Really messed up HOA I need advice

So I have owned this home for 2.5 years now. The HOA consists of 33 homes.
When I moved in and attended the first meeting I was elected the new Vice president. Still not sure how that happened.
Anyways I shortly found out this is a huge cluster. I found out that the secretary was going around door to door collecting payments from people. After being asked to leave my neighbors property and refused and real physical assault ensued, needless to say the cops got involved. My neighbor is behind on her hoas because the secretary was refusing to give her a copy of the bylaws and a breakdown of all her payments as my neighbor has paid her money at the door in the past the the money never got put onto her account. Then after the altercation the secretary decided she didn't want to collect the money any more and turned over all collections to a management company. Our last meeting we voted to increase our hoa dues from 150 and year to 250 to cover the extra cost of landscape maintenance on the retaining pond. Now I received two 2014 proposed budget from the property managment. They want to up the dues to 450 a year. The only expences we have is electricity to the front gate and the phone line for access and insurance on the pond, and management fees.

proposal 1
Total assessments at 450 per lot 14,800.00
Bad Debt 450.00 we currently only have 4 delinquent homes
Insurance 1,412.00
Legal 500.00
Licences 10.00
Management fees 8,400.00
Office supplies 58.00
Postage and delivery 60.00
Reserve Study 300.00 per new laws you have to have a certain percent of reserve I haven't checked what it is yet
Storage 60.00 I am guessing storage of our records
Total admin expense 11,250.00

Landscaping & ground keeping 3,000.00 we have no common area only a retaining pond that has to be mowed.
Telephone expense 600.00

proposal 2 is a default increase that will go into effect as a default if the propsal 1 gets voted down
Total assessments at 262.50 per lot
Bad Debt 262.50
Insurance 1,412.00
Legal None
Licences 10.00
Management fees 5,700.00
Office supplies 58.00
Postage and delivery 60.00
Reserve Study None

Landscaping & ground keeping 500.00
Telephone expense 600.00

Does this make any sense. Why would we put 3,000.00 away for maintaining a pond, we maintain our own yards
second why would the property management fees change based on what our dues are?
Third where is the breakdown of our actual costs?
plus wouldn't the property management fees that high cover office supplies, postage and storage of our records this just seems too excessive for what we are getting from them.

Second problem, billing problem my first bill from them was wrong the bill had only a p.o. box for the contact info, So I received a corrected bill a week later with an e-mail address included so I wrote them this letter and it took them a week to respond there response was in the effect of ignore everything I said we will e-mail you in a few days if we don't receive your payment. And it took them 4 days to respond to my e-mail

Dear Ms. Jessica Jones,

On May 8th I received a notice for intent to lien my property for being 90 days delinquent on my homeowners dues. I am so far not happy with your billing practices. The statement date for the first bill I received was dated 4/1/2013. It stated that my balance due was 410.95. I knew this amount was not correct but there was no contact information on the bill except the p.o box mailing address. Then a week later I receive the revised statement with the correct amount for 252.71. Along with this statement was the contact information for the association with the new collection policies. I am fine with the new collection policies. My problem is the fact that I didn't receive the first bill until April. According to the corrected statement I received the Assessment of $250.00 was Due on 2/26/2013. So 90 days from this due date isn't until the end of May. But I feel even though you invoiced the assessment to be due on 2/26/13 I should not be held liable for the month it took you to send out a statement. I also had no idea who to pay the dues too until I received the bill. Then just 30 days later I am getting a notice for intent to lien my property. I have already sent out the payment, but if this is this companies billing practices I will be taking it to the board to find another management company to handle our accounts.

So my questions are, do these property management fees seem extreme for the amount of services they are providing?
They handle the billing, a lawyer on retainer we pay extra for any of his services though and ah and i believe that is it

oh and an other note my neighbor has been having a hard time with them also, they are stating the last 6 years she has only made 1 hoa payment and have argued that there are no other payments then yesterday said they found records for 4 more payments totaling 450. they still say she owes another 400 for legal fees and another 1000.00 but refuse to mail her a breakdown of every charge on her account. It's just so confusing.
Our president is have family medical problems, our other person I can't remember her title is getting foreclosed on and the secretary I believe was possibly steeling money from people she was collecting from door to door.
And now I am the Vice President please help.

Lindsey,

Those management company amounts sound way out of line. With 33 homes the $8400 equals $21 per home per month. We have a management company that handles all of our financial transactions (collection of dues, payment of bills, preparation of monthly financial statements, etc.) for approximately $2.50 per home per month. We are a much large community (801 homes) so there is some economy of scale but it cannot be a factor of 10. You need to get other bids.

The issue is you only have 33 houses. They would probably charge Management fees of $8,400 the same for 200 houses, but you only have 33. Therefore your cost per house is much more. That said, with only 33 houses, I dont see why you need a mgmt company at all.



It's likely you are required to maintain the pond. Many ponds are retaining ponds required to be put in before the development was approved by the city.



Because that is the deal that mgmt company offered and you accepted. You are free to choose a different Mgmt company that will charge a flat fee for specific services. Dont blame the mgmt for selling a product and your HOA for choosing to pay for it. Some restaurants charge $15 for a burger, mcdonalds charges $1, you are free to choose.

Is the board or the management company the ones sending the collections information and refusing to send the documentation of proof?

The Treasurer was the first one to refuse my neighbor the billing files. She also refused to give her a copy of the bylaws stating that she would have to go through her title company to get them. Now the MC controls all the billing and they are giving her the run around with giving her records of the charges on her account. Unfortunately she made all her payments in cash and didn't always insist on a receipt, so her fault there. But one payment on her account is for a check and the mc says there is no record of the actual date of the check or the check number. I have a feeling that who ever was maintaining the books before handing everything over to the mc was really really bad at it. How should I go about getting a copy of our contract with the mc. Being I am on the board can I call them a request this or do I need to go through the rest of our board?

Since you are on the Board, you should just be able to request a copy.
As a courtesy, you should also inform the rest of the Board OR simply request copies for the entire Board.

I'm concerned that your Board has turned too much authority over to the MC.

Since the MC makes the deposits, do they also write the checks? If they do, there is limited (if any) checks and balances there.

Who authorizes contacting an attorney for collections, the MC or the Board? This should be a Board function, otherwise you are allowing an employee incur expense in the name of the Association. Note, I said this should be a Board function, meaning a majority vote of the entire Board and not delegated to any one Officer.

Who maintains the records of the Association? I suspect that the MC does this but I am concerned that a Board member can't gain access to them without the MC involved.

Thank you everyone for your help, now I have a starting point and a lot of work ahead of my.

We had a board member who just wasn't able to produce the petty cash for a few things that were purchased. We suspect she was using the funds and replacing it come payday.. but whatever. As a board we decided to take this away from her. After two weeks of no response from emails, she was put on a formal notice and the money magically appeared and she left the board in a day or two. People like this DO exist!! Honestly... they really do.

Our member didn't know we were talking taking legal action.. she may of gotten wind of it, but whatever.

Embezzlement is against the law..Get the police involved. NO homeowner in their right mind should ever hand over money without a receipt for anything to any board member.. just sayin'.