HOAleader.com - Tip of the Week - May 4, 2018
Published: Fri, 05/04/18
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New Report: Expect to See More States Limit Fees for HOA Services
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In this week’s tip, we report on a trend that will likely continue into the future, according to a new report from community association management company Associa®.
The Associa® report, “Future Focused: Your Definitive Guide to the Ideas, Tools, Trends and Big Changes Driving Community Associations in 2018,” notes that state laws regulating community associations have matured and created a system in which every state but one—South Dakota—has enacted some form of statewide act regulating HOAs, condo associations, coops, or time shares.
Associa® notes several specific legislative trends and predicts they’ll continue for the foreseeable future. One is the enactment of statewide fee caps on association services or document production.
It’s on the books in Texas, reports Mary Arnold, CMCA®, AMS®, the Austin, Texas-based national director of training and community association management support at RealManage, an association management firm headquartered in Dallas, Texas, that oversees properties in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Louisiana, Nevada, and Texas.
“In Texas, associations are capped at 10 cents per page for copies,” she says. “An association here has to have recorded with the county a document reproduction policy that outlines what fees would be charged if a homeowner requests copies and the procedure the homeowner must follow. There’s also a labor fee. For someone to stand there and copy, it’s $15 an hour, but only if it’s 50 pages or more being copied.”
Recorded? Did Arnold just say that HOAs have to record this document with their local county like you’d record a deed? She did indeed.
“If it’s not recorded, you can’t enforce it,” she says. “If an association doesn’t have a recorded document policy, they can’t charge a thing. That’s pretty common here. You can’t restrict the location of satellite dishes unless you have a recorded policy. The same is true with xeriscaping.”
Find out what other states are doing with records-request fees, along with potential problems brewing with real estate closing documents, in our new article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/3717.cfm
Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President
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What HOA and Condo Boards Need to Know to Create Effective and Enforceable Parking Policies
HOA insiders often say that the biggest challenges boards face are "the 3 Ps." Based on your own experience as an HOA board member, you can probably guess that those Ps stand for Parking, Pets, and People.
It's our overarching goal to make your life easier. So with this report, "Eliminate Parking Problems at Your HOA: How to Create an Effective and Enforceable Parking Policy," we're aiming to remove parking as one of the issues that throws speed bumps in your path to effective management.
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Recent articles posted at HOAleader.com:
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Heads Up: Your State May Be Considering Caps on the Fees HOAs Can Charge
According to a new report from community association management company Associa®, one trend affecting community associations is that of legislators proposing fee caps on services condos and HOAs provide to owners and residents and on documents produced in response to owners' requests.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/Heads-Up-Your-State-May-Be-Considering-Caps-on-Fees-HOAs-Can-Charge.cfm
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HOAs, PUDs, and Now We Introduce You to PIDs
A neighborhood association in Waco, Texas, is battling crime and considering creating a public improvement district, which is supposedly similar to an HOA but has more power.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/HOAs-PUDs-Now-We-Introduce-You-PIDs.cfm
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Our Experts Advise Against Discounting HOA Assessments, But What If Owners Approve?
We recently reported that the experts we consulted were unanimously opposed to the idea of discounting owners' assessments for owners who pay the entire year's amount all at once, early in the billing cycle.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/Our-Experts-Advise-Against-Discounting-HOA-Assessments-But-What-Owners-Approve.cfm
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Rut Roh! Someone's Not Assessing HOA Square Footage Accurately
An HOAleader.com reader has what may be a unique problem--or maybe not. We have an issue in our HOA wherein we've been collecting HOA dues based upon a unit's square footage. It turns out that the county taxing authority has a different square footage based upon a plat.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/Rut-Roh-Someones-Not-Assessing-HOA-Square-Footage-Accurately.cfm
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California Clarifies HOA Directors' Personal Liability; But is There Really Much Change?
The California legislature recently amended section 5800 of California's Davis Stirling Act, which covers when community association directors can be personally liable for their actions.
Click here to read full article:
https://www.hoaleader.com/members/California-Clarifies-HOA-Directors-Personal-Liability-But-There-Really-Much-Change.cfm
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