Use Personal Address for HOA Address?

Started by BobB26 • 5 replies • 2500 views

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BobB26 (Oklahoma)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Our small HOA (28 homes) uses a PO Box for it's official address. Other than for annual dues checks, we rarely get any mail at all. Nothing in the past 3 weeks.

Are there any red flags to worry about if we decide to use the address of one of our Board members as the official address? Sole reason is for convenience (not having to make a 10 mile round trip to check the PO Box only to find it empty most of the time). We have no other structures other than the homes - so we can't use a clubhouse address for example.

Thanks

TimB4 (Tennessee)
Posts: 21,059

Posted:

Red flags? No.

Concerns, yes.

Some of the concerns:

Changing addresses for payments can create late, lost or misdirected payments.

If a board member moves and forwards mail, who knows when mail will get to the correct person.

Every time the mailing address changes, you have additional time/expense in notifying others (membership, contractors, banks, corporation commission, registered agent, IRS, etc.).

Options you may not have considered:

Use a closer mailbox service (UPS, etc. just search for mailbox rental).

Talk to the Post Office about what has to be done to create a mail drop address for the Association.

Check the mail less often (once a week or twice a month).

NpS (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 4,216

Posted:

We conduct most of our business via email.

We have a PO Box. Can go for weeks without any mail.

We cannot use the PO Box for our corporate registration with the PA Dept of State. So we use one of our board member's home address. Cautions: 1. Must change registration if he decides he doesn't want to use his house. 2. He works from home. So someone is usually there if official notices need to be served on the HOA. (Has never actually happened, but should be planned for)

Sikubali jukumu. Read all posts at your own risk.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

We use the address of our clubhouse but no mail goes there. Instead we have a payment box attached to our mailbox area. The name on the address we have is someone who was used to set up our water account like over 20 years ago. No physical mailbox so to speak but with the option we can basically "forward" the email to whomever we want. Which in our case was the Accounting firm.

There can be some legal ramifications on P.O. boxes versus real mailboxes. P.O. Boxes usually can not be used to deliver certain legal notices to. I would discuss the options with the post office. They are best in determining how to set this up.

Former HOA President

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By BobB26 on 03/29/2016 8:28 PM
Our small HOA (28 homes) uses a PO Box for it's official address. Other than for annual dues checks, we rarely get any mail at all. Nothing in the past 3 weeks.

Are there any red flags to worry about if we decide to use the address of one of our Board members as the official address? Sole reason is for convenience (not having to make a 10 mile round trip to check the PO Box only to find it empty most of the time). We have no other structures other than the homes - so we can't use a clubhouse address for example.

It would simplify things if mail to the PO box could be forwarded to an HOA officer's home. My personal experience is that you cannot keep a USPS box open and forward the mail. If you put in a forwarding order for the box they will close it and forward your mail for six months or so.

Using a personal residence for receiving business mail may work. I have done that in the past. The problem is that the post office does not seem to take kindly to forwarding business mail. So if all HOA mail goes to your current president's home the PO is not likely to forward it to the next president's home. This is not likely to be a huge problem considering the size of your association but you should be aware of that pitfall.

I have used private mailboxes in the past and found that they will forward your mail to another address as long as you are paying them to do so. If you stop paying, they just return your mail to the sender. The post office will not forward mail addressed to a private mailbox.

Also, if you rent a private mailbox be careful in filling out the required USPS forms. One of the forms allows you to check a box that authorizes the vendor to accept service of process and other legal documents. It may have unintended consequences. (There was an Arizona appellate case a few years ago where the defendant denied that she had been properly served when the summons and complaint were left with the private mailbox vendor. The court held that since she checked the box, service on the vendor was the same as service on her.)

JosephG6 (Florida)
Posts: 11

Posted:

Two comments here

I had set up a USPO Box for my retirees organization and the PO provided a service of sending an email whenever there is mail in the box. This eliminated unwarranted trips to the PO when the box had nothing in it. Check with your PO for this service

As an alternate, could you not install a locked mailbox on the [common] property with an HOA address for receiving mail from the PO?

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