How to Welcome New Residents? And Why?

You talking apples and oranges, as you have the luxury of a onsite manager and assistant. I don't know of anyone here that has the same setup.

Augie would argue you are breaking the law if you gave any resident a gift using association funds as it is clearly not outlined in your CCRs.

That being said, as a management company, we always made up Welcome Packets for new owners when you took over an account. After escrow would close, our company would give the new owners a $100.00 Home Depot gift card. It really never came out of our pockets as it was part of the fees paid by the sellers.

Could you please cite your source for that mis-information?

Again, please cite your source, NOT your opinion!

No problem. The articles are on the state website. The CC&R's are at the county. Does not mean you can not provide a copy. Just not responsible to do so.

FACTS. Some states it is the seller's responsibility to provide the HOA's documents at closing. Other states it is the buyers' responsibility to be informed. That is why the CC&R's and Articles of Incorporation are PUBLIC documents.

It is NEVER the HOA's, Realtor, closing attorney, title company, or bank/mortgage company to be responsible to provide. People always want to "sue for not being provided the HOA's documents". Their defense is "I did not know I lived in a HOA and had to pay dues" etc... The truth is those it's the seller or your fault not knowing. The other parties are NOT responsible and thus can't be sued for not providing PUBLIC documents.

MelissaP1 is correct of course. Who says so? For one, the courts say recording with the county serves as public notice.

I'm not even sure why Melissa would even bring up who she thinks is responsible for governing docs. This was about a welcome packet, which for this OP was 7 pages long, far shorter than their CCRs.

Neither Melissa or Augie have a clue how escrow or the title process works in the state of California. In California, there are a number of documents required during a sale, with the majority not generally available to the seller to provide. Generally, not always, a management company will provide all the necessary documents for the transaction. By statue, the sellers are required to pay for this service.

According to state statue, (1) Upon written request, the association shall, within 10 days of the mailing or delivery of the request, provide the owner of a separate interest, or any other recipient authorized by the owner, with a copy of all of the requested documents specified in Section 4525.

So really, the association is responsible for providing the documents, including the CCRs and Articles of Incorporation, if so asked by the seller.

I handle about 20 of these requests per month. When I started in this business in 2010 it would take hours to compile and copy all the information, now we can process a request electronically within 5-10 minutes.

I can't tell you how very sorry I am that I started this thread. Perhaps there's some other site I can visit for advice on this topic. . .. .

You're such a fraud. Melissa said the HOA does not have a responsibility to provide the covenants. Standing by itself, this is correct. Then you jump in screaming and crying that she is wrong, because in California, /// once there is a written request to the HOA, and only from an owner/// yada, the HOA has an obligation to provide the docs to the owner or the person the owner authorizes.

Regarding HOAs having on-site manager and assistant manager: One of my four HOAs had exactly this. In the same town, I know of at least two other HOAs who also had an on-site manager and assistant manager.

I haven't read the full article but maybe this will help give you some ideas?

https://www.hoamanagement.com/hoa-welcome-packet/

We don't have a social committee, but all of the dog walkers (and people who walk for exercise) function as one - very informal, though, and hit or miss.

One thing jumped out at me: your said your committee wants to play an active role. My reaction is that they're putting the cart before the horse. In other words, they don't have a goal in mind, they just want to do something - which is a prescription for an ineffective committee.

If I were on your board, I'd tell them to come up with a list of areas where they think that the association is currently falling short, along with recommendations for concrete steps that the committee could take to address this. Define problem first, then propose solutions.

Gibberish.

How about creating a welcome video, it does not have to be long. An orientation video of the property to familiarize people with the property, amenities, trash and other policies. create a QR code and post them in the mail room, Elevator. on-site office, even email it to the new owner or sub.

We don't do welcome packets although new homeowners are sent a copy of the documents and payment book a few weeks after closing. At least that's what they did when I moved in.

Personally, I think some sort of welcome packets is a great idea and I agree with what you said about adding a personal element to make his residents. the little things do matter and while we spend most of the time on this website bowling about selective enforcement of CCRs, underfunded reserves, incompetent boards and greedy attorneys, maybe we should spend a little time trying to treat our neighbors as ourselves. Assuming you want to be treated nicely, perhaps acting like a neighbor may be the beginning of finding community volunteers we all week to be begging for.

If the new owners didn't get a copy of the documents at closing (many dont) you can put an owners handbook in the packet (written in plain English), along with a welcome letter and some inexpensive gifts, like refrigerator magnets. Our property manager has a catalog with prepackaged welcome packets, that can include stuff like cleaning supplies to tidy up the home to microwave popcorn to enjoy after you unpacked.

I wouldn't see an issue with using association money for this, as I would think You wouldn't be handing these out every month. You can put it in some sort of budget line item like for the social committee - this is an example of things they can do.

This is a great idea! I send a welcome packet (because I always want my first contact with a new resident to be friendly) but I don’t think they get read much. People are busy unpacking, etc.

Our Association has a Welcome committee that meets with the new owners. A little more difficult with Covid, but soon the face to face meetings will begin again. The committee has put together a packet of information that they have determined would be useful for a new owner who is interested in knowing some of the Association details.

I like your welcome package contents. We don't do anything. We have a web site with outdated information.