HOA Management Blog

There’s always a lot of discussion about keeping the outside of your home looking good for the homeowners association; but the inside is important too – especially if you plan on selling your home someday. Try as you might to prevent them, spills, drips and splatters in your house are inevitable. Whether you, your family or your guests are the culprits, stains happen. Most, if not all, are treatable, especially if you act quickly and use the right stain-removing technique.

It's never a good time to lose your job so how do you survive job loss while owning in a homeowners association? The National Foundation for Credit Counseling offers the following tips for surviving a layoff:

Fact: About 63 million Americans live in a new suburban community or planned unit development, according to the Community Association Institute. Living in a homeowners association has many benefits – such as recreational amenities, maintenance services, and being part of a community – but it can only function well when the rules of the Association are clearly set and enforced.

Many homeowners associations operate on the fiscal year (July through June). If your Association is one of them then hopefully you have your new and improved budget ready to go because July is just around the corner.

As an HOA board member you probably know the basics of HOA accounting, and that the process is reversed from the typical American’s household budget. In an HOA, first expenses are estimated and then the source of revenue is determined, mostly in the form of HOA fees. Check out the article below to make sure that your budget contains all of the basic components to keep your homeowners running smoothly.

It’s the responsibility of the HOA board to protect, maintain and enhance the Association. This comes in all shapes and sizes – from compliance with the Davis-Stirling Act to the type of grass members can have in their yard. In the current drought that California is experiencing, the latter may come into play more often as the homeowners association finds new ways to conserve water.

Breaking up is hard to do. After evaluating an HOA manager, a Board may decide it would like to change managers, change to a different management company, or it just doesn’t need the services of a manager at all any longer. Before parting ways the Board should ask: are we willing to sacrifice service and take on more responsibility?

People and organizations are often afraid of evaluation because they’re afraid of failure. If we don’t fail we can’t learn, and if we aren’t given the opportunity to learn, we can’t grow. It’s in the best interest of the homeowners association for the HOA board to take the time to intentionally evaluate the HOA manager, ask questions, give honest feedback, and decide how the relationship can improve or if it’s time to part ways. Below are questions to help guide the evaluation process.

Do any owners in your homeowners association rent out their homes? What are the Association’s obligations to those renters? What are their rights in the Association? Can you control how many units in the HOA can be rented?

Everyone wants a safe place to call home, and your homeowners association should strive to make all residents feel secure. While the HOA board is diligent in your efforts to reduce possible dangers in your community, you cannot do it alone. It is up to everyone to pitch in to keep crime rates down. Thankfully, taking a few simple steps can go a long way in keeping theft, vandalism and other felonies and misdemeanors out of the association.

Being an HOA board member is no easy task. There are meetings to attend, decisions to make, and duties to fulfill. With the extra demand on your time and resources that comes with being a member of the board, you and your fellow board members can probably take all the help you can get.

Whether your homeowners association is big or small, the members of your board can most definitely use the quick tips below. Print them out and stick them in your wallet, include them in the board packet at your next meeting, or email them out in your next board correspondence. You won’t regret it.

The clubhouse/recreation center is the “crown jewel” of your homeowners association, offering a common area where members can get to know one another, socialize, and entertain their guests. In order to make the clubhouse safe and enjoyable for all who use it, you need a clear access policy—and that means homeowner’s must have their association ID to access the facility.

How well a homeowners association functions is directly related to how well HOA board members fulfill their roles on the board. If each person understands the responsibilities of their position, and executes well, then the Association will run like a well-oiled machine.