Are these repair and maintenance costs reasonable?

"Sounds right" to you may be outrageous to someone else, so stop with that line of thinking. Inflation is everywhere - is there anything in YOUR household budget that hasn't increased over the last 9 years? If so, why do you expect HOA expenses to stay the same? And your community was built in 1971 - a 43 year old community is going to cost more than one that was built two or three years ago.

Costs vary from community to community and that depends on what the association is required to cover. Delinquent homeowners are also an issue - you end up spending limited resources to get them to pay and in the meantime other expenses have to get paid. That means the homeowners who are paying have to indirectly subsidize those people.

Your budget needs to reflect ALL the costs of running the association, so if it doesn't include insurance taxes, utilities, clubhouse maintenance and the other stuff you mention, that could be your problem. If those costs have been underestimated or weren't factored in to begin with, that will increase your costs. If something wasn't maintained the way it should have been a few years ago and has now deteriorated to where you have no choice but to fix it, that will add to your costs.

Special assessments, in general, should be avoided because it probably means the budget planning was lousy, such as not having a reserve fund for major expenses, such as roof replacement. To fund it properly and pay for monthly expenses, your assessments should be set accordingly (at the very least, you'll probably see an increase to allow for inflation). What has your board been up to? Did they try to increase the assessments only for homeowners to scream about them being "too high?" If so, you now see you've probably shot yourself in the foot (repeatedly) for the last 9 years and possibly longer.

It's good that you're looking at the budget, but you also need to talk to the board and your property manager, if you have one. Are there expenses that have jumped faster than others over 9 years? If so, what sort of things has the board done to try and control those costs? Are they getting at least 3 bids for maintenance work? If not, perhaps you can help with reviewing them. If the answers you get are evasive or you don't get any, you and your fellow homeowners will need to come together and demand answers of the board. If they don't respond, get rid of them, do an audit and get some professional help to assist you in coming up with a realistic budget. Good luck!

JL

Can we assume each building has shared elements like entry ways, lobbies, elevators, etc.? These type things easily drive up maintenance costs.

Without details as to the brekdown of costs impossible to give you an opinion worth anything.

What were your common charges nine years ago?
How much have they increased each year?
Has the Board provided any explanation?

Without a list of costs, who provided them at what cost, how much each has increased over the period you now question difficult to offer you anything.

Are you on the Board? Do you have a copy of the budget or audit for the years in question?
Do you ask at meetings for explanations? Do you atend meetings?

Sounds like you need to gather information to be able to judge how wisely your money is being spent.

JL,

As others have said, without seeing details, it's difficult to say it's excessive or not.
However, I will provide the following comments:

Have you had a Reserve Study done for the Association and are the Reserves fully funded?
My Association started in 1979. We didn't do a Reserve study until 2010. The Reserve study showed that assessments needed to be raised by 20% to properly fund the Reserves. Now, our Association's main expense is streets and sidewalks. For comparison, our expenses just for roads has increased to $30,000 per year.
Since you are in a condominium and your development is older than ours, I would expect your costs to be even higher.

You may want to ask that your Board provide a better breakdown of what the expenses actually went for rather then simply saying building repairs and grounds maintenance.

As far as normal contracts, our grounds maintenance (landscape) costs have increased by 20% over the past 9 years.

I mean that the total budget is $359k.

Thanks everyone. The frustrating thing is that as the same time as the monthly costs of have doubled, we've actually had special assessments on top of that - new parking lot paving and new roof. We were told that this was all covered by the special assessments. So my understanding is these major projects did NOT impact the month costs, at least not directly.

I have asked the board to explain the increase. One long-time board member said she "didn't know why". When I told her that I would be glad to review the costs and do some research she responded that she did not think that co-owners were entitled to review the financial documents. She encouraged me to ask the property manager.

So I went to the property manager - he's actually the owner of the property management company and also sits on the board. (FYI - ALL of the repair of and maint costs are billed through him.) When I asked which specific items had increased in the last ten years - he's actually been managing the place since the 80s - he said that the increase was due to just to general "inflation" not due to any special projects.

I guess I don't understand how "general inflation" since 2006 could account for a literal 50% increase: from $179k operating costs in 2005 to $359k operating costs in 2014.

I guess I'll just have to formally request to review the financials and see if I can figure it out myself.

Well, there is an inflation calculator on inflationdata.com, as well as the bureau of labor statistics website, so you can crunch the period between 2005 to 2014 - when I did it, it came out to 22.66%. Put another way, what cost $1 in 2005 costs $2.26 today. Even then, that number can go up and down because the cost of living can vary from city to city and state to state.

I think part of your problem may be the property manager. The property manager should not be sitting on the board unless he's a homeowner, and even if he is, he's got a conflict of interest (sits on the board and so has a say in what projects are done, who gets to do them, etc.) However this ends, I think you and your fellow homeowners need to insist the board correct this situation immediately.

As I said before, special assessments are generally a reflection of lousy budgeting. The association should have had a reserve study done so it could set up a reserve fund, saving a portion of assessments every year (according to the study recommendations) so when the major expenses came up, like roof replacement, the money would have already been there. Yes, you'll still have to factor in inflation, so your assessments would have gone up anyway.

The board member who said she didn't think co owners are entitled to review the financial documents is an idiot - check your documents to see what homeowners are entitled to (may also need to see if Michigan law says anything). And if she doesn't know why assessments have increased, perhaps it's time that she (and maybe a few other board members besides the property manager!) need to step down. A treasurer might know a little more of the ins and outs of the numbers, but I've always felt any homeowner should be able to go to any board member about an issue and get accurate information. All the board members vote on how to spend money, so they need to have a good working knowledge of the budget and why it's set the way it is.