As a board member, do you ever feel that you and the remaining board members are on an island alone? Nobody understands what you do, much less appreciates what you do. But, they are more than willing to criticize everything you do, often because it adversely impacts their use and enjoyment of their property. You and the remainder of the board feel overwhelmed by the amount of work there is to be done to run your association. And while the manager can be a tremendous help, you can’t afford to pay them for everything you would like to have done. So what do you do?Continue Reading Appointment and Use of Committees

Have you ever had an opportunity to review minutes of a meeting, and from what is written, you are able to create a mental picture of who was actually speaking and what they were saying? Not only that, from the words written, you can glean the emotion with which everything was said and delivered. That’s all well and good for writing a novel, but it is the exact opposite of what should be done when preparing minutes.

Minutes should be minutes, not hours. That’s what we say when we are provided with a copy of the minutes of a board meeting or members’ meeting and they go on for pages and pages, with a transcription of everything said and the demeanor in which it was said.Continue Reading Minutes Should Be Minutes, Not Hours

In the busy-ness of day to day work, once in awhile I get a chance to reflect on what is causing all of this busy-ness. It seems that the last several years have, unfortunately, brought out much conflict in the operations of community associations, resulting in contentious board meetings and annual meetings, as well as disputes between associations and their members and owner to owner disputes. The Foundation for Community Association Research, a national 501(c)(3) organization devoted to common interest community research, development and scholarship recently published a paper by Courtney L. Feldscher, a Ph.D. Candidate at Boston University addressing managing conflict in community associations.Continue Reading Conflict Management in Your Association

This is the time of year when many associations start thinking about scheduling their annual meetings. Annual meetings can present a number of challenges for associations, but there is no time like the present to start preparing for the meeting.Continue Reading Annual Meeting Time – Are You Ready?

If you read our posts, you know that we occasionally address fair housing issues in community associations. Both the federal and state fair housing acts prohibit discrimination in the provision of housing and services based on a number of protected classifications, including race, color, religion, sex, familial status, or national origin. Unfortunately, discrimination in violation…

What happens when your neighbor blasts his music too loud? Complains about your trees covering his yard? Fills his garage with fireworks for Fourth of July – and shoots them off every night for a month beforehand until midnight? Gets angry with you and dumps garbage on your lawn? What should the Association’s Board or manager do, if anything, when they receive the call from the affected homeowner?

Oftentimes, these types of problems are referred to by Boards and managers as “neighbor to neighbor” disputes. They become defined as such because they are disputes, of one nature or another, lodged by one owner against another owner, but generally do not affect either the common areas or more than a few other owners. Other common examples, in addition to those identified above, include parking, animals, and smoking.Continue Reading Tools for Handling Neighbor to Neighbor Disputes

We routinely receive questions related to fair housing issues in common interest communities. Many community association directors and community association managers are aware that both the federal and state Fair Housing Acts prohibit discrimination against certain protected classes of persons in the provision of housing and services related to housing. One of the protected classes is handicapped persons. According to the Fair Housing Act, discrimination includes: (a) a refusal to permit, at the expense of the handicapped person, reasonable modifications of existing premises occupied or to be occupied by such person if such modifications may be necessary to afford such person full enjoyment of the premises; and (b) a refusal to make reasonable accommodations in rules, policies, practices, or services, when such accommodations may be necessary to afford such person equal opportunity to use and enjoy a dwelling.Continue Reading The Fair Housing Act – The Handicapped Person; Reasonable Modifications and Reasonable Accommodations