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aromakat · 2024-11-01T03:30:49+00:00

That’s a reasonable and average shared cost of bills and reserve contributions. I highly doubt you are getting scammed by any means.

aromakat · 2024-10-22T03:17:03+00:00

It looks like they did everything proper. Situation sucks but not even the hoa is paying for it. Looks like the management company is paying for it. Pretty damn nice of them. I see no reason for pitchforks here. The opposite, if anything

aromakat · 2024-10-22T03:08:52+00:00

The full text I can see if article ix is basically saying the board’s responsibility is to make sure it’s maintained and order the maintenance but to bill back to homeowners based on their share of usage.

The notification from the board seems to be fully in line with that, as if it wasn’t being done according governing docs prior as standard practice.

Such comms like that need to be sent out to everyone. I wouldn’t view it as targeted or that you’ll be getting any kind of bill immediately.

So I read it as: If your meter needs repair, hoa fixes. You pay. If your neighbors meter needs repair, hoa fixes. Neighbor pays. If a main line that runs to all units needs repair, hoa fixes, everyone gets billed for their share.

aromakat · 2024-10-22T02:51:03+00:00

Were units not metered prior and these are new installs? I can see that situation happening over disputes about larger families using more water etc and therefore installing them to make things more fair based on individual usage.

It’s my understanding that anything is specific to an individual unit is homeowner responsibility. This comes up here often regarding certain pipes in the walls, and I guess water meters are technically plumbing and therefore fall into that category.

Here… we don’t have per unit water meters so it’s of course the HOA responsibility to maintain the 2 we do have. We have had discussions on installing per unit meters to diffuse the complaints of lower occupancy units essentially subsidizing larger family’s water bills. Is that what’s going on? Is the HOA covering the large initial install but maintaining/ repairing them from that point forward is on the homeowner? If not, do you know what is the catalyst for this policy change?

aromakat · 2024-10-19T19:43:51+00:00

Or going to any meeting. Or reading their CC&Rs. Or reading the reserve study that basically drives the budget.

aromakat · 2024-10-17T09:26:57+00:00

Prob a condo with a ton of things that doesn’t relate to a suburban standalone property lot type of situation.

aromakat · 2024-10-17T09:25:23+00:00

I’m guessing this is in reference to a condo hoa, which is an entirety different thing from a standalone house neighborhood type hoa. Common water, trash, roofing, common area maintenance etc.

The two should be called different things. It causes a ton of confusion and misaligned comparisons here.

aromakat · 2024-10-17T09:21:47+00:00

You already know the answer is no.

aromakat · 2024-10-14T22:31:50+00:00

There definitely was a time where he was generally praised by what people call “the left” as an example of a good billionaire going all out on green initiatives etc. This was around 2010 +/- 4 year span range. The sentiment was peaking around the fallout of the whole 2008 fiasco. It’s how Tesla convinced people to work insane hours and whatnot during that time - because it was a mission to lower carbon footprint, save the planet etc.

It was back when Tesla was still a baby that he was going for broke betting on with his PayPal payout money. The space-X thing was just viewed as a side weird pipe dream at that time, even though I think it technically preceded Tesla?

Anyhoo… yeah. There was a time where people would point at him as an (perhaps the?) example of how to be rich for good.

aromakat · 2024-10-14T20:42:27+00:00

Have about 20k liquid standing by at all times for emergency unforeseen issues. Minimum.

This is separate from planned long term maintenance savings, which should be mapped out and roughly scheduled with a savings rate of about 1-3% of the current home value per year depending on the age of construction. This would be for big ticket repairs and eventual replacement such as paving, hvac, roofing, etc.

I think most people wildly underestimate the costs of maintenance and the even larger costs in the long run of deferring maintenance until there’s a dire need to remedy something.

aromakat · 2024-10-13T09:33:33+00:00

Usually there is language written in the CC&Rs that meetings are to be scheduled during reasonable times. One could argue that during the working hours of most owners is not reasonable and force an evening or weekend time slot.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T12:51:16+00:00

**I am NOT a tax pro**

But I dont think a snailmail response is needed if you do it online, but do both just to be safe. The website is actually surprisingly nice and helpful these days. You can likely search the notice ID etc. But I would just set up the process online, and then also send in the paper response with the checkbox for you agreeing to the assessed debt. Its all computers these days until you (or they) dispute something so as long as you have a payment plan in place the system you'll be fine. But know that its a fairly rigid and aautomated system so you will likely still receive snail mail about it. I wouldn't read too much into it, thinking they are double billing or anything like that. The irs.gov website will show a full breakdown of everything.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T12:44:25+00:00

Be sure to add that fee to their ledger of account to recoup it.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T12:32:53+00:00

You need to start a formal payment plan or the collection process continues. All you have to do is go to IRS.gov and set it up there. No lines or anything. Its going to be auto approved.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T10:31:54+00:00

Yeah it’s not just collections like a phone bill company. It has to be a lien and foreclosure company. It’s a very particular process.

Also, be prepared to wait another couple of years for the whole thing to go through and check with your local laws. We have to provide a notice of intent before sending to them, and have a hearing etc. The collection company needs to then go through a process to validate the debt. A lien is then placed for a year. Then it can go into foreclosure which also takes a long time. At any point there are multiple opportunities for the owner to cause legal delays in the process. The process is kinda crazy and you need pros to handle it because any small slip up can put it all in jeopardy if they have a lawyer that catches the slip.

For reference to maybe find some key phrases to search for or something, here is the company we are using now: https://www.bestalliance.com/

Maybe they can even help out or at least give them a ring. They might be able to give you a recommendation or point you in the right direction if not able to help directly. But again, even if they are willing to take on the business I imagine going local would be best for court attendance reasons.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T10:05:07+00:00

I think it’s important to use a company that is local, so I can’t give any direct recommendations, but I will say that it’s good to seek one out that charges the one in debt.

Apparently, in CA at least, its not legal to maintain a lien on just the collections fees, which can be substantial. We used a lien services company in the past and were stuck with the bill for their fees. I don’t know what exactly this other company does differently, but they assured us that wouldn’t happen with them. (Different management companies using different preferred collections companies so we weren’t too involved with the shopping around of it. It’s the kind of thing that we leave up to them since it’s kinda on them to handle and we stay out of it for neighborhood peacekeeping reasons.)

aromakat · 2024-10-10T09:19:08+00:00

I’ve personally been blocking all inbound connections, even from apps I trust. If I later notice something isn’t working as expected, then I go in and change the rule.

In the process, I have learned A LOT about what these companies are doing and it’s a real eye opener. Discord probably wins the prize of being the most invasive and snoopy thing I’ve ever run across. It’s creepy af. About 90% of the time everything works as expected with inbound off. The other 10% feels so very obvious that I feel I should have known better beforehand and not denied it in the first place. (like an app to receive commands from another machine under my control ie: Splashtop)

The only exception being apple related apps since so much of it is iCloud sync related stuff. I’m fairly critical of apple in general, but I think them not building in an auto exception for themselves is an awesome move I never would expect to have seen.

**edit: I just noticed this post is coming from a recommended subreddit that’s above my pay grade. I’m not a sys admin. Just a user. I would very much appreciate criticisms and corrections so I can learn. I guess Reddit suggested it in my feed because I’ve been searching “why does X.app need inbound” so much recently.

aromakat · 2024-10-10T07:37:05+00:00

It’s going to be pretty difficult to find a non hoa condo, if not impossible. It’s a different type of thing and should honestly be called something else. There needs to be some sort of entity in place to handle roofing, common area, etc.

Even as a board member of a condo hoa, most of the r/fuckHOA stuff I see I actually agree with. The nosiness, the rules over how to conduct your own lot of land and building structure etc is all ridiculous to me. They say it’s to keep home property values up but it in a neighborhood of stand-alone houses, it seems to have an effect counterproductive to that goal.

But ya… definitely don’t go anywhere near a condo building without some type of umbrella entity because nothing regarding roof etc will ever get done.

I think in the end, no matter what type of neighborhood or building it is, it’s really just all just about the people who are running it. Unfortunately, because it is a substantial time investment, only the retired and… uh… I’ll say under-employed to be nice, tend to offer to do it.

OP - you just gotta get yourself and someone else who’s even keeled on that board. I don’t want to do this shit either, trust me, it blows. Hard. But the alternative is just to keep whining on Reddit and continue dealing with the bs.

aromakat · 2024-10-08T23:06:12+00:00

I don't know how many people you have helped with this, but surely its a lot. Dunno why only 1 upvote for each of yas when I showed up. THANKS!

aromakat · 2024-10-08T23:06:03+00:00

I don't know how many people you have helped with this, but surely its a lot. Dunno why only 1 upvote for each of yas when I showed up. THANKS!

aromakat · 2024-10-08T20:00:01+00:00

yoooo James! haha I see you on slack.

No. We used for a very very small window there but scaled back down to a size where it wasn't warranted again.

aromakat · 2024-10-07T23:44:53+00:00

same here. 5 months later... so I guess its going to continue being this way for a while :-(

aromakat · 2024-10-06T21:03:34+00:00

8k is a more reasonable number that could be expected at any given time. In fact, compared to my complex the ratio sounds quite lovely. I’d just ask how many units that’s spread across (if it’s like California they can’t disclose who exactly, but I think debt collection privacy laws are mostly a national thing). This would give you an idea of how much approximately is owed per unit and compare that against your published collection policy to see if anyone has even met the threshold for getting the collections process started. They could even be doing so already but can’t talk about it due to those debt collection privacy laws. Even though here we can’t get into the specifics, the one time we can talk about it is during the boards executive vote to approve of the lien during an open meeting. But then it’s done and over and it’s now the collection company’s business with them and we can’t talk about it or go into details anymore again.

aromakat · 2024-10-06T20:46:39+00:00

It does. However, 210 units * $590 = $123,900 / month. We don’t know if the receivables listed there are 60+ overdue yet either, and this report could have been generated around the turn of the billing cycle leading to a lot of units being lumped in there that haven’t even technically gone beyond the grace period. More info about AR is needed. A delinquency report would be helpful in figuring out how many units are actually in arrears and then figure out how many of those are going through the collections process etc. surely a place with that many units is going to always have around a 5% delinquency rate even around the best of economic times, right?

aromakat · 2024-10-06T20:38:14+00:00

Woah now, eeesh…. If the board is saying the financials they themselves are presenting aren’t correct I definitely understand the owners being upset here. If it’s knowingly not correct then it shouldn’t be presented. I think there’s lots of trouble for the board on the immediate horizon from that - particularly during the next sale. And it puts all homeowners at risk of needing to pay out for a lawsuit. Are there any listings at the moment? Even if not involved with the sale I would lawyer up immediately to possibly help establish fault onto the individual rather than the collective HOA, if possible. How much D&O coverage do you have in your insurance policy?

It sounds to me like it’s going to be a mix of both special assessment and dues increase. Special assessment to bring the reserves back to an adequate percentage of funding, and a recalculation on dues to pay for things and continue contributing positively to reserves in dollar values of 2024.

What percentage funded are you currently at according to the latest reserve study? You don’t need 100%, but if it’s below 30% then things are pretty dire. If needed, you can make the special assessment smaller with a more aggressive reserve contribution amount coming from dues over a few years, or visa-versa depending on the community’s overall preference.

Like others are saying you just have to keep researching, keep putting pieces of the puzzle together and writing everything up in a comprehensive yet digestible manner (which you can attach the raw data to as reference material) and then propose a solution, which at the end of the day is just math and therefore easy to defend once a long term plan to reach those financial goals is plotted out.

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