Letter to homeowners to participate in their HOA

I've sent this letter out in an effort to stress the importance of being a part of the HOA. Any opinions from all the great minds out there???

Dear Neighbors:

As you are all aware, I have been the President of the Homeowner’s Association since 2004 until I resigned in September of 2009. I volunteered for this position at the time because the builder/developer of the subdivision had filed bankruptcy, then subsequently passed away and no one was running the association.

At the time, four houses were not completed and in foreclosure and the subdivision was also incomplete. Due to the limited number of homeowners and their inexperience with running a HOA, I was voted in and assumed all the tasks related to the subdivision along with (deleted). I did this to ensure the investments each and every one of us made when we purchased our homes would not decrease due to non-management of the HOA. As I’ve continually indicated to most of you, this is the single largest investment most of you make in your lifetime, why would you not want to protect that investment? Having a well run HOA with sufficient dues and reserves is part of protecting that investment.

It has been asked over and over again if we could dissolve the association. The subdivision has a private road, perimeter fence and common areas. Who would maintain the private road, the perimeter fence and common areas if the association was dissolved??? The dedication of the subdivision also requires the HOA to maintain “all water quality treatment swales and drainage ditches” etc…. “if the property owners fail to maintain the drainage swales…. the County has the right to correct the maintenance failure or have it corrected at the expense of the property owners”. The road would have to be brought up to County standards at an estimated cost of $80,000 and the County is still not required to take over the road. In other words we could spend the money and they could still decline to take over the road.

A HOA is created for the purpose of managing real estate. HOA’s provide benefits to residents and homeowners by joining together for services that are expensive and sometimes impractical to procure on your own. Maintaining and improving the appearance of your neighborhood to include not only the plants and trees but each individual homes appearance and the subdivision in a manner that protects the value for every homeowner.

I cannot reiterate the fact that lenders have tightened their lending requirements for all loans. Some will not even lend in subdivisions with HOA’s that are not well run, have delinquent dues or under funded reserves! I indicated in the 2009 annual meeting that I was putting everyone on notice that our reserve account was and is totally insufficient. I again stated this fact at the special meeting in September 2009.

It disturbs me immensely that some if not most of you choose not to participate in the HOA business. i.e. coming to meetings, stepping up to volunteer to become an officer of the association or stating that it is not a priority to you or that it does not matter because you do not live in the home any longer. Whether you live in the home or not, you still own it and are a part of the HOA. Participation should be a priority to each and every one of you if you want to maintain the value of your investment. If you do not participate then you have no say in what is voted on or how the HOA is managed. You cannot sit back and assume that someone else is going to do the job correct. By not participating, not paying attention to whether the income is collected, or what is being spent, you are all just basically turning your checkbook over to a stranger! If you do not step up and run this association be prepared for the consequences, which may ultimately lead to the value of your home decreasing or even the inability to sell your home. It could also mean a lien could be filed on each and every property by the County for not maintaining the subdivision as required in the dedication for the subdivision.

Come to the meetings, participate and volunteer to become an officer to protect your investment!

Sincerely,

Let us know if the letter works. I don't think that it will but it could happen.

In regard to dissolving the HOA, you might point that, if the HOA dissolves, the common areas will probably revert to being owned by all homeowners as a general partnership, even if there is no partnership agreement. Homeowners will still be able to be sued for common area problems. They cannot escape the responsibility.

If you are overwhelmed by work, put some effort into reducing the workload and put the HOA on minimal maintenance. Find a management company and an aggressive collection agency and put them to work.

But, if you really want involvement at any cost, make everybody miserable with rules, fines and assessments. They'll attend ... if only to scream at you.

You made me laugh!

Each homeowner was deeded 1/12th of the common are when they purchased their property. We have voted in a fine of $50.00 if they do not attend the meetings, so hopefully that will help! They are already tired of me :=}

I like this letter (in fact, I'd love to use some of this language to address our homeowners regarding this FHA approval businesses that may impact our community!)

The question is, however, whether it'll prompt people to get off their arse, turn off the boob tube and start coming up with suggestions instead of sitting back and criticizing. The sad answer, I'm afraid is no in a lot of cases. Hopefully, yours will be different because of what happened with the developer - if your neighbors want to salvage things, they have no choice but to get involved.

Well, it seems clear Karen has some justification for writing the letter.

Karen, you refer, obliquely, to someone else helping on this. Do you have a Board, you do collect assessments, that sort of thing. Then if I read right, you have some organization? Is all this correct?

If you do have some back-up authority such as a board and the documentation that you and whoever have acted in an official capacity, then maybe you might think about noticing the owners that this Reserve account violates your documents or state law and you are declaring a special meeting to set a special assessment to bring this account up to that required. The amount of the special assessment will be set by those members attending the meeting and blah, blah.

This should get their attention, make sure you notice the meeting as required by your documents and actually attend and conduct the associations business.

There probably will have to be adjustments made to this suggestion but it seems like a way to get some of them together, take their names and tell them, ok, here's the deal. Then saddle them into making or not making this decision to provide the special assessment. If you get no response then, I would take association funds and hire a lawyer and have the lawyer correspond to each homeowner their responsibility under the law and inform them that they are also responsible for current and any future legal fees.

Something along these line might get things rolling.

Yes, I sort of had some help but not really. I was the leader and they all just followed. I was pretty much the Board, the Pres., VP, Treas., Sec., ARC and anything else. I just could not handle it anymore! Too much work and one especially nasty neighbor who I had to obtain a restraining order against. We have a lawyer so that is not a problem - it is just educating them and I just feel like I've been beating my head against the wall to get them to understand.

Thanks for all the comments!

Money (assessments and fines) is the root of all HOA involvement. Nothing is going to happen until problems start to affect their pocketbooks. Your HOA needs to fall on it's _____ so that people will become involved out of necessity. If I were you I would do the same thing everyone else is doing and let it go until things get so bad they all come to you on their hands and knees for help. If you try to do it alone you are setting yourself up as the bad guy because no one will appreciate you. Let things go to h___ and then come in at their request to help them fix things.

I have always liked this one::::::::::

What many owners don't realize is that the HOA is not some service company that takes care of your property. When you bought your property, you became an equal member in the HOA with the same responsibilities and duties as every other member, including your neighbors nice enough to volunteer for the Board. They are giving their time, without pay, to run the HOA but you have the same responsibility they do. In other words You are the HOA too. If the HOA is not working then the ONLY way to fix it is by VOLUNTEERS fixing it. If no one volunteers then nothing will get done and generally, ONLY the homeowners may volunteer. (Renters cannot serve on the BOD)

You are in a partnership with your neighbors to run the Association and you agreed to this partnership when you signed to buy your home. The owners vote in the Board to represent them and actually run the community association, just like we vote in Congress, etc. The Board then needs owner volunteers to get things done or they have to raise dues to hire the help. Your HOA is a non-profit organization and every dollar of dues should either be spent on operations or put in reserve for future expenses.

Also remember these things when you are complaining to the Board about what needs to be done:
(1) They are UNPAID volunteers trying to serve your community. If they are pressured enough by members they can simply resign and then who will run the Association? Be nice to the Board and work with them in a spirit of helping & appreciation for their time and their commitment. You will achieve more.

(2) The Board hires the management company and has a contract with services outlined. Maybe they were not hired to walk the property. If they were paid for that and are not delivering, then that needs to be addressed by the Board. Remember that the HOA is non-profit....more services = higher dues.

You can learn alot here, then get involved. If elections are coming up, run for the Board and really make a difference.

Jim

I agree with Jim that many people do mistakenly view the HOA as a service company to take care of their property. They look at it like cable TV: "If I don't like the service, I should be able to just cancel/dissolve it."

Hey, bucko, you're not a customer; you ARE the service provider!

RichardP

Can you clarify what you mean about "a quorum that must be addressed and in many Associations, very difficult to overcome". I am always hoping to learn new things, but the only thing I understand about the requirement of a quorum is enough board members are needed to hold a board meeting. We have nine members. Five are needed.

P.S. The post is not something I come up with. Only hope I would have been that witty. I plagiarized it from somewhere else, but published it on our website.

Thanks:
Jim

A 50% quorum requirement for an HOA is ridiculous. Our HOA is of similar size, but the quorum requirement for the Association is 10%. That's probably fairly common.

You are so right! That is why I finally resigned. I figured they needed to find out the hard way just how much work I was doing. It would start to fall apart because no one stepped up to volunteer in order for them to see the light. It has worked to some degree. We had our annual meeting which had to be coordinated by the VP who never helped me and he didn't send out an agenda, didn't bring the reconiled income and expenses to the meeting or any other association documentation, basically he did nothing. He flat told everyone at this meeting "this was just not a priority to him". The meeting had to be tabled and we will be meeting again at the end of this month.

SIGH! One of the neighbors has told me this letter was "threatening". Of course, it is one of several who have no concept of what the HOA is so I guess I should just ignore it since everyone else didn't have a problem with it. I am sooooo done!

It was the letter at the beginning of this post :=} I thought I was merely stating the facts, silly me! If she took it as "threatening" then so be it - she has a guilty conscience!

Yes, you are correct when stating that few of these HOA's would operate if left to the masses - that is the problem, there are leaders and there are followers and never the two shall meet!

Well written, obviously from the heart BUT you've acknowledged most don't participate so guess 1) where the letter likely ended up, and 2) how it was likely interpreted?

answer:

1. In the trash, and
2. as a lecture...if it made it past #1.

Unless otherwise stated in the CCR's, the H.O's obligation is the payment of the dues. If they are doing that, and not volunteering,...yes its sad, but !!!!