5 ms·

54 people couldn't cough up $20k?

WorldMaker 8y ago
54 people couldn't pay the bare modicum of attention to their HOA's budget to stop them from spending on meals and vacations that have nothing to do with the HOA's role?
- magduf 8y ago
  I've lived in HOA neighborhoods before; the power any individual resident has over the HOA is nearly nil. You'd basically have to run around to all the neighbors and convince them to vote for someone else at the next board election; it's just like regular government politics that way.
  - lazyasciiart 8y ago
    Yes, that's a pretty bare modicum of effort.
    - magduf 8y ago
      Convincing your neighbors to vote a certain way is "a pretty bare modicum of effort"? If that were true, we wouldn't have our current democracy in such a terrible state. Billions of dollars are spent on every election to try to convince voters of how to vote, and look where it gets us. How do you think one person running around to his neighbors is going to convince them to vote for genuinely good HOA board members? Remember that the bad members are also going to be running around trying to get votes. And who would you have them vote for anyway? Yourself? I don't know about you, but I have no time or inclination for such a job. Frequently, HOAs turn out this way because the people who do have time for that crap are the people who really are a problem. This is a strong argument in favor of professional property management in fact (which is what my condo has, and doesn't seem to have any of these problems).
      - WorldMaker 8y ago
        The "bare modicum of effort" in that case as the average person would be at least paying attention to the folks running around trying to get votes, and paying attention to what they are telling you. Billions of dollars are spent trying to convince voters to vote, because the only real winner in most general elections, whether HOA or national, is "apathy" as most votes are undecided or not even cast. Also, things like meeting minutes and annual budgets are generally required to be transparent in most HOA founding documents (constitutions, articles of incorporation, bylaws). You don't have to want to be a board member to review meeting notes (or directly attend meetings in most cases), and especially to review an annual budget of how your money is spent. 54 different people in the example above had an opportunity to review the budget? Did they just not care? Was it "creative accounting" fraud? (If so, why weren't the people responsible personally liable for fraud? White collar crimes are still crimes.) My HOA maintenance fees include major utilities so we all assume year-to-year increases, but just about everyone in my building still seems to take a fine tooth comb to the annual budget every year in the hopes of avoiding an increase or finding a possible decrease. (Also, property managers are generally orthogonal concerns to HOAs given they have different goals and most property managers still report to an HOA. You can still have good property company reporting to a bad HOA. There are also plenty of horror stories of bad property management companies out there. My HOA has already been through a small handful of property management companies trying to find a good one. We seem to have lucked out with the current one, at least, given all that we are going through.)
        magduf 8y ago
        >because the only real winner in most general elections, whether HOA or national, is "apathy" as most votes are undecided or not even cast. That simply isn't true. As bad as voter turnout is in the US, it's still over 50%. The winner is ignorance, as so many voters actively vote against their own best interests (e.g., poor people voting for the party that passes tax breaks for millionaires). >why weren't the people responsible personally liable for fraud? White collar crimes are still crimes. Now this is an excellent question here. I have no idea what the answer is, but it seems like the US is really bad about this kind of thing, and not just with HOA management. It seems like prosecutors here just don't want to bother with cases like this, maybe because not enough money is involved? >There are also plenty of horror stories of bad property management companies out there. Yes, but at least here, as you found out with your case, you can just hire a different company when you need to. It seems like the best case is what your HOA has going on: an HOA composed of owners, acting mainly as overseers for the professional management company that does that bulk of the work of managing the place. The HOA horror stories I've seen (and experienced) seem to involve HOAs which do their own management, so basically some busybody in the neighborhood who has time and interest gets voted in along with a few of his cronies, and then mismanages the funds badly.
gowld 8y ago
$20K each, most likely.
- jiveturkey 8y ago
  1 million dollar sewer repair bill? unlikely.
magduf 8y ago
Another "tragedy of the commons" thing. It's only about $370 per person (or unit), but they're probably not all trying to sell at the same time, so you probably can't get them to all agree to it. So there's probably 5 people trying to sell at the moment and the rest refuse to pay up just to help those 5 sell, and they probably think that this might come up again in the future thanks to even more mismanagement.
castlecrasher2 8y ago
I had a friend go through a roof replacement in his condo complex that cost $13k for each condo owner. I know nothing about plumbing but maybe it was per owner?

54 people couldn't pay the bare modicum of attention to their HOA's budget to stop them from spending on meals and vacations that have nothing to do with the HOA's role?

magduf 8y ago
I've lived in HOA neighborhoods before; the power any individual resident has over the HOA is nearly nil. You'd basically have to run around to all the neighbors and convince them to vote for someone else at the next board election; it's just like regular government politics that way.
- lazyasciiart 8y ago
  Yes, that's a pretty bare modicum of effort.
  - magduf 8y ago
    Convincing your neighbors to vote a certain way is "a pretty bare modicum of effort"? If that were true, we wouldn't have our current democracy in such a terrible state. Billions of dollars are spent on every election to try to convince voters of how to vote, and look where it gets us. How do you think one person running around to his neighbors is going to convince them to vote for genuinely good HOA board members? Remember that the bad members are also going to be running around trying to get votes. And who would you have them vote for anyway? Yourself? I don't know about you, but I have no time or inclination for such a job. Frequently, HOAs turn out this way because the people who do have time for that crap are the people who really are a problem. This is a strong argument in favor of professional property management in fact (which is what my condo has, and doesn't seem to have any of these problems).
    - WorldMaker 8y ago
      The "bare modicum of effort" in that case as the average person would be at least paying attention to the folks running around trying to get votes, and paying attention to what they are telling you. Billions of dollars are spent trying to convince voters to vote, because the only real winner in most general elections, whether HOA or national, is "apathy" as most votes are undecided or not even cast. Also, things like meeting minutes and annual budgets are generally required to be transparent in most HOA founding documents (constitutions, articles of incorporation, bylaws). You don't have to want to be a board member to review meeting notes (or directly attend meetings in most cases), and especially to review an annual budget of how your money is spent. 54 different people in the example above had an opportunity to review the budget? Did they just not care? Was it "creative accounting" fraud? (If so, why weren't the people responsible personally liable for fraud? White collar crimes are still crimes.) My HOA maintenance fees include major utilities so we all assume year-to-year increases, but just about everyone in my building still seems to take a fine tooth comb to the annual budget every year in the hopes of avoiding an increase or finding a possible decrease. (Also, property managers are generally orthogonal concerns to HOAs given they have different goals and most property managers still report to an HOA. You can still have good property company reporting to a bad HOA. There are also plenty of horror stories of bad property management companies out there. My HOA has already been through a small handful of property management companies trying to find a good one. We seem to have lucked out with the current one, at least, given all that we are going through.)
      - magduf 8y ago
        >because the only real winner in most general elections, whether HOA or national, is "apathy" as most votes are undecided or not even cast. That simply isn't true. As bad as voter turnout is in the US, it's still over 50%. The winner is ignorance, as so many voters actively vote against their own best interests (e.g., poor people voting for the party that passes tax breaks for millionaires). >why weren't the people responsible personally liable for fraud? White collar crimes are still crimes. Now this is an excellent question here. I have no idea what the answer is, but it seems like the US is really bad about this kind of thing, and not just with HOA management. It seems like prosecutors here just don't want to bother with cases like this, maybe because not enough money is involved? >There are also plenty of horror stories of bad property management companies out there. Yes, but at least here, as you found out with your case, you can just hire a different company when you need to. It seems like the best case is what your HOA has going on: an HOA composed of owners, acting mainly as overseers for the professional management company that does that bulk of the work of managing the place. The HOA horror stories I've seen (and experienced) seem to involve HOAs which do their own management, so basically some busybody in the neighborhood who has time and interest gets voted in along with a few of his cronies, and then mismanages the funds badly.

gowld 8y ago

$20K each, most likely.

jiveturkey 8y ago
1 million dollar sewer repair bill? unlikely.

magduf 8y ago

Another "tragedy of the commons" thing. It's only about $370 per person (or unit), but they're probably not all trying to sell at the same time, so you probably can't get them to all agree to it. So there's probably 5 people trying to sell at the moment and the rest refuse to pay up just to help those 5 sell, and they probably think that this might come up again in the future thanks to even more mismanagement.

castlecrasher2 8y ago

I had a friend go through a roof replacement in his condo complex that cost $13k for each condo owner. I know nothing about plumbing but maybe it was per owner?