HOA Increase in Assessments

I moved in to my community a year ago and I never received the letter sent out on the annual meeting - but at the meeting last May where 12 of 74 landowners were present there was a decision to double our HOA fees. Let me add that several years back there was a period of around 5 years where most residents did not receive invoices then received a catch up one owing hundreds of dollars and many could not pay those huge bills currently 62% of landowners are paying and the rest have large amounts due we have $21K in uncollected assessments.

Because no one will answer questions, nothing appears to be maintained our roads are in terrible shape no one wants to pay I cant even get a response from the president on who the other trustees are nor will they provide me with any minutes from last years meeting. When I checked the county records they have only indentures filed from 1955 that have a $40 HOA Assessment at the time - if no one can provide the minutes or amendments and they were not filed do we have to pay at some point they were raised to $75 then last year doubled to $150! I have asked for financials many times I finally got some vague ones and asked for more details after 5 requests this month for those details, minutes and who is on the board I am still being ignored the pres has been on it for 20 years and although the term is 3 years there is no limit to the # of terms you can serve. I think his wife is vice president and the president does all the bills the payments go directly to him we have wondered if something fishy is going on.

These old bylaws state 2 trustees can make a decision that only a one time general assessment requires a 2/3 vote - things are not matching up and I spent my whole day talking to people throughout the neighborhood and the annual meeting is Wednesday how do I approach all these issues.

Thanks for that info - our concerns are not so much the increase its the fact that noone will answer our requests or provide info and nothing has been done in here for years

Lisa,

Ideally, the Secretary should have a binder with all the minutes of the Board meetings, with Treasurer's report attached, plus the minutes of any Annual Meeting of the Members with approved Treasurer's Report attached.

Also, there should also be a binder with the Articles of Incorporation, CCR's , the Bylaws, and any other Rules and Regulations passed by the Board, plus any IRS or State filings.

Typically, any member can look at these "records" of the association, by appointment, and if any copies are requested, you will have to pay for the copies.

Ask if this kind of record keeping has been done throughout the years by the Secretary.

You complain you are seeing nothing being done. Your HOA is in shambles. Well how do you think it can fix these things without the money? A HOA is ONLY funded by it's members for it's members. If you have such a high rate of non-payment, then those who do pay have to pay more to cover that. Plus if you want the HOA to collect from those not paying, it costs money. It is not necessarily free to file a lien.

So you may want to know different information than your asking for. Like what is the overall expenses (costs) the HOA faces each month? How much overall do they collect? Don't need to know the exact number of where every dime is going. Just what it takes to make to pay out to make it's basic bills.