Exclusive Trash Vendor

We are an HOA of 25 single-family homes on a single dead-end street.

We have over half of the community using a particular trash vendor. The remaining members are using three other trash providers.

So on trash day, we have four companies providing trash services to our small community, which is 8 different trash trucks between trash and recycling.

We are considering an exclusive agreement with the primary trash vendor for the community. This would save us all money and reduce the amount of trash trucks that are on the street.

What is the right way to make this change?
In my mind, this is a restriction since you would be required to use the trash provider that we choose - so we would need to amend our CC&Rs?

Our covenants require 2/3 votes to amend, which I'm fairly confident that we could get if needed.

Also curious - does anyone else have an exclusive trash vendor?

Does your HOA pay for the trash pick up or do the individuals? If it is the Individuals, then that is another ball game. Not one that you all can't change. It just means the HOA has to adapt it's dues to accommodate for this service. Right now if it is up to the individual then the HOA has not much say.

Now if it is part of the HOA dues, then it is a good idea to combine services to one provider. This will lesson expenses, confusion, and use of the roads. You do need to update your By-laws/HOA CC&R's to reference trash services are covered in the dues. You don't name the vendor. That will change.

So if not covered under your dues, then this will require a vote of the ownership to adapt. Math will have to be done on how to split up the expense amongst all the owners. Plus of course putting this in the documents the HOA provides this service.

I think it would be a good idea for the HOA to use the dues for this service. It was part of ours. We did not use the city's services for trash/recycle. We had dumpsters instead at the end of the roads. So there wasn't individual trash cans to deal with.

That's what we're trying to accomplish. We have already negotiated with a vendor that is willing to cut us a good deal if 100% of the community uses the vendor. We can't central bill to the HOA because some homeowners choose to have recycling and others do not. The vendor is willing to direct bill each homeowner and they can choose if they want recycling, but the deal is contingent on 100% of the community using the vendor.

I don't think the board currently has the authority, because it's not in our CC&R's.
But if we were to amend the CC&R's with the 2/3 of members approving, you don't think that would be enforceable?

So the argument is that it’s only enforceable if the HOA handles the billing and includes it in the annual assessment? I’m not sure I see why that would make a difference as it’s still coming out of the homeowners pocket.

Over half of our homeowners do not have recycling. If we went the route where the HOA handles the billing and recycling was mandatory, we would be increasing the cost for many of our homeowners and they would certainly be upset. That defeats the point as to what we are trying to accomplish. We want to require our homeowners to use a specific vendor, which would reduce the cost for everyone and still give them the flexibility to choose the services they want. That seems like the best option to me.

I’m still not sure I understand why we can’t add a clause to our covenants that are specific vendor has to be used for trash. Is there a precedent that you can reference?

I agree with you. And we certainly would not put a vendors name in our CC&Rs. We would use language that would give the board the authority to enter into a service agreement with a trash vendor and that our homeowners would be required to use that vendor.

I want our homeowners to have a choice as to if they want to pay for recycling or not. That’s one of the reasons we don’t want to include it in our annual assessment. The second reason is that we bill assessments annually and many of our homeowners like to pay for trash and/or recycling quarterly.

Jake

If you can show owners that using one trash hauler would be cheaper then people are now paying, regardless of how much service they use, it should be a no brainer selecting one hauler.

Our trash collector handles both recycling and regular trash for a single fee (that seems to be the norm in my area).

In our case, the per-unit cost for a group account providing both services was so much lower than the individual rates that even those who don't want to pay for recycling may come out ahead. (And it's very likely that these folks were just throwing their recyclables into the regular trash - they didn't produce less waste overall, so cry me a river.)

You do not need to put the contractors name in the CC&R's Contracts expire. companies go out of business or BOD's change vendors. You simply need to state that "trash collecting" is provided by the association. You really need a lawyer to do this, and your CC&R's will need to be recorded to the deeds of the association and all homeowners.