E-mail Vs. Snail Mail Communication

I'd like some feedback from those HOA's who do much of their communication via e-mail vs. snail mail.

What exactly are you e-mailing? What are you NOT e-mailing?

We are considering going digital and I'd like to famliarize myself with any limitations there might be.

Go to Davis-stirling.com, "Disclosure Checklist" and "Electronic Notice & Records" to get an idea of the many, many documents Owners may receive by email. Way too many for me to list.

Also 30 day notices of rules changes, annual audits and others.

When the law took effect back in '10, I think we included an invitation to complete the required consent form with the monthly statement. Also posted on our website and we run reminders periodically in our monthly newsletters. The form is included with new Owner Welcome Packages as well. We still only have about 80% participation though.

As I'm sure you know, Linda, election materials, .g., ballots may not be sent electronically.

I’m not in California, but here are some practical suggestions, based on what I’ve seen around this site and Kerry’s comments:

First, run some numbers. If you have a newsletter, see how much it’s costing you to print and mail. You might also ask your property manager to see how often you get requests for other association documents, what gets requested more than others, and how much time and money it takes to gather up all this stuff and snail mail it to the owner. When people are told how much time and money can be saved by using email, this could encourage them to sign up.
I would begin by signing up everyone via snail mail, so you have a paper trail.

Let people know when the email correspondence will start (e.g. 30 days after providing the information) and what they will receive or can request from that point on. Homeowners should also be told that they are responsible for notifying the association of any changes in their email address. Hopefully, you have a website where they can download certain information (e.g. annual budget) – that can reduce the need for emailing requests for the same.

Read Davis-Stirling’s information on email and talk to your association attorney about setting certain policies and procedures, such as how people can unsubscribe, whether people can opt out of including their email address when someone requests a homeowner list, what correspondence will be considered Association documents (and therefore available to other homeowners upon request), and what documents will not be sent via email, such as election ballots (I’d also add rule violation notices and all correspondence regarding delinquencies). It would also be helpful to remind people that offensive and threatening language will not be tolerated and will referred to law enforcement, if necessary.

While you’re at it, this may be a good time to consider cloud storage of some of your documents – this way if people ask for other association documents, it will be faster to search for them, set them up as a PDF and then email them accordingly. Obviously, this is a separate issue and you have a number of things to consider, such as security, so for now, I’d stick to current year information. Oh, yeah, tell everyone they should have a PDF reader so they can open

I like Kerry’s suggestion on putting the consent forms in new owner packets and posting reminders on the website – I’d add putting in a notice when you mail out the election information and encourage people to either return that with their proxies or drop it off when they attend the annual meeting.
Have fun!

Thanks!

Can you charge a fee for owners thst opt out of email?

Thanks, Kerry.