Reverse Board Decision on Another Assessment

It is called 'democracy'.

Your neighbors vote on how to spend your money.

Most HOAs have documents requiring a vote before having a special assessment.

The HOA is a business and is required to maintain the common elements .... this requires funding .... if you can't afford the ammenities - move to a less expensive home.

HOA living is not cheap ... even though the concept of 'paid maintenance' sounds appealing, it can be quite expensive.

Human nature dictates that the BOD's building would be done first ... no problem as long as the other buildings also get done (as needed).

Mindy,
Read your original post........please.
You said you received news of an assessment increase from a Newsletter. This sets off all kinds of alarms to me.

Do you attend Board Meetings? Did the association vote on the special assessment? Have you discussed this with a Board member?
Have you discussed this with your neighbors?

Susan mentioned a Reserve Fund. She is trying to find out how well your Board operates. Are you looking for someone to condeem your Board from the information you submiktted? We can't do that. If you want to change your government you can do it by changing from the inside (always best) or from the outside. But you must understand how to govern in order to know what you should change.

Compassion, this site has lots of that and some folks post on here that are trying to cope with maybe 30% of the owners not able or won't pay their assessments........big problem. I, personally am effected by the economic situation, as we all are, it is getting worse but will get better and as a Association we have to deal with this. Soul search a little and see if you have contructive solutions to your problems. Discuss it with a Board member, listen to them. Are there rogue Boards, Yes. But that number appears small, there are many more Boards that operate on limited knowledge and limited resources and do the best they can with the limited input from their owners. I doubt any association uses all the talent buried in the mass of the membership. Can you help them?

Mindy,

When you say "they are raising the dues" do you mean the dues for the current year will be higher or do you mean the current year's dues are being raised again? AZ statutes prohibit an assn from raising the dues more than 20% from the last year's dues w/o a vote of the members. Asking for special assessments usually means there are no reserves. I think you'll find that the majority of the posters here are strong advocates of HOAs maintaining a reserve fund. A reserve fund is maintained to enable an assn to undertake major renovations and replacement of capital assets w/o asking the members to pass a special assessment. Monies should be deposited into the reserve fund each month. A reserve study is undertaken to determine what capital assets should be included in the reserve fund and what funding is required. Just as you periodically make improvements to your home and undertake maint of certain items, the assn must also do the same. To suggest that the assn "not invest in landscaping renovations or repainting etc" is being very shortsighted.

It's so easy for a member to say the board "is sucking any extra money from the homeowners and the board is doing questionable spending" and that you can "repair my roof cheaper myself" w/o knowing what is involved in running an assn. I like to believe what you're saying, but you havn't given any justification. Unless you can offer substantial proof of your claims any objective person would give the benefit of doubt to the board. Members make all sorts of unjustifiable claims about their board all the time.