HOA Board Members - Prepare me please!

I will be attending my first HOA meeting in a few weeks. I have been criticized by the HOA board that I only criticize, never volunteer, and offer no solutions.

(Truth of the matter, I've been here for 8 years, I did games w/prizes for the annual picnic for a few years without the advertising they promised, I was block captain for 5 years, and I just filed my first request to trim overgrown bushes in a commons area.)

Anyway, I want to be a prepared, courteous homeowner -- but I also want to be effective.

I have studied the bylaws. Tomorrow I'm headed to the registrar of deeds to pick up and read the Restrictions & Covenants. I plan on typing up my presentation to request action. I have requested a few homeowners to attend as moral support (hoping this will curb some of the anger the HOA board has hurled at me via email.)

What are your suggestions?

Does it make sense for homeowners to do this?

I can see a portion - cutting and removing the branches. But pulling the stumps? That seems so many things can go wrong (vehicle flips, pulled backs, etc.) and you would want somebody (a contractor) who had his own insurance. Or is that not a concern?

Depends, is this common area, your own land, etc. Do you have the equipment and means to do it?

I was more or less thinking your greatest tool would be a telephone. Call someone, get a quote.

I disagree. Its a community, everyone needs to work together as a community, especially ones with no manager. Doing a little legwork like calling for a quote is free, no obligation, and helps everyone out. The board doesn't have to accept your quote, but its a start.

I have found that the subject of having homeowners seek bids depends.....
I have found that it is often a waste of time having Board members get bids when an HOA has a competent MC who knows the best contractors and the best prices. On the other hand it can be prudent for the HOA to make sure that the MC is experienced and can be trusted. It does pay to check!

If there is no MC the Board can, or can delegate to a committee, the seeking of bids. It needs to be organized with RFPs to get comparable bids and to prevent choas or meaningless bids from occuring.

KW,

You asked:

To Mary: Could you elaborate a bit on these terms (if not exist, please say so):

* property manager
* BOD manager
* HOA manager
* Association manager

"Property manager" and "Association manager" would refer to an individual who has a contract with the HOA to assist with the management of the assn. Sometimes this is an independent contractor so the contract will be with an individual or this individual will be on the assn's payroll as an employee. But in most instances the property manager is an employee of a management company and the assn's contract is with the management company.

I don't know what a BOD or HOA manager is. The HOA will have a board of directors made up of directors and officers. Generally speaking all the directors are elected by the members and they, in turn, either elect or appoint directors to the officer positions. Some assns also elect the officers but this is not a common practice.

We recently discovered one of the reasons to get your own quotes. We currently live in a community where the HOA is controlled by the Builder (Declarant). We have been having some major problems with our pool which we suspect is due to improper installation and poor maintenence. When my wife (who is chairperson of our Home Owners Group, it is supposed to be a HOA in training) started seeking bids to repair and maintain the pool, the builder quickly got "3 bids" to repair the pool. I say "3 bids" in quotes because after doing some investigating we discovered the following:
1. None of the companies came out to look at the pool, they just bid on the dimensions given by the builder.
2. One of the companies doesn't even do repair work, they simply took one of the other bids and increased it.
3. Company names started with "A" "A" and "B" (we think they just picked their buddy and the first two in the phone book)
4. The "winning" company was the same company that installed the pool (we believe improperly based on independant assesments)
5. Most importantly, the winning bid is nearly double the bid that we obtained from another reputable company (over $30k as opposed to $18k).

If we hadn't taken it on ourselves to get our own bids and do a little leg work, we never would have been aware of the "fishy" business with the pool, (unfortunately since it is in declarant control we can't stop them short of taking them to court which many of the sheeple are unwilling to do)

Knowledge is never a waste, it may make you unhappy, but it gives you the tools to fight if you need to.

Mary has got the right handle on the issue of contacting vendors. Whoever is responsible to call a vendor needs to have a clear and concise objective when you get the vendor on the phone. What if 15 people take it upon themselves and call 15 different vendors. If you are getting quotes, you need specs so that you can compare apples to apples. We are gated and a vendor showed up at the gate and NO ONE in authority had called the vendor and unfortunately the vendor did not have a contact name from the caller. This was a waste of time for everyone. I can't imagine not having a PM, but your Board needs to be organized, even with one, so that you get be production in a timely manner. Then there is another conversation about the quality of your Board and PM. IMO, in order for things to even have a chance to function smoothly, there needs to be a chain of command.

Steve,

Seems to me you should be on the board. You could replace at least one of the current board members who can't be bothered to obtain bids and lets you, a non-board member and not on a member of a committee designated to obtain bids, do this work for them!

If you are doing this because the board members never seem to get around to taking needed action, then those board members need to be replaced. Regardless of how you feel, this is not the way a well-managed assn operates.