HOA burnout

Do you think I have HOA burnout?? I feel depressed,I just wrote to my management contact person about a lien that our lawyer was to put on a house in the community. I got a response from the HOA president not to contact the management company,but to contact him first. I'm sending to many emails to the management company. I am the HOA treasurer. The email from the president has made me upset. I feel as if I have the right to speak with our management company,about money isdues

in NC an HOA can file their own lien for $17 with the clerk of court. Law firms here want $500 to draft that letter. most foreclosures are due to lawyer fees, not thte actually late dues.

Your right I'm spending way to much time on a volenteer position. It just the fact that the treasures position is the position of the watchdog over our financials. Our outstanding HOA dues are getting out of hand,and I was just trying to make sure we are doing our best to collect the dues. But I guess the rest of the board doesn't feel it an issue. I'm taking two deep breaths and moving on.was just wondering if anyone else has had this issue

I get it (maybe). How many homes in your neighborhood? How many people are on your Board?

IMHO, the Board President should take some time to explain the situation to you instead of just telling you not to email the PMC.

A few things: some PMCs have it written into their contract that they only communicate with the Board President. A rotten President can abuse this, but having a single point of contact can sometimes make a lot of sense, especially if the Board isn’t working well together: the PMC doesn’t want to be getting 2 or more sets of (possibly conflicting) instructions from various Board members.

I don’t know what you’ve been asking about, or how much you’ve been asking. I’ll say that it can be a good thing to put together a cohesive paragraph or 3 that describes the situation, asks some questions, and then suggests a meeting to discuss. Ideally, you’ll do this with the input and cooperation of the other Board members. Which might take some effort, but you will get a much better response from the PMC if your query comes from a unified Board.

This might be impossible if all of the other Board members are corrupt. But that’s usually not the case. You might try to build consensus by approaching one other Board member at a time and attempting to get their buy-in. Although I have to be honest, I’m not hugely talented at this myself. And someone else in this group may chime in about the legality of this, depending on your state laws (ie, you don’t want to be seen as excluding someone from a Board meeting).

But to recap: committees tend to be most effective (for good or bad) when the members work together. And (believe me I know) it can be extremely difficult to be in (say) a 1 versus 4 situation.

I hope this is helpful.

Bill

Thank you, Jackie!

Helen - if you’re still there? I re-read what you wrote and I tried to give you some advice but I may have missed some important stuff you mentioned. Can you give us some idea of the amount of money involved here? I’m not going to go all conspiracy theory on you, but if you’re seeing problems with a large sum of money - then don’t let anyone gaslight you into ignoring it.

I commend you for understanding that the PMC works for *you*, and not the other way around. A surprising number of people do not understand this. And sometimes Board members will just let the PMC do whatever they want because it makes the Board member job a lot easier. And if anyone complains, the Board member can say “don’t blame me, it was the PMC!” Just MHO, but I think very poorly of this attitude.

As Treasurer, do you have access to the various financial information you need? If you’re not getting at least a monthly financial statement and balance sheet, then there is something wrong.

I hope I’m helping a bit. I don’t know anything about your HOA: how big? What kind of amenities? (pool?) What kind of budget? What are the dues?

I know that earlier I talked about attempting to present a unified face to the PMC, but - yes, I agree that as Treasurer, you do have a right to get answers about money matters. It’s part of your fiduciary duty. You should work to avoid pestering anyone with lots of questions. But really: someone should at least be willing to sit down and explain the broad outlines of your HOA’s finances to you. Other people may chime in with different opinions, but the situation you’re describing is not normal.

Bill