Outsourcing Committees

I've been an owner/resident in an HOA-controlled community in Illinois since 1989. Back then, the development was only 10% complete, with 68 single-family homes planned. Each homeowner owns their home and the land it sits on, with the rest of the land being common property. Aside from painting, owners are responsible for maintaining the exterior of their homes. Landscaping maintenance is provided, but replacements are the owner's responsibility. The HOA has been owner-controlled since 1999.

Since taking control, the HOA has hired four different property management firms (I've lost track of how many have been interviewed) and had seven different managers. Almost all of them have been poor to very poor at their jobs. Despite countless attempts to get them to comply with their contract obligations, we've always had to rely on the Board of Directors and various committees to do most of the work the management company should be doing. Even a simple task like responding to resident questions can take weeks, if at all. The Directors depend heavily on committees (especially Architectural, Finance, Landscape, and Ponds) and their chairs to oversee these assets. We have been successful in maintaining architectural control to a large extent, and home values are at all-time highs, and we have adequate reserves.

In 2024, the atmosphere in the community has changed drastically. Almost all of the original owners have passed away or moved on. New owners have no clue how the HOA works and have less than zero interest in participating in its operation. New candidates for Directors place their own wants above the Declaration and the Rules. Many homes are now owned by owners who are snowbirds and are absent 4-6 months out of the year.

The Architectural Committee is somewhat challenging and requires a person able to read and understand the rules and permitted alterations. Yet, there are few people to undertake that chore. I wonder if there are third-party firms that could absorb the technical compliance and write a recommendation to approve or deny an owner's request.

I wonder if other HOAs have had similar problems and how they solved them?

Thanks in advance for your insights.

Boards are responsible for appointing committee members and can replaced them as necessary, so if your current committee members aren’t up to the task and/or don’t want to learn, why are they still there? Have you recruited any replacements? Do homeowners even know what’s required of the ARC committee and do you train them when they’re appointed?

If you want effective committees, you have to be willing to take a hard look at the people who’ve volunteered to be community leaders, and that’s what board members and committee members are – it can be tough to tell someone it’s not working and they’re being replaced and thanks for your service, but there are ways to counsel people first and then let them go if things don’t improve.

The property manager should be working at the board’s direction, and as you’ve found out, some are better than others. You said you have gone through several (my community tried three and self-management before we found our current company), but I also suspect the board itself was partially responsible for what’s happened. Some board members nitpick, others provide conflicting information and the rest think the property manager should do all their thinking for them – and then they can yell at them when things go to crap. You’ve been in that community for over 30 years – think back to what sort of stuff’s happened since then and you’ll likely see this didn’t happen overnight.

As for rules enforcement, owners can enforce CCRs against each other, but as you might also guess, most people defer to the board (because this is one of their duties) – and while some may have tried talking to their neighbors, others can’t or refuse to, for whatever reason, starting with wanting the board to be the heavy. You also have people who feel rules and exterior change standards apply to everyone else but them – how dare the property manager or the board tell THEM they can’t have their trash bin overflowing with junk, thus creating a buffet for the neighborhood raccoons???
If you want the property manager to oversee exterior change requests, you’d better be willing to pay for it. I suspect this isn’t part of your contract – and if you’re a board member, you should already know what it says regarding the property manager’s duties. If not, get a copy and start reading (you should be able to request a copy of the contract even if you’re not on the board – check your documents to see what association owners are entitled to upon request). Then, then talk to the property manager to see if this can be done and how much it would cost. If the board’s ok with that, I’d start this next year.

That’ll give you the rest of this one to educate the homeowners on what the new processes will be, the appeals process if they’re turned down (that’s still the board’s responsibility), design standards (e.g. approved colors if someone wants to repaint the house), a fine schedule if people don’t comply – along with a reminder that everyone agreed to comply with community rules when they purchased their home and became association members.

For the property manager, you can start with having them collect the ARC requests and they can send you recommendations on what should be approved, what needs more information and what should be denied. They can also keep track of when the requests were received, when the recommendation was sent to the board, when the board said yea or nay (you can do this in an open board meeting, referring to account numbers only to preserve privacy) who’s requested an appeal, and then the board can schedule appeal hearings.
The upside of letting the property manager handle some of this is that they can be objective – they do what the board says anyway, so the more specific those instructions are, the less likely homeowners can say things like “well, so and so on the committee doesn’t like me anyway.” The downside is that people can and will sue and so, the property manager might balk at accepting that liability or you’ll have to fork over more money to pay for that.

So, that’s my take – good luck to you.

Richard, Tim, and Shelia...You each gave a great summary of current issues most HOA's are experiencing, along with suggestions for solutions. Well said and thank you.

Cathy, our messages seemed to have passed each other. You also shared great advice. Much appreciated.

We’re not allowed to name specific vendors, so you’ll have to do some Googling on your own, unless someone from your state reads this conversation and sends you a private message. Even then, it won’t be enough to simply hand off this duty to your property manager or anyone else – have you forgotten about oversight? How will you know the vendor is doing the job you’re paying it to do unless you take the time to read your documents to know what the rules actually say and what should happen in the proper order? That’s something old and new homeowners need to do anyway. If they don’t know what the rules even say, how can they say they make no sense??)

If you want to hand off this work, you might also benefit by doing a Google search on “how HOA property managers help in rule enforcement” to get some ideas on what a vendor might do for you. You will still need to do the work on oversight, so if you’re on the board, tell your colleagues what you think and offer to spearhead the research. If there are neighbors you know who feel just as strongly, ask them to help you and they can ask the board if they could join a new committee on ARC revisions or some such.

You said you would want a vendor to draft letters to the homeowners on their ARC request and review the requests. All you need is to develop some templates and customize them as needed, just like you do when you prepare a merge letter in Word or another word processing program. Don’t know what verbiage to use? Go back to Google and look for sample letters you might adapt to your community.
(Wendy, if you’re reading this, you can explain to Richard how you’ve looked into using AI to draft letter templates in your community, so he either try it himself or suggest it to the board)
As for reviewing what’s actually in the request, checklists could help with that – if something’s unclear, send a letter requesting clarity. Design standards would also be helpful so homeowners would have a good idea of what changes have a better chance of being granted Every five years or so, send around a survey asking homeowners which standards don’t seem workable anymore and if it should be tweaked or dropped.

Regarding the new breed of homeowners, you said they have expectations that can’t be met. You also said the community was marketed as a maintenance-- free community and that’s another huge reason for the way things are today (and this is a problem in most HOAs). For some reason, people actually believe the ads about their homes being maintenance-- free and that they can get all sorts of Dom Perignon champagne features for Thunderbird money (whoops, I don’t think they make that anymore).

Nor do I understand why people think houses and condos are maintenance free. Sooner or later, everything wears out or breaks and can’t be repaired for the umpteenth time, so you have to open your wallet and replace it. This means doing the donkey work of setting a budget, getting three estimates or so, checking everyone’s reputation with the BBB or other consumer protection agency, blah, blah, blah. How else do you think those high property values everyone wants will increase?

I do understand why it’s reasonable to outsource ARC request handling or rule enforcement – board members do have a life outside the association and the more impartial and unemotional you can make the process, the better (people will have to come up with something other than screaming and cussing to get their way – or risk getting cussed out themselves or worse).

It would appear the new breed and OGs need of a come to Jesus meeting for a dose of reality and the facts of life. Nothing wrong with issuing a challenge – if this stuff is important to them, THEY can come up with a rules enforcement policy that makes sense, what areas are more in need of an update to the exterior change request policy, etc. That’ll take something off the board’s plate and you’ll find out who’s really committing or blowing smoke up one’s arse.

They can start with design standards for the exterior change request. Do you have any? If so, when was the last time anyone took a good look at them. Could it be you have a compliance issue is because what’s there is unclear or outdated? Maybe they’ve always been unrealistic – there should be a way to allow for creativity (cookie cutter houses are boring!) while maintaining the overall original look and design of the community. When you moved in 30 years ago, the original owners may have felt it was critical for all the house to be painted white with black trim on the windows, but the newer homeowners are more interested in installing ground cover that looks attractive but is easier to maintain (cutting the lawn, edging and spraying with herbicides and pesticides can be expensive and some of it’s harmful to the environment).