residents helping with repairs

Yes. Get those talented people licensed, bonded, and insured. Unless one has all 3, they will never be used in my HOA.

HOA's should use only licensed and insured contractors. The reason being is that the liability and bad work risk. Let's say that a member does some electrical work. That causes a spark and sends the clubhouse up in flames. That member can be then responsible for replacing that clubhouse. Now if an insured/licensed contractor does the work then that damage would fall under their insurance/license. That is the best difference to explain it.

Now I did have some "Volunteer days" which we did small repairs here and there. However, they were not jobs of "professionals" that would require a license. This is like painting, fixing walls, cleaning, planting, or other non-professional activities. If feel better, you may have a release form for those who do the work.

Every year before we open the pool we have volunteers come out and clean up the clubhouse and the pool chairs. We use Simple green for non-toxic reasons. The kids also participate. However, admittedly I am not without danger to myself. I was doing some prep work for a wall repair/paint. Slipped and sliced my finger/hand. Had to drive the kids back home while applying pressure to the wound. No stiches but did not go to doctor. Now if that had happened to someone else, we may have had to pay for their doctor visit and follow ups. That would be what a lawsuit would be for anyways.

So just weigh the risks and know your people. I am not against volunteers doing some repairs but understand the risks and liabilities. I also do Volunteer work for Habitat for Humanity. They don't cover you. You sign a release.

Who's using the "list of vendors from the HOA"? The HOA itself? Isn't that normal procedure?

Anyway, 20 years ago my HOA did what you suggest. They ditched a management company because the actual cost was much higher than they had anticipated. At the time, there were many pioneer homeowners willing to volunteer many hours of their time to help maintain the community. The HOA bought flowers and volunteers planted them outside the front wall of the community. Several men had chainsaws and volunteered to trim tree branches as needed. Many older homeowners here remember those "good old days" when everyone chipped in to keep the place looking good and keeping expenses down.

We would never allow such a thing today. It's all Rah Rah Volunteers until somebody gets hurt.

If you have proof of kickbacks, provide it to the membership.

However, if you only think that the Board or an individual on the Board is getting a kickback and have zero proof, I would strongly recommend not making such accusations.

Regarding the use of volunteers -

Your Board is correct, if someone is hurt, they can sue the Association.
Using only licensed and insured contractors keeps the risk low to the members.

That said, we have used volunteers for various things that didn't provide too much risk.
We have used volunteers to pick up the common area, replace signage, paint curbs, etc.
However, the risk was still there if someone got hurt.

One way to keep costs down is for those talented people to volunteer to serve on the Board or committees. This way, their expertise can be used to validate proposals from licensed and insured contractors. They could even oversee the work to make sure things are done properly.

Our Social Committee, and anyone else who wants to help, decorate both our lobbies and our on-premises outdoor circle drive area, for the winter holidays. Involves putting ornaments on the Christmas trees, putting lights around some railings in the circle drive, putting wreathes on the vehicle entry gates, setting up the menorah on a credenza,. etc. Looks great. What these volunteers must not do is climb ladders to place ornaments near the tops of the two trees. That's done by our building engineer since the volunteers would not be covered by our insurance if injured falling off a ladder.

Yes, Tim we definitely have asked our agent. None of our volunteers may do anything that might be considered "risky." Going into our electrical rooms is one example. Before we asked our agent, volunteers did go up ladders (the trees are maybe 12" tall) and one man did fall forward into the tree and emerged uninjured. That's when we asked.

Close your eyes and picture this:

Old men wielding chainsaws.

VOLUNTEER old men.

Heart warming, no?

D'OH

Oh yeah, I did that when reading back over the old minutes of my association. My reaction was, "Really?"

Feel free to roll the dice if you want. When an ambulance chaser comes around and tells you your ladder fell over because the ground under it hadn't been maintained properly and practically guarantees you a million dollars, how many people are actually going to say no? There are plenty of lawyers like that in Texas, just as there are everywhere. I know a few of them in TX.

BillH10, this is great information.