Give Your Association A Checkup
How healthy is your HOA? Do your meetings feel lifeless and listful or is are they full of energy and fresh ideas? Do you have a healthy mix of volunteers and representatives giving regular input or is the turnover rate making your head spin?
Just like having a healthy diet and balance in your personal life is important, maintaining the health of your HOA is essential to continued growth, longevity…and the all-important attraction of future volunteer participation.
The following are ten performance measures to help determine the health of your homeowner association. In addition to self evaluation, the board may also want to conduct an annual written and confidential evaluation by residents.
Simply score performance of each measure on a scale of one to four. The results should guide the board and community to adopt measures that encourage improvement in management practices.
Low High |
How Well Does Your Association Board… |
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1 2 3 4 | A | Governance – Manage the community according to the governing documents and in accordance with local ordinances, state and federal laws. |
1 2 3 4 | B | Leadership – Maintain effective and consistent leadership through proper elections, volunteer appointments to committees and training. |
1 2 3 4 | C | Meetings – Conduct meetings with notice, with agendas, with a quorum, in a timely manner and according to Robert’s Rules (annual meeting, board and committee meetings). |
1 2 3 4 | D | Delinquencies – Keep assessment delinquencies to less than 5%. |
1 2 3 4 | E | Finance – Produce monthly financial reports, has financial fraud protection measures, and formally adopts a budget that avoids large annual increases in assessments. |
1 2 3 4 | F | Reserves – Maintain adequate reserves and avoids special assessments. |
1 2 3 4 | G | Insurance – Maintain all necessary insurance coverage. |
1 2 3 4 | H | Covenant Enforcement – Regularly conduct a site inspection to ensure compliance with the covenants which is fairly enforced with written notice, hearings and fines. |
1 2 3 4 | I | Maintenance – Have a maintenance program for common areas and other exterior responsibilities (such as painting, roofing, gutters, power washing, landscaping, etc usually found in townhome and condo communities). Awards contracts fairly according to a specification, bid, award, inspection, and warranty program. |
1 2 3 4 | J | Communications – Keeps residents informed with: a new resident ‘welcome package’ (covenants, by laws, rules, forms, contact info, rights and responsibilities, etc.); with websites, email distribution lists, and/or newsletters; and provides an opportunity for residents to address the board through a homeowner forum. |
Click here to download the 10-point self-diagnostic checkup.