Self-help in lieu of property manager

My sense is that we are a bit old school in that we have an property manager (functions as an administrative assistant) who does a lot of administrative work for us. Seems like we could cut down on labor costs if we had a better digital platform that allowed for more self-help by homeowners.

For example, when a homeowner responds to a compliance letter, this are routed to the general e-mail inbox of the PM company. Then the general inbox person forwards it to our property manager. She then prints out the response and sticks it in a yellow folder. Then once per month, she scans these responses and e-mails to the compliance committee. It seems to me that it would be far less labor intensive if we had an electronic platform that provided the option to click a link and the owner type in a response into a fillable form, and then the Board clicked a button to review the responses provided for a given date.

In other words, I think that perhaps using a more advanced electronic platform, we could greatly reduce the administrative cost of our association.

Wondering if any other HOA Boards out there have looked into options of better electronic platforms allowing more self-help and less labor for property management? I know we can talk about names of companies here but we can talk generally.

Well, duh. You can do lots of things online, even pay parking tickets in some areas, so why not?

I realize you don't seem to take your property manager seriously at all, so it's probably a waste of time making the following suggestions, but here goes. First, have a sit down with the property manager and see if SHE has any suggestions on what can be streamlined through various portals on your website. She may have already thought about this and sone ideas you and your board colleagues can flesh out and implement.

But before you implement them, conduct a poll of the homeowners and ask what tasks they would like the option to do online. Most people can pay assessments online already, but how about making maintenance requests (our website has that option). Since you're talking about CCR violations, it's fine to file those appeals online- may as well provide an option to attach things like photos or certified mail receipts showing when a letter was sent (require that photos, emails copies of text message traffic be time and date stamped, otherwise it won't be accepted). Route all this stuff to the board, who might already have a schedule when CCR violation hearings will be held.

I'm not a techie, but what if you could produce a calendar where people can select the date and time of their hearing? Send an acknowledgement email, maybe with a tracking number.

There`s probably more stuff you can do, but the main thing is to consult the property manager first. Ultimately, she'll have a role in monitoring some, if not all of thus stuff, so it makes sense to give her a chance to help develop it rather than you simply dictating things.

Believe it or not in this day and age electronic communication and other forms may not always be "Legal". If you read your own rules, they most likely have never been updated other than sending out "snail mail". This may include violation letters to meeting notices. Not all laws are up to date in the area of technology. You would be surprised some of the still old methods uses versus electronic. Paper is still king although we don't need to use it as often in the processes.