Have you signed up for our free manager classes on Colorado law yet?
As previously blogged by Lindsay Smith, Winzenburg, Leff, Purvis & Payne, LLP is offering free lunchtime teleconference classes for community association managers designed to help prepare managers to take the Colorado law portion of the licensing examination. The next class is scheduled for July 9…
It is not uncommon for homeowners to wonder where all their dues are going. Some owners might see their dues go up with no visible changes to the property and even get suspicious. Of course, associations often bear a lot of expenses that are not directly related to property condition, such as insurance, management, and…
If you have ever served on the board of directors of an HOA, you know that some members are never happy to see their annual assessments increased. In fact, some folks can be downright hostile when faced with an increase. This can even be true when an assessment increase is absolutely necessary to adequately fund reserves to be financially prepared to handle major repairs and replacements to association common elements.
When boards are unwilling to propose essential assessment increases or members are unwilling to ratify budgets with these increases, it is not uncommon to see a couple of things happen. First, these associations tend to defer routine maintenance on common elements which reduces the remaining useful life of components like roofs, siding and asphalt. Second, these associations may not have enough funds in reserves to cover the costs associated with these major repairs and replacements. In such cases, without levying a special assessment or obtaining a loan to cover the associated costs, the infrastructure of these communities will begin to erode and eventually fall apart.Continue Reading Failing to Reserve and Deferred Maintenance is a Recipe for Disaster
As a community association attorney, I attend a lot of homeowner meetings to discuss legal issues and provide education to boards and owners. I enjoy the opportunity to meet the people who live in my client’s communities. It’s always great to put faces to names and get a feel for the relationship dynamics that make themselves apparent in the meeting space. Often, I stand out as the only person in the room wearing a suit, and I quickly get introduced as the association’s attorney or “the board’s attorney” or simply “our attorney.” This introduction provides a chance for me to answer a question that many owners in the room have: Who do you represent, Suzanne? In fact, I try to answer the following questions, quickly and concisely, with any group of owners that I am meeting for the first time:
Who does the association attorney represent? My firm represents the community association entity, not its board of directors, any of the individual directors, the manager or management company, or the members of the association.Continue Reading If You’re My HOA’s Attorney, You Represent Me, Right? (No, Not Quite.)
