Property Management Companies

They are as only good as the contract that binds them. If your HOA puts the responsibility of sending notices on the PM then get what you get. It is the HOA responsibility IMO.

So if the HOA is not being run correctly then how does the PM? They are a hired contractor to the HOA. It seems it can reflect how your HOA is run.

Christine,
As Melissa and Lori have already stated. The PM on site is THE Company in most cases. Many if not most are undertrained, overworked and underpaid. Next time you make a change of managers or PMC ask the question how many properties are they managing? How many board meetings is this manager holding monthly? These things take time and if they are spread to thin it is hard to meet any expectations because most will manage by emergency.

What Lori, Melissa and Mark said.

There are terrible property managers, but they also work at the board's direction, so you have to start with reading the contract (all board members). If you've had three property managers,, I suspect at least part of the problem is or has been the board, so take a long hard look at yourselves first.

To begin, read your contract (all board members) if you need to remind yourselves what the manager is supposed to do - that may come as a surprise to some of you. Are you asking the manager to do something that's not included in the contract? If so, you either pay the extra cost or see what tge contract says about adding additional services. If you dont want to pay those costs, that's fine - but then you and perhaps homeowners who don't know any better - need to stop it.

In fact, why not run an article on your website or newsletter (preferably both) reminding everyone what the manager is responsible for? That might resolve some of the bad blood.

As Lori noted, the template for the "threatening letters" should have been reviewed by the board before they were authorized for use. Have 6ou read those letters? Which ones have caused the most confusion? Is it possible some people are upset because the letter stated what the community rules were and the penalty for violating them, and consider that a threat, although every word is accurate? How many "friendly reminder" letters were sent and how did the homeowner respond? If you tossed it or simply ignored it, why get mad when you receive a second or third letter?

Response to homeowner issues - again, what's causing the most trouble? Are people asking about thi gs that are the board's responsibility to address? The property manager isn't a board member and shouldn't be doing all the board's thinking. If the issue has to be referred to the board, how fast are you getting a response back to the property manager? That said, the homeowner should be told the matter has to be addressed by the board so it may not be addressed until the next board meeting.

Ditto for incorrect information. Have you been asking for information that should be referred to someone like the association attorney, for a response? The property manager is not an attorney- why are you asking him or her for legal advice?

Do some research to see what the major problems are and then prioritize them by importance. Schedule a meeting with the manager,, and his/her supervisor, if necessary, to discuss. Part of that meeting should include your being quiet and giving the manager a chance to respond - you may not like everything you hear, but the truth isn't always easy to hear. From there, see what can be resolved immediately like reviewing the letter templates and changing them, as appropriate, or setting deadlines such as how quickly homeowners should receive a message acknowledging receipt of a letter or phone message (within 48 hours or less us a start).

Get a letter or something out to the homeowners stating the board is aware of some customer service issues and is working with the property manager to resolve them. In the meantime, here's a reminder of what the manager can and can't do, how emergencies are handled and what constitutes an emergency.

Set up a performance improvement plan to be reviewed within 6 months to see how the company is doing. By tge way, the board itself shoukd be reminded of who should be following up with tge manager on certain issues. Instead of having 7 people calling or emailing with 7 different requests, designate the president to be primary contact and he ir she can forward updates to the rest. Note the president shouldn't be overruling something that was voted 9n by the rest of the board - if a problem arises, you should have procedures on how to address them, and all that information shoukd be summarized at tge next board meeting so it can be reflected in the minutes.

If after 6 months there's no improvement, you can consider not renewing the contract, but you will need to get some RfPs to send to prospective companies and develop a transition plan if you pull the trigger. But be careful what you wish for.. You've already had three companies, so there may already be stories around your community and other companies may not want to be bothered with you because of your reputation

Thank you, Michael, from Minnesota. I just sent an email to all of the board members, after reading the contract that we signed with our property management company, that we need to clarify, with the PM company, who is supposed to do what, where, and when. Those of us who are currently serving on the board are volunteers, totally untrained in most things relating to HOA, trying to dig ourselves out of a hole. Thank you, Michael. Christine

on site? .025

Most property management companies will offer a menu of services. The more services you choose, the higher the price. It is critical and association and MC agree on what services are included and which are not.

I should have asked my question differently, Christine. Your PM sounds as if they're managing your HOA as part of a "portfolio account," i.e.., your HOA is among perhaps several that the one person manages. Does that sound right?

Please remind again the size of your HOA-- I recall you have some condo buildings ? How many buildings and how many units? Is th PM supposed to manage your engineer (if I recall right)? Put another way what DOES the contract say re: PM's duties?

Perhaps your Board can sit down with the PM and their MC supervisor and work together on the duties you want for a MC. I actually don't know what Michel means by "increasing the due diligence period with the help of interested owners means." ???.

Re: quality: My HOA had the same Management Co. (MC) from early '06 until 2/1/24. During that period, we had 8 PMs (onsite 40 hrs/week w/f-t asst.). I was a board member from 11/06-11/21. During that I time I must say the quality of our onsite PMs declined. This was especially in the area of knowledge about our governing docs and state HOA statutes. Decent writing also declined.

Before I finally quit Board service, our Board was trying to decide what to do about our MC as the most recent PM had been very weak and over time we felt the PM was doing a poorer & poor job of training them... In mid-'22, the Board asked the MC to find us a new PM; they moved her to a less demanding HOA (1 tower vs. our 2 towers).

My sense because I witnessed the decline in skills, knowledge, and written communication was/still is that demand for HOA PMs had outgrown supply. Our MC had, indeed, grown rapidly and I think they simply ran out of strong PMs.

There has been a lot of consolidation in our area where one company purchased quite a few other companies.

They we fired them and hired another who had just merged and consolidated.

In the past 6 months we have had 3 different PM's and 3 different software's to deal with.

Add to it a terrible landscape company and I am ready to start a revolt.

Board members should not hide behind "we are untrained volunteers". You are correct that you are not formally trained to be a Board member, however CIC has training seminars, there is materials available as to how to perform as a Board member and finally each Board member should be expected to read and reread the governing documents and also any architectural and or landscape standards.

The bottom line is that the Board does at times manage the management company.

One possible explanation of this is the rapid increase in the number of new community associations. Management companies need to staff up, and some companies don't manage that growth well. And you have the usual problem of too many communities having unrealistically low budgets. This eventually impacts management companies' ability to pay excellent employees - so they're left with people who are willing to work for lower pay.

Top Management Company in my area won't take on more clients than they can handle and still maintain the quality of the service they provide. This means they hire capable people, and they train them (rather than just throwing them into the work and letting the new employees sink or swim).

One thing they do every December is to survey the board members of their client communities (all the board members, not just the president). The survey results affect the managers' compensation, which gives the managers incentive to perform well. And the results also alert the company owner to potential issues before the clients find a different company. No other company in my area that I'm aware of does this - it's such a good idea that I can't imagine why they don't.

The 2 that I have worked with both sucked.
I got rid of the second one by complaining every week about what a poor job they were doing, asking them repeatedly for arbitration proceedings to begin for their incompetence, asking them to pay $4000 for an audit for their incompetence, and then writing a BBB review about their incompetence. They finally sent a letter saying they would terminate the contract a few months early. I bet they try to screw us over when funds are transferred back to our HOA name. Currently they owe us $1350 in incorrect fees.

Why do I feel they were happy to rid themselves of you?

just a way to get out of contract with morons that can't even send out bills at the right time or amount.

Ditto my community. We send out coupon books each year, but all but a few of our owners use some form of automatic bill payment (either through their banks or through ACH transfer by the management company). I suspect that condo owners who pay monthly as less likely to forget about assessments or to forget that they live in a community association. (Our current board president sure doesn't let us forget. We get weekly emails from him, sometimes twice a week. He takes transparency to a whole new level!)

Whether it's 3 in 4 or 4 in 3, this is a red flag that I look for when evaluating communities. Something out of the ordinary is going on. It may be that there are no decent management companies in the area. It may mean incompetent boards or ones that can't get along with anyone. Either way it will translate into a less-than-optimal experience for those living in the community, which is a good reason not to buy there.