terminate management company

HOA member has meeting and pass the vote to stop business with the current management company.

We are in month by month contract with them and we follow the contract to give them written notice in 30 days advance. Now the managment company's owner trying to play sneeky game, he tells one of the board through phone that we cannot manage ourselve. We have to bond with a management company otherwise will get suit. Our CC&R not limit us have to manage our property by a management compnay (we are small communicate only have 9 units and we are in California).

So under this situation, we may have problem to get all bank account and utility account transfer smoothly. My question is
1. Does California law said if a community is managed by management company cannot switch to self management?
2. We already notify them stop business on 1/31/2012. As I understand, HOA is the owner of all documents and account, can they not release to us before that date? If they not release the file, what is our choice? Can we go bank and utility company direct says we are the owner and need to transfer the control?

Linda

Not that I am aware of. Do your CCR or bylaws say you must be managed?



Not true. Most of their documents may be proprietary to their business and not yours. Do you even know what they have for documents. They could hand you a few pieces of paper and tell you that is all they have. Now that you are firing them, they have zero incentive to help you.



Yep, you could contact every vendor and tell them where to send new bills, etc. Most important thing is, who controls the money. Who writes the checks? That needs to be fixed before anyone is fired.

I suggest that you notify the management company that if the documents are not delivered by a specific date that you will contact the local news media to report their actions (or lack of them). No management company that is losing a client wants other potential clients hearing that they are not doing what they are supposed to do.

Linda,

It's ok to trust what the management company tells you until they give you reason not to. However, you should always use do this on a "trust but verify" method, as otherwise you will not know if you are being told the truth or not.

One great resource for CA is Davis-Stirling.com which provides menu driven explanations of CA HOA laws along with references to those laws.

Per Types of Management page, there is no requirement to have a management company. However, your Association's governing documents might have something. Ask that the management company show you where it states that a management company must be used.

I agree with others that the first thing you need to do is get control of the money (in my opinion it never should have been given to the management company in the first place). Read the contract to see if the Board can do this prior to letting the company go.

Tim