HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - October 17, 2014
Published: Fri, 10/17/14
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Are You Following These 5 HOA Email Best Practices?
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You've read "Three Reasons Not to Use a Personal Email Account for HOA
Business." But there's more you should know about handling email for HOA
business. In a new article five more tips about general email best
practices for HOA boards. In this issue of the Tip of the Week, we offer
one of those tips from our experts.
1. Create an email policy. "First you have to go back to the beginning and
develop a very specific policy for not just how you as board members will
handle email, but also how the association is going to respond to email,"
says Debra A. Warren, CMCA, CCAM, PCAM, senior vice president at
Dallas-based Associa, a community association management company with
offices throughout the United States, Canada, and Mexico.
"It's so easy for somebody to get upset about something and write the board a
five-page email," explains Warren. "But I don't think that obligates the
board to answer the email. You need to identify, 'This is the way our
community is going to use this technology. We're going to use it if you have a
maintenance issue to report, a concern about an ongoing project, and so on.'
You identify when and how people are going to use the tool, and that should
extend to your staff also, whether it's your management company, onsite
manager, or volunteers.
"Then when you get a communication, if it is one of those five-page emails,
somebody needs to have a conversation with that person and say, 'We need to
take this outside an email dialogue,'" says Warren. "Remember that
everything you do on email creates a written record of not just your decision
but your thought process. It's dangerous. The best thing you can do is to use
email to transmit information efficiently. Don't use it to have a
dialogue."
You also want an email policy so that you set expectations among owners.
"With owners, I'd say, 'This is our email policy. These are the things you can
send us email on-a complaint, a request for service, perhaps some other
question,'" says Bob Kmiecik, a partner at Kaman & Cusimano LLC, which
represents associations throughout Ohio. "I'd also tell owners, 'And
here's our policy for responding to emails: It'll take two weeks because it
has to come through the board or be discussed at the next board meeting.' You
have to set expectations because people expect responses to emails
immediately."
Don't miss four more best practices our experts suggest you adopt. Get them
in our new article: http://www.hoaleader.com/members/1080.cfm
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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Recent articles posted at HOAleader.com:
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Five More Email Tips for HOA Board Members
We just gave you Three Reasons Not to Use a Personal Email Account for HOA
Business. Now our experts offer up five more tips for working wisely on and
protecting email to ensure no emails get lost and confidential information
stays confidential.
Click here to read full article:
http://www.hoaleader.com/members/Five-More-Email-Tips-for-HOA-Board-Members.cfm
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"Do Your Chores or Pay Up!" Can You Say This to Owners in Your HOA?
In this week's tip, we discuss a question that an HOAleader.com member
posted on our discussion forum on an issue that's all too common, especially
at small, self-managed HOAs: When we "assign" work to owners, if they don't
do it, can we charge them to have it done?
Click here to read full article:
http://www.hoaleader.com/members/Do-Your-Chores-or-Pay-Up-Can-You-Say-This-Owners-in-Your-HOA.cfm
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When HOA Owners Don't Do "Assigned" Work
An HOAleader.com reader writes, "We have an eight-owner unit, and the
landscape maintenance is volunteer; however half of the owners do all of the
work, and the others do absolutely zero work. My question is this: Can the
board assess owners for their equal portion of what the maintenance would
cost?"
Click here to read full article:
http://www.hoaleader.com/members/When-HOA-Owners-Dont-Do-Assigned-Work.cfm
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FHA Condo Update: Temporary Guidelines Extended
The Federal Housing Administration has extended the effective date of the
temporary guidelines used to determine whether condo associations
qualify for FHA-backed financing. This is good news. Here's why.
Click here to read full article:
http://www.hoaleader.com/members/FHA-Condo-Update-Temporary-Guidelines-Extended.cfm
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How Not to Run Your HOA: Lessons of a Pitched HOA Battle
The Quail Hill HOA in Irvine, Calif., has been the battleground for a war between two
factions who've vehemently disagreed over whether the HOA should allow a
local swim team to use one of the community's pools and whether it should
have contributed funds to the swim team.
Click here to read full article:
http://www.hoaleader.com/members/How-Not-Run-Your-HOA-Lessons-Pitched-HOA-Battle.cfm
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