New To HOA's

David,

If you really want to get up to speed here is a good place to start:

http://www.caionline.org/info/Pages/FreeDownloads.aspx

The Community Association Institute (CAI) has a wealth of information available. My association pays for CAI membership for each member of the board of directors. We have purchased a number of their publications to create a small library, available to all our members. This material will give you the background you need to then ask questions specific to your situation.

This site is a good place to start. Use the search feature.



I recommend a simple excel sheet or google docs. HOA's typically don't have many expenses to track. No need to make your life overly complicated with un-necessary software. We use mint.com to track expenses and income then export it to excel or google docs. Really easy. I recommend google docs over excel because you can share it and any changes you make can be viewed live without emailing another file.

If you must, I recommend quickbooks over quicken. Most accountants can use your quickbook files. Not many would use quicken.



Excel or google docs. Again, I recommend google docs because of its superior sharing capabilities.



Legal advice should only come from a lawyer. If you want general advice, you can post problems here or search google, but they may not be specific answers that apply to your HOA. Every HOA has a custom designed sets of rules called CCR/Bylaws. No two are the same. Thus general advice may not apply to your HOA.

Considering all of the information Google collects, I am leery of using them.

Thanks guys, I am CAI place is very helpful. I really hope in 2 years I still like people lol. It seems this will be a very huge asset to our HOA.

That post was to SteveM9. LOL

Hi,

Wanted to mention several thoughts here. You didn't mention the size of your complex. If you live in a very small complex, let's say under 30 units, and few common areas to maintain, this may be possible. It might be to your advantage and learning curve to offer first, to work in conjunction with whomever is doing the self management at this time. Offer to be their assistant for 12 or 24 months, while you learn and go over several aspects of being self managed, as your learn how to be an effective board member first. If not, no matter how smart you are, no matter how fast you pick up HOA concepts, you will be taken advantage of. (Been there.)

You can't hide behind a computer program, you will need some people skills here with this new adventure. Your neighbors will be the KEY, IMHO, to getting some historical information, that is absolutely needed to be a fair, efficient board member. Also, IMHO, you can NOT be an effective board member by staying inside your home, and sending emails. Don't need anyone to argue with me on this one, diplomatic, cordial contact with the members is a must, IMHO. But never "lie" to a member, some of my co-board members have found out first hand how damaging that can be, once it's made public, and it will be.

If, your HOA has been organized, and can provide you with previous day to day documents to go over, all past meeting minutes, that would also be a good idea to go over those documents for some history. I have pulled my hair out so many times with our lost records, and poor financial decisions made by my HOA, as a result and lack of any kind of historical documents and/or records. In my complex, we just blew $7,000.00 on a repeat expense in 12 months time......due to lack of research and proper record keeping on the boards part. And no, we don't have the $7,000.00 to throw down the drain, making the same mistakes. This mistake is now costing us $8,000.00 more to correct the wasted $7,000.00 project, geeez.

Start going over ALL of your governing documents, and get familiar with all of them. Go over and at least become familiar with, all of your city, county, state and federal laws/statutes that out rank your HOA's legal documents.

This next thought helped me in every aspect of being a fair, open minded and legally efficient board member. Talk to everyone you can, be patient and listen well to what your neighbors have to say. You may not agree with them, their demands may be petty or even ridiculous......however this will give you much needed insight into the dynamics of your board members, and how they interact with the residents, or how they have treated the residents. Take special note here, I said residents.....not just the owners, include all residents. Here, where I live, we have a problem with selective enforcement....let me say it real clear, historically RENTERS have been discriminated against by receiving excessive violations. Yes, I have addressed this fact.

There is a lot to go over and understand, learn as much as you can, before taking on more than you can chew!!

I wish you the best, keep us posted