Typical Problems of HOAs 

Typical Problems of HOAs

Do you receive timely notice of meetings? Are you given financial statements which explain how the assessments you pay are being spent? Perhaps repairs are neglected or the maintenance is AWOL. Or a nuisance created by your neighbor is allowed to continue. Maybe one owner is allowed to build a "work of art" and another is refused permission to do the same thing.

Often ther homeowners who become involved in the weekly operations of an HOA have a certain personality. They tend to like to control groups of people. Once on the board, the realize how apathetic most homeowners are and they feel that they are doing something special by running the HOA. They'll often bond closely with the management company representative. So much so, they usually listen more to the management company then other homeowners. This is usually the start of trouble.

The management companies are just that companies. They are in business to make money. So, they take a nice hefty sum for just helping out. But they usually talk the HOA board in to assessing fines, and get the board to agree to give them half of the fines for finding and following up on the violations. This creates a conflict of interest, but the management companies are adept at concealing that. The management company will then proceed to find homeowners that willingly pay fines, and then they make sure to routinely find problems with the state of their dwelling. Some homeowners complain, but you have to remember the board decides and the management company basically sits on the board. So who are they going to believe, the homeowner or the management company representative?