Maintenance

Check your CC&Rs/Declaration. It should define what parts of the property are the "units" (ie. the individually-owned interiors of homes) vs. what parts are "common elements" (jointly-owned parts of the property that are generally the association's responsibility to maintain. There should also be sections that actually spell out what tasks are unit owner responsibility and what tasks fall to the association.

Some of the language may be vague or confusing, so if you have questions about particular wording, please ask.

Sorry you misinterpreted my first few words - according to those documents the HOA is responsible for exteriors. So I listed some of the exterior maintenance jobs (what are common maintenance tasks, e.g., pressure washing vinyl siding, cleaning gutters & downspouts, trimming vegetation (rose bushes, evergreens), weeding) but I was soliciting what other tasks should be listed & included beyond replacing roof or plumbing boots on roof or dryer vent caps. All the typical repair things outside the house that ought to be in a maintenance plan or reserve plan. Thanks.

Mix of duplex/side by side single or 2-story options, vinyl sided 2-car garage attached- total about 115 units. Thought maybe there was a list of potential generic outdoor maintenance Tasks that may be available to jog my memory beyond jobs I mentioned. Thanks.

Again, "typical" is going to depend on what your community's governing documents define as "common elements". Those are the things that associations are responsible for maintaining. They can also include patios, A/C concrete pads, streets, etc. But - importantly - they may not!!

My association owns our streets, so they are a reserve item that we maintain and repair as needed. But if your streets are public, then you don't need to worry about this.

Our patios are defined as limited common elements, but according to our CC&Rs these items are maintained by the unit owners, not the association. Other communities do this differently and the association maintains them.

The issue that these things are not up to the board to decide - the maintenance responsibilities are spelled out in the CC&Rs. If the board goes ahead and decides to repair something that is not the association's responsibility, they're creating a liability issue where there shouldn't be one.

All of the things you mentioned are tasks we've performed. Things like pressure washing or gutter cleaning may occur more frequently as the community ages (the trees grow, shed more leaves, and allow more algae to grow on the siding). Do you have mulch around your planting beds or do you have something like rocks? The former will need more frequent replacing, the rocks possibly not at all. If you hire a lawn care company, when you negotiate the contract they'll talk about the sorts of tasks they typically handle - some of them you'll need, others maybe not.

In our part of the world, snow removal is a thing and is often performed by lawn care companies. It's also essential - the rule of thumb around here is that the pros come out when we have 2 or more inches of "stuff" on the ground. Per our attorney, do NOT use volunteer homeowners to handle your snow removal, not even young and able-bodied ones - you're asking to be sued.

Which reminds me, generally an association has obligations if there are man-made hazards that the association is not addressing. For example, if you've had an inch of snow overnight and somebody walks outside and slips and falls, courts generally say that this is not a liability issue for the association. It snows in this part of the world, and residents are expected to know how to walk and drive in it. On the other hand, if you have a low-lying area that collects water that freezes overnight, that could very well be a liability issue since the association knew about the potential for accidents in that area and didn't address it. Talk to your insurer about the differences between "acts of God" and man-made hazards.

Other stuff: Do you have an irrigation system outside? IF so, it needs annual attention as you start up and winterize the system. Do your buildings have sprinkler systems? Probably not if the homes are side-by-side, but if you do that typically requires annual inspections at a minimum.

An anecdote about maintenance:

A previous board had a mania about power washing our streets. At one point the trash collection company apparently had a vehicle or two that leaked oil and stained our recently resurfaced streets. The board was up in arms!!! So they got the company to come back and power wash the streets, and I think this happened three times before the company figured out which of their vehicles had the problem and fixed it. Anyway, what did this power washing do, besides make the streets look prettier? It sprayed the oil residue on our lawns and onto any cars that were parked close enough and into the drainage system from where it went into our detention pond and from there into the watershed of a nearby river. The county has Thoughts and Opinions about pollution that winds up in the watershed of the river. Depending on how bad it is, those Thoughts and Opinions may have dollar signs attached to them.

And of course the repeated power washing also shortened the life of the street resurfacing that had just been done, which will increase our reserve funding needs going forward.

Long story short, you can have guidelines for maintenance tasks, but the guidelines should serve the needs of the community and not the other way around. And sometimes real life just won't behave the way you want it to.