JenniferS11 (Ohio)
Posts: 1
Posts: 1
Posted:
Hi- I am SO grateful I stumbled upon this website. I would truly appreciate any and all information about our HOA situation that anyone can offer.
I live in a development within a development. I live in Ashton Place, which is located IN Waterbury. Essentially, we are a street within Waterbury that somehow is our own subdivision. There are other streets within Waterbury: Andover Place, Wheaton Place, Stone Gate, Chadwyck etc. Out of all of them, only SOME of them are considered a separate subdivision and are required to pay BOTH HOA fees. For example: I live in Ashton Place. We pay 250.00 a year for Ashton Place. And then because Ashton Place is in Waterbury, we have to pay Waterbury HOA Fee which is 350.00/year. Many concerns of fellow residents is that why are some streets in Waterbury considered subdivisions, and others are not? The Waterbury fee makes sense: We are a development of 634 acres with over 1000 homes. We have ponds, walking trails, 2 playgrounds, a clubhouse and a pool. What concerns us is our Ashton Place HOA. There is an entrance with 2 brick signs on each side, a sprinkler system for the entrance only, and 2 small common areas with side walks and a large bed of shrubs that is mostly empty.
The big issue here is this: We have an HOA Board of Residents with a President, VP and so on. But we are also managed by a company called Barnett Management. ( they also manage the waterbury HOA). Our HOA is poorly managed. Last year our president told us that because they got an old water bill, which was around 1800.00, they had to forgo snow removal for the upcoming winter ( which was last winter) in order to pay for the water bill. Our children had no sidewalks to walk on for the winter and had to walk in the street. We are in the Cleveland, Ohio area where there is LOTS of snow. In our city it is illegal to not have sidewalks cleared. My husband would go around with our commercial grade snow blower and do the sidewalks. The president finally came out and helped shovel the side walks. He did complain that this was a liability. Also, the common area landscaping was not taken care of. It was May 12th of this past year and the grass in the entrance way and common areas were 10 inches tall. Residents were complaining. My husband offered to cut the grass and was told it was a liability if he did it. The president of the HOA said it was the landscapers fault and after a few weeks finally got the landscapers out here. For some reason our garden beds are not maintained in the common areas. BY July they were completely covered in tall weeds. Nothing was done about it. So the residents all pitched in and took a Sunday morning and afternoon to weed, edge and mulch the beds with our own money. The president was very upset that we scheduled this without his approval. He did not participate saying it was a liability to do this. We have a sprinkler system however, all of the grass in the common area is brown and dead because he "forgot" to turn the sprinkler system on. Now our grass is brown and filled with weeds, too. While walking our dogs this afternoon, we noticed that the entrance way beds were completely filled with weeds. The plants are dying. The spot lights that shine on our entrance way signs have been burnt out since June. When asked about changing them, he said it was a liability to change them and would have to hire someone to do so.
I understand that this is a lot of crap that we are dealing with. I emailed the President using the provided email address he gave us and asked him about these issues. I did that 2.5 weeks ago and have not heard back.
I have read that we can break apart from Barnett Management and be a self managed HOA Association. I do know that we pay Barnett a decent chunk of the money from our HOA fees. So if anyone has any insight on how to become a self managed HOA Association, and have a new board made, that would be incredibly helpful.
Thank you in advance.
I live in a development within a development. I live in Ashton Place, which is located IN Waterbury. Essentially, we are a street within Waterbury that somehow is our own subdivision. There are other streets within Waterbury: Andover Place, Wheaton Place, Stone Gate, Chadwyck etc. Out of all of them, only SOME of them are considered a separate subdivision and are required to pay BOTH HOA fees. For example: I live in Ashton Place. We pay 250.00 a year for Ashton Place. And then because Ashton Place is in Waterbury, we have to pay Waterbury HOA Fee which is 350.00/year. Many concerns of fellow residents is that why are some streets in Waterbury considered subdivisions, and others are not? The Waterbury fee makes sense: We are a development of 634 acres with over 1000 homes. We have ponds, walking trails, 2 playgrounds, a clubhouse and a pool. What concerns us is our Ashton Place HOA. There is an entrance with 2 brick signs on each side, a sprinkler system for the entrance only, and 2 small common areas with side walks and a large bed of shrubs that is mostly empty.
The big issue here is this: We have an HOA Board of Residents with a President, VP and so on. But we are also managed by a company called Barnett Management. ( they also manage the waterbury HOA). Our HOA is poorly managed. Last year our president told us that because they got an old water bill, which was around 1800.00, they had to forgo snow removal for the upcoming winter ( which was last winter) in order to pay for the water bill. Our children had no sidewalks to walk on for the winter and had to walk in the street. We are in the Cleveland, Ohio area where there is LOTS of snow. In our city it is illegal to not have sidewalks cleared. My husband would go around with our commercial grade snow blower and do the sidewalks. The president finally came out and helped shovel the side walks. He did complain that this was a liability. Also, the common area landscaping was not taken care of. It was May 12th of this past year and the grass in the entrance way and common areas were 10 inches tall. Residents were complaining. My husband offered to cut the grass and was told it was a liability if he did it. The president of the HOA said it was the landscapers fault and after a few weeks finally got the landscapers out here. For some reason our garden beds are not maintained in the common areas. BY July they were completely covered in tall weeds. Nothing was done about it. So the residents all pitched in and took a Sunday morning and afternoon to weed, edge and mulch the beds with our own money. The president was very upset that we scheduled this without his approval. He did not participate saying it was a liability to do this. We have a sprinkler system however, all of the grass in the common area is brown and dead because he "forgot" to turn the sprinkler system on. Now our grass is brown and filled with weeds, too. While walking our dogs this afternoon, we noticed that the entrance way beds were completely filled with weeds. The plants are dying. The spot lights that shine on our entrance way signs have been burnt out since June. When asked about changing them, he said it was a liability to change them and would have to hire someone to do so.
I understand that this is a lot of crap that we are dealing with. I emailed the President using the provided email address he gave us and asked him about these issues. I did that 2.5 weeks ago and have not heard back.
I have read that we can break apart from Barnett Management and be a self managed HOA Association. I do know that we pay Barnett a decent chunk of the money from our HOA fees. So if anyone has any insight on how to become a self managed HOA Association, and have a new board made, that would be incredibly helpful.
Thank you in advance.