When to Refuse Volunteer

Good and important question, AlH. Would mind supplying the size of your HOA? The size of your Board? Is your community single family detached homes? Or condos? Or?

For now, perhaps check with your HOA's insurance agent?

For "volunteers," Terri, who aren't Board members? What do these other "volunteers" do at your HOA? What does the insurance cover? This info should be of interest to AlH.

If you limit volunteers, it should be about potential liability if someone gets hurt - its not about age. In this case, the work may seem simple enough, but they want to rent it a chipper and there's always a risk when machinery is used. This is why it's better to use volunteers for things like a neighborhood clean up - you can provide trash bags, gloves and grabbers.

Leave brush cleanup to a handyman who carries workman's comp insurance or ask your lawn care vendor if they could the eork for an additional cost. Check with your community's master insurance company to see what it says about using volunteers for maintenance of the common areas. If they say nope, you can explain that to the volunteers, thank them for the offer and find something else for them to do. It's not easy to HOA volunteers for anything and you don't want to discourage anyone.

I would suggest talking to an attorney to see how to best manage this situation. I know several communities are using volunteers now, and the volunteers probably enjoy having things to keep them busy. But should something go wrong and someone gets hurt, it could cost the association a lot of money.

For any volunteer member, replace road signs, cut up fallen trees, etc. I haven't read the policy but it's listed in the budget/disbursements.

Our HOA's insurance covers directors, officers, & committee members. BUT it does not cover any injuries to them. Our agent made it very clear that no volunteers may be on ladders, use power tools, deal with electricity, etc.

Our Social Committee does a fine job of decorating for events, but does NOT use ladders, etc.

I mainly agree with Cathy and Val and their point that it's very hard for board members to "correct" the mistakes of these sweet ppl -- nobody wants to hurt anyone's feelings.

I'm very surprised that Terri's HOA, which only has roads as a common area for the HOA to maintain, would pay for an insurance policy that covers volunteers who use power tools????!!! Do read the actual policy, Terri. It might just be errors & omission insurance or directors & officers insurance -- but not for the to do physical labor.

Does your HOA insurance cover you directors doing physical work, Dean?

I don't think that the remote possibility of 2-3 owners using power tools or wood chippers might help "build community," justifies the real & many risks of this kind of labor.

I'm, with you AlH. Do not let a couple of owners wear you down. You & the rest of the board members need to rely on the written opinion of your ins. agent and perhaps of your HOA attorney. And vote keeping in mind the best interests of the corporation that you src.

god I hope you are using well water. We had a $2500 bill from the city due to a water leak over a few months. Fought it and got the money back eventaully but not fun.

Our. Soc.. Committee members decorate our lobbies for the winter holidays. All residents are invited to help on a certain morning, and the Committee provides mimosas & pastries.

The trees in the lobbies are about 12 feet tall so com. members & other owners decorate as high as they reach by standing on the floor. Our asst.eng.is on a ladder and ornaments are handed to him to place way up high. Well, he went to lunch and the husband of a com. member grabbed the ladder, positioned it, and climbed it to "help" decorate. He wasn't up high for more than few minutes when he somehow made the ladder unsteady and it fell INTO the large tree. He was fine. Lost some ornaments. But he could have fallen the other way onto the granite floor.

How is your HOA protected--your main job as a director-- in case you & the other director somehow get injured doing this work, Dean? Wood chipping or tree chopping, right?

Terri, to help the OP and others, please cite the parts of the insurance policy that you say covers "volunteers" who, say, cut up fallen trees. What else does this policy cover in your HOA?

What's concerning me here is that some readers may think such a policy is easy & cheap to get, when I don't even know if they exist.

Or they may think they can just go ahead, as Dean seems to think and do work that might cause harm.

I don't know that there is a separate policy other than something like workers comp, which is required in some states. The best thing a board can do is to talk to their insurance agent and tell them that they have volunteers doing physical labor and that they want to make sure they're covered. They should disclose that they have Old Folks Wielding Chain Saws.

Or maybe not. With insurers looking for reasons to dump community associations, communities should avoid reasons to get themselves classified as high risk.

As others have said, the board's duty is to the HOA. It's not there to provide entertainment for homeowners with time on their hands.

It's one thing to have committees of homeowners sitting around discussing things - physical work is a whole different kettle of fish. As a card-carrying member of the Medicare Crowd, I'm here to tell you that it's not unusual for older people to be ignorant of or in denial about their deteriorating physical abilities. Often you find out when you try to do something that you've done all your life and it does not go as planned. You live long enough and it will happen to you. If you're on the board, you have a duty to make sure that people aren't getting injured on the HOA's dime.

And for the love of all that's holy, if you persist with this nonsense, at least have your workers sign liability waivers as a condition of volunteering. A well-crafted liability waiver (the HOA attorney needs to write it) may be enough to convince volunteers to find other things to do. There is something about the phrase "up to and including death" that tends to get a person's attention.

(Last fall one of my community newsletters featured a story about the board cutting down small trees, accompanied by a photo of two Old Folks holding small chain saws. I swear I'm not making this up. Did this photo inspire confidence? No. No, it did not. Fortunately those two are no longer on the board.)

I'm in a medium-sized (74 units) condo community.

Our lawn care service cleans up fallen leaves and other debris. (They even picked up a dead mouse in front of my building yesterday, bless them.)

Changing light bulbs shouldn't be an issue. However, in my community, many of the exterior lights are part of the unit and thus homeowner responsibility, we have no clubhouse or other amenities, and the local electrical utility replaces bulbs in the street lights. We hire roofers to clean the gutters twice a year, and that won't change because we don't want homeowners climbing on roofs.

Also, don't assume a handyman won't waste their time. If you give them enough work to make it worth their while and you're a reliable client that pays their bills on time, they'll have an incentive to make a good client happy.

On the other hand, if you're in a really small community, the economics of hiring people often don't work for you. In that case just make sure you're carrying enough insurance to protect your association if someone does get injured. Check your CC&Rs to see what they say about the kinds of insurance you have to carry, and then talk to your insurance agent.

One caveat: a former attorney of ours was adamant about not using volunteers for snow removal, not even able-bodied young ones. He said that it's a lawsuit waiting to happen.

Actually anyone climbing a ladder to change a HOA-owned light bulb is a risk.

Everyone draws the line differently.

We know what the HOA attorney would say. We know what the insurer will say. Do otherwise at the HOA's risk.