HOA's

[katiesue]

Anyone else live where there's an HOA? My question is how do they communicate with you and how often. Our meeting times/dates are posted by the mailbox for the year. We get a financial statement once a year and that's it.

I got a note yesterday that they need to fill 4 Board vacancies, I think there are only 5 total, so apparently something went down. We get no minutes, no reminders nada.

Just wondering if this is common or if ours just sucks.

[Ghoulish Delight]

That's pretty much how ours works. We can show up to the meetings if we want (no one does really). There's an open forum at the beginning where residents can bring things up, then there's a "business" portion where only the board members are allowed to participate (though residents can spectate). We showed up to the first one when we moved in, and that's it. I figure the less I interact with those people, the better I'm doing as a resident.

Considering that we got a stack with a full year's worth of meeting minutes when we bought our place, you may be able to request the minutes if you care.

Other than that, we do get a monthly news letter which amounts to a "stay offa my lawn!" in the mail. And the yearly financials and ballots.



The 4 vacancies may simply be that people's terms are up.

[katiesue]

Thanks - I've gone to a few of the meetings and ours are pretty much like yours. Our rep from the management company is a - well I can't say what I think of her actually but it's a very very not nice word - and I'm going to guess that's part of the problem. I've had a couple of run-ins over issues that were caused by their contractors. First they said it would be fixed then when it wasn't the story changed to no we didn't say that and no we won't. I don't like being lied to which is essentially what they did.

It just seems like it wouldn't be all that hard, we only have 40 units, to send out emails with what the heck is going on. We're in the middle of a massive project of tenting for termites, re-roofing and repainting all the units. They're doing 2 at a time but the communication is horrible.

And honest if the you know what lady wasn't there I'd run and try to get some communication going.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

The monthly newsletter actually tells us what's going on with board decisions but doesn't go as far as to include full minutes. We just elected a mostly new board and one of the things they are promising is to get the minutes out to us each month. Personally I think mailing anything is a waste of paper and postage but if they could email it that would make more sense. Perhaps they'll let us go paperless?? Riiiight.

I should scan one of the newsletter bitchfests. They are unbelievable.

Good luck, Katie. Our HOA ditched their management co a year ago. Apparently there was some bs, lost papers, inaccurate info, etc. New one seems ok but I had no clue there were problems before.

[katiesue]

See that's what I'd like to see some sort of update on what's going on with things. And it can't be all that difficult to set up an email list for 40 units.

[innerSpaceman]

We have monthly meetings and I think the newsletter is every other month. I haven't been to a meeting in years.

But I spent 5 years on the Board and that's enough for me. The last few years, they haven't been able to get more than 5 candidates for the 5 slots - but that's a great indication that things are going fine.

[Morrigoon]

Our HOA is pretty okay, they get out a regular newsletter, etc. I think meeting minutes, or at least a summary, are posted at the mailboxes.

My mom's HOA however is bad bad bad. They make residents pay for exterior repairs resulting from damage caused by the HOAs own neglectful maintenance, there is a conflict of interest between a contractor the hoa uses and a board member (relative), all sorts of crap.

Basically, they're only as good as the people running them, and it's a pretty thankless job where you have fiduciary responsibilities but no compensation. So the people running them are usually only the kind of people who have the time to, and/or the ones who enjoy the power (such as it is). Not really who you WANT running things, but unless other ppl run there's not much choice.