanagement of the fees paid? Would suing the outgoing company hurt the rest of the TCAM community in any way?

Maybe there is no recourse and we just have to suck up the financial losses, but I figured it couldn't hurt to ask for some opinions, thoughts, and/or recommendations from members of a forum that deal with this stuff all of the time.

Brad,

Thank you for your reply. That is pretty much what I figured and my husband and I are not willing to put in a lot of time and effort into suing. Since we've been renting it out for the last 10 years, we don't know who any of the board members are or what they have been doing to try to force the old company to clean up their act and the TCAM community.

Like I said, I didn't think it could hurt our situation to ask the questions, so I appreciate you taking the time provide a response and we'll most likely chalk this up as another lesson learned in the realm of homeownership!

I don't see any reason to throw stones...most people don't understand that they have those rights...lesson learned, unfortunately the hard way.

Kc,
To answer your question: It is simply because the BOD members are not paid and they may not want to give up their free time to run the association. Or, they do have the expertise to run the association. Please realize, that even many absentee owners hire a real estate agent to rent their investment property. It usually is safer because realtors can easily check the credit and background of the tenant, make sure the lease is written correctly; they can take care of all complaints and possible repairs . If you feel that the realtor mismanaged the HOA property, may be the association could first contact the broker and discuss the problem with him. If that does not work, perhaps filing a complaint with the Board of realtors could be the second step.

Having a management company or a property manager, hired by the Directors of a condo complex, or of a fairly large housing community (PUD) is the norm. At least in Florida it is.It sounds like you think it's either a Board of members doing everything OR having a management company. It's usually both.
Even with a CAM (in FL our managers are licensed "community association managers") it is difficult to get owners to volunteer to be on the board. There is a great deal of work involved.
I think you have to realize what has happened to real estate values in the last 4 years, whether or not you believe that the management company is entirely at fault.
In central Florida, even in well-kept neighborhoods, property values have gone down 1/3 to even 1/2.

The small fee of $127.00 a month may be why the building and grounds are in the condition they are. Some fees are close to $1,000.00 per month. I personally pay $155.68 a month and this will have to be rainsed in the near future to prevent any more deteriotion of the building and grounds.

Ask yourself this: Why did your husband hire a management company to manage the rental of his home?

I bet the answers to that question will apply to why a group of homeowners who volunteer their services as a board of directors would hire a professional management company to handle the duties of a condo association.