HOA Hell!!

[Ah Pook]

Not me but a friend. A new HOA management firm has taken over and going full retard on the home owners. Multiple tickets and fines with little to no time to take care of the dependencies. Also vague pics and descriptions.

Who has a good HOA lawyer? Several neighbors will be included.

TIA!

[electronman1729]

I had the same issue with our property management company. I just insulted and degraded them until I won. Then we had a revolt as homeowners and our HOA board fired the management company.

[DOC]

Lickenpooper gave them power to write tickets and one day give trials and capital punishment too.

[Irving]

My little brother shamed our family by becoming the HOA president and now he gets to be that guy. I know that is not helpful for your friend's immediate situation and I'm sorry to hear that he's going through that.

[BladesNBarrels]

Can you call the members of the HOA Board that hired the management company?
Are they your neighbors and are they having similar problems with management?
I would start with them.

[newracer]

Yep, complain to the board.

[vim]

Sorry.

I was president of my HOA for a couple years, and own a condo in an HOA run by a management company, and the difference is night and day.

If the residents did just a bit of volunteering and ran things themselves, this kind of fun is avoided. It's also a lot cheaper just to pay for bookkeeping even if no resident wants a stipend to do so.

[BladesNBarrels]

Sorry.

I was president of my HOA for a couple years, and own a condo in an HOA run by a management company, and the difference is night and day.

If the residents did just a bit of volunteering and ran things themselves, this kind of fun is avoided. It's also a lot cheaper just to pay for bookkeeping even if no resident wants a stipend to do so.

I am not familiar with an HOA run by a management company that hasn't been hired by a Board.
How does the management company get the authority over the members of the HOA unless there is a contract with the Board or the members?
When our neighborhood was built, the construction company owned the most property and managed the HOA. As soon as the number of individual owners was over 50%, the construction company turned the HOA over to them.
The Board was elected from the owners and they hired the management company.
I know there can be a lot of different ways the HOA can be structured, but don't the home owners ultimately hire the management?

[vim]

I am not familiar with an HOA run by a management company that hasn't been hired by a Board.
How does the management company get the authority over the members of the HOA unless there is a contract with the Board or the members?
When our neighborhood was built, the construction company owned the most property and managed the HOA. As soon as the number of individual owners was over 50%, the construction company turned the HOA over to them.
The Board was elected from the owners and they hired the management company.
I know there can be a lot of different ways the HOA can be structured, but don't the home owners ultimately hire the management?

I can see that what I wrote wasn't so clear.

My primary residence is in an HOA with a volunteer board and no external management company. We run it ourselves, pay stipends for the resident owner who manages landscaping and associated external services (trees, irrigation and mowing of common areas, pool repair) and for bookkeeping services (trash bills and annual dues). Annual dues are around $500. Issues are attended to promptly and the board works hard to avoid kerfuffles over nonsense. Neighbors first. And that's in an HOA with approx $80 million in home value (all combined ;^)

I also own a condo, which is managed by an professional management company. I would guess they were put in place by board members who just wanted to write checks and walk away. But the place existed when I bought it, and I don't know the exact mechanism, whether employing the services of the management company was encouraged by the developer or what.

[BladesNBarrels]

I got it. Thanks.
Our HOA was self managed for a number of years.
We had the typical "neighborhood nazi's" that complained about everything and wanted each covenant enforced to the maximum. The HOA had the power to levy escalating fines and it got pretty heated.
The majority got tired of this, voted in more reasonable neighbors who just didn't have the time to micro-manage all the details - landscape maintenance, garbage contracts, approval and supervision of all of the covenants. (That is another story---covenants changed about 3 times in the first couple of years and the volume of pages with changes was almost unreadable).
The solution was to hire a management company. They started with strict enforcement, but the Board calmed them down over time.
Now, there are some disputes, but not as many as we had during the strict enforcement times.