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January 15, 2008     Vol. 5 Issue 2 
In the News Since the Last Issue

FL: Legislators to weigh tougher laws on condo associations   A committee of legislators will hold five hearings throughout the state in the next two months to determine if Florida needs tougher laws to prevent condo, co-op and homeowner associations from steali...

FL: Condo resident bucks rules for love of pet
Florence Badami, 77, is aware of these kinds of rules. She's one of those shake-your-head stories - a woman who lives in a development and has a dog, even though it's against the rules. And a yappy dog at that....

AZ: Scottsdale neighborhood angered by resident's addition to house  Residents of a cul-de-sac on 99th Place, south of Shea Boulevard, have been fighting with the Scottsdale Ranch Community Association after homeowners Bill and Lynne Bayse put up a two-story carriage house that nearly extends to the sidewalk....

NC: HOA meeting moves from bleak to encouraging  The annual meeting of the Forest Pond Homeowners Association could have ended in despair....

AZ: Homeowner vote bars child's pet mini-horse
The nays have it. Bailey the miniature horse won't be living with her 11-year-old owner and his family in Skyline Bel Air Estates....

VI: Well-heeled revolt on tropic isle
Sarasota developer David Band and his partner Kelly Frye's project, Grande Bay Resort, in St. Johns, Virgin Islands, has sparked the formation of the community's first anti-development organizing group. Band and Frye's partnership, Bay Isles Associates LLLP, i...

SC: Financier and investors' deposits missing
Investors' money is missing from a second failed condominium project here, and a familiar story is emerging of an elusive financier who local developers say took off with millions of dollars in condo deposits, never to be heard from again....

PA: Condos Flood With Sewage  Living in filth, residents of a condo building in Northeast Philly want answers after numerous incidents of sewage overflowing in their units. They've been demanding action for a long time and are simply fed up after years of dealing with the problem....

CA: Concrete Waterfall   Not many urban dwellers could envision a 120-foot tall cascading waterfall surrounded by a tropical green landscape just outside their window. But that's exactly what inhabitants of a Seventh Street condominium complex will find....

MA: Condo seeks to ban rapist
The condominium association where former Norton dance instructor and convicted child rapist Keith Sampson lived is seeking a court order to keep him off the property even after his release from prison....

CA: Behind the Gates: Rules are good for the community   Living in a homeowners association very simply means giving up certain privileges (aka: rights) in order to have the lifestyle of the community. Rules are a way of life in an HOA....

CA: For the Birds?  In a postcard-perfect setting in the middle of Valencia, controversy is escalating among neighbors and local environmentalists concerning the fate of a bird that some call precious and others refer to as a rodent.... 

AZ: BBB pulls local HOA-management firm's accreditation   A Tucson community association management company lost its Better Business Bureau accreditation recently due to an unanswered complaint....

CO: HOA shake-up causes a ruckus in northside neighborhood  The ink wasn't dry on Monday's Side Streets before the war over the Woodmen Pointe Homeowners Association escalated. Woodmen Pointe is the 5-year-old northside neighborhood of $300,000-plus homes where the HOA board has aggressively enforced covenants....

FL: Boca woman wins doors to freedom
After spending more than a year trapped in her home, a woman who was born without arms and legs is getting ready to fly the coop. "I'll be like a little bird let out of the cage," Josefina Fontanez said Wednesday after learning her condominium association has ...

FL: Condo buildings buckle under foreclosures
As the region's housing market sputters into the new year, a collection of largely unoccupied new towers are straining under hundreds of millions of dollars in defaulted mortgages. In the 20 buildings in Miami-Dade and Broward counties with the largest numbers... 

IL: Neighborhood split over association woes
While such arguments are not uncommon, this one took an interesting turn when a group of Squire's Mill homeowners came to the Joliet City Council meeting last week to ask city hall to oversee an attempt to replace the existing homeowners association board....

GA: Atlanta's Aquarius Tower To Get A Boost From Windpower   The 500-foot tower will have a serious commitment to alternative power: a five-floor wind tunnel with about 60 small turbines and rooftop solar panels could provide more than half of the building's power....

AZ: More residents cope with HOAs
As subdivisions and planned communities grow in popularity in Casa Grande, homeowners associations are becoming more common, raising questions among many residents about the rights and responsibilities of homeowners and the associations that govern their commu...

PA: Condo Fire Leaves Dozens Homeless
Three dozen people are homeless after a fire ripped through a Bucks County condominium complex early Monday morning....

OR: If these walls could talk, they would quarrel
As president of the Brownstone Homes Condominium Association, it fell to Dietterick and his fellow board members to figure out what to do. But their plan to trap the peacocks drew fierce resistance from a small pocket of Brownstone residents, who thought the i...

CO: HOA spat shrieks for mediation  Mike Marotta is facing foreclosure, but not because he didn't pay his mortgage. The condo owners' association that rules his building at 1200 Vine St. in Denver is cashing him out. "They want me out because I speak up," said Marotta, 62, a retired electrical ...

FL: How to enforce violations of rules in your community  Tom isn't picking up his dog waste. Dick is driving around the neighborhood like a bat out of hell. Jane is blasting her stereo at all times of the day. Peter is painting his house florescent green without approval. Paul is parking his pick-up in the street. ...

FL: Residents initiate energy conservation project
With only four more to go, Ron Bock is almost finished saving the planet. He, his wife, and everyone from the Home Owners Association of Lakeside Plantation are conserving energy by replacing their gas street lights with more efficient low voltage electric la...

GA: Neighbors should act neighborly
The Rolling Meadow Homeowner's Association Board got a tongue-lashing last month from the Gwinnett County Department of Water Resources Customer Service Division. It is all a simple misunderstanding really.... 

FL: LWR community adds eyes at night
The Summerfield/Riverwalk Village Association plans to crack down on uncut lawns, unlit yard lamps, nighttime lawn watering and overnight parking on the street....

AZ: HOA denies homeowner solar panel use due to color  The law allows associations to adopt "reasonable" rules governing the placement of solar devices, but they can't restrict function and efficiency. Sanders said her plan to install black solar collectors rather than a less efficient color preferred by her HOA s... 

FL: Homeowner's Associations Raising Fees Due To Foreclosures (Video)  Many communities are making homeowners pay special assessments once or twice a year while others are increasing homeowner's association fees to cover regular expenses. The Phillips Landing subdivision in Dr. Phillips is raising HOA fees by about 15-percent....

CA: Castellammare HOA Wins Suit, Keeps CC&Rs
The first part of a lawsuit threatening the right of the Castellammare Mesa Home Owners, Inc. to enforce its conditions, covenants and restrictions (CC&Rs) ended last month in the association's favor....

AZ: Food Fight (scroll down to last section)
Barry Austin, the Finisterra neighborhood (in the foothills) resident disgusted with his homeowners' association ("No Food for You!" Currents, Dec. 13), says he finally got an answer as to why his HOA's board of directors voted yes to pay $3,500 for Christmas ...

See all of the latest national, legal, regional and state news


2007 Advertising Policies and Rate Sheet
Word Doc      PDF
New Articles Found on the Web
A master insurance policy for your condo isn't enough

Benny KassSometimes, we need a painful experience to prod us into doing what we should have done in the first place. On Oct. 1, a serious fire ravished a condominium building in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, D.C. Fortunately, it does not appear that there were any serious injuries, but many condominium owners and renters will now have to relocate until the building -- and the damaged units -- are restored. There was property loss, both in the common areas of the building and within those units where the fire occurred. And clearly there will be a lot of smoke and water damage to the personal property of many of the residents.   Read more


How to Manage Independent Contractors

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) recently fined FedEx $319 million for failing to pay taxes and benefits for drivers whom they called “contractors” but treated like employees. The practice is tempting: According to the U.S. Department of Labor, the cost of hiring a contractor is as much as 30 percent lower than that of hiring an employee. But it’s also illegal — and costly if you get audited.

What does this have to do with a law-abiding manager like you? Well, the legal difference between a contractor and an employee can be tough to determine, and getting it right has just become more important: The IRS will up its vigilance on the issue for the 2007 tax year. In this comprehensive Crash Course, we’ll show you how to classify workers correctly and steer clear of conflicts with Uncle Sam.     Read more

SPECIAL:  DEALING WITH NEIGHBORS

The Boors Next Door

"Neighborhoods used to be the building blocks of civil society," says Forni. "That was when neighbors knew one another and had face-to-face encounters with one another at the grocer's, at the barber and at the pharmacy soda-fountain counter. Neighbors opened their homes to neighbors, kept an eye on their neighbors' children and helped one another in case of need."   Read more

Links from article:  www.rottenneighbor.com (think you have problems?)

Bad Neighbor Basics

Nothing ruins the excitement of finding your dream home quicker than moving in and discovering you have a bad neighbor. Perhaps you have lived in your home for years when the house next door sells and suddenly you find yourself with the neighbor from hell. Maybe they have a loud, barking dog or are prone to Saturday night arguments that wake you from your sleep. Or maybe they simply drop by too often and are overly interested in your personal affairs. Whether your bad neighbors are nosy or noisy, these simple strategies will help you deal with them without joining the ranks of bad neighborhood yourself.   Read more

Johns Hopkins Civility Project Makes Peace Person to Person Then Nation to Nation

Pier Massimo Forni is a peacemaker, not between nations, rather on the fundamental level of individual personal relations. He's not a therapist, psychiatrist, or such. He's a master of the ameliorative skills that are as old as human society and, to him, more productive of social harmony than most people realize. We're talking about manners, courtesy, civility. Mr. Forni, a professor of Italian literature, was among those who a decade ago, spurred by widespread concern over the coarsening of society, created the Johns Hopkins University Civility Project. Its purpose was to learn what influence these old conventions retained in modern society. What is the effect of politeness and respect in the work place, and in more tightly closed aggregations?   Read more

Dealing With Neighbors  (a blog I wrote a couple years ago)

I grew up in an urban neighborhood. The narrow houses were placed on narrow lots. Our windows looked into our neighbor's windows. With no air conditioning back then, windows stayed open much of the year, so everybody heard everything. On my block you found the usual assortment of characters: The good kids and the bad kids, the good parents and the bad parents, the drunks, the fighters, the church-goers, the young and the old, those working and those unemployed, the nosy ones and the ones you never saw or heard. In other words, what you would expect to find in any typical neighborhood. Within those confines, all neighbor-to-neighbor problems were handled directly, with outsiders called in only if it involved violence or a serious crime. It was just dealt with or lived with.   Read more

Dealing with Neighbors from H – E – Double – L

Many of us have had one or two in our lifetime. They can be very unpleasant, downright nasty people. It may seem like horrible neighbors enjoy being that way, and there’s not much you can do to change them. Some may be vindictive; while others are in denial (or unaware) that they continually create problems for you and everyone that lives around them. What can you do to effectively deal with these difficult and tedious situations? Understand the key attributes which make them difficult to deal with: instead of looking for solutions that work, they look for evidence to show it isn’t their fault. They are unable (or unwilling) to establish win-win boundaries to address issues in a positive and proactive manner. They blame you, the neighborhood, city, county, etc., for the problems they’ve created.   Read more



All I Learned About Roofs.....I Learned with Educated Feet

I have an old but very favorite pair of shoes that my wife routinely puts in the trash at least once a month and I routinely take them out again. These are my roof inspection shoes and I never leave home without them. After 50 years of construction activity, I have learned there is more to roof technology than the books provide. My roof education started with the books, but I soon learned my feet could feel trapped moisture under the membrane, loose anchors, seam failures and disbonded insulation boards then lead me directly to the critical flashing problems. With this thought in mind let me share with you what I have learned.  Read more

Richard ThompsonHOA Reserve Failure Mode

Reserve planning is something that every homeowner association, regardless of size, should do because the HOA is entrusted with very expensive assets that affect member home values. Failure to maintain them causes home values to fall. The "reserve study" breaks down common elements into components and analyzes their current cost of repair or replacement and predicts when that event should take place. Reserve components come in all shapes, sizes and values. They are not all created equal.   Read more (you can hear the report by clicking on the "Play Video" above the title)

Broderick PerkinsLife Expectancy of Home Components

One way to prepare for the costs of owning a home beyond the mortgage payment, insurance and taxes, is to know the expected life expectancy of your home's components.  Such knowledge doesn't supersede the use of a home inspector when buying a home, new or old, but it can help you develop a savings plan so you are prepared for the inevitable. Sooner or later you'll have to repair or replace many of your home's parts -- inside and out.   Read more

Customizing Emergency Plans for Your Building

As we sit in our buildings all over the city, we'd like to think that we're protected from emergencies by our sprinkler systems, electronic alarm systems and staff. However much we don't want to think about it, an emergency situation can happen, and your building should be prepared. Because condo and co-op buildings in the New York metro area can vary so much, from the spread-out suburban-style condo in Long Island or eastern Queens to the landmark high-rise on Central Park West, making an individual, customized disaster plan is a must.   Read more

Grounds Care Goes Green

The green movement has affected almost every area of facilities and operations in institutional and commercial organizations. But few areas have revisited and rethought the ways they do business as much as grounds care departments. From equipment purchases to the selection of landscape materials and maintenance practices in landscaped areas, no area of grounds care has escaped scrutiny. While big-ticket equipment such as mowers and tractors tend to be the highest-profile elements of grounds operations in many institutions and attract the most attention, they are just one element in departments’ efforts to become more environmentally friendly.   Read more

Budgeting Tips

The annual budget is probably the single most important recurring document that an association produces. The budget is the basis for determining the assessment fees and serves as an indicator of the board’s intentions concerning property and financial matters. Because the budget is often the only formal communication to association members during the year, it should be as informative and clear as possible. It should be complete yet concise and not overburdened or complicated with too much detail. It should contain a narrative supporting the individual line items and a detailed schedule of replacement reserves. Once finished, the budget should be approved and documented in the minutes of the Board of Directors’ meeting. Read more (PDF)

Surviving Burn-Out

Back when I was 18, I desperately wanted to join the fast-paced working world in the big city. My first job? A receptionist for a Portland-based real estate management company. At the time, I had no idea that position would turn into a life-long career. Back then, I didn’t know many people who actually chose to work in the real estate profession. Don’t get me wrong: learning the profession in the school of hard knocks was well worth it. I wouldn’t give up my personal experiences and on-the-job training for anything. But, when I reached the finish line I never thought I’d say to myself, “OK, I’m here… Now will someone please push me off a high-rise?” Can you say “burn-out?” Yep, burn baby burn.   Read more&   (PDF)


Big changes could raise flood insurance premiums for some

Congress has a lot of unfinished business to deal with when it returns from its holiday recess beginning next week. But no issue may be more important to more homeowners than reauthorizing the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP).

That's because floods can occur anywhere, even in places thought to be low-risk. In fact, a third of all claims paid by the NFIP are on policies in communities considered as minimal-risk locations.
Read more
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Editor's Notes 
I have to keep telling myself that newspapers and media dwell on the negative, because that is usually the exception, and therefore "news".  I know the sheer number of negative stories can be depressing, but there is a reason I keep publishing them---I hope that associations, managers and attorneys will see what's happening around the country and then take a look at what they are doing to prevent it from happening in their backyard.  Community associations have been reactive since they were first developed.  Its long past time to find a way to be pro-active.  Learn from others so that you don't have to go through the headaches of learning first-hand.

Joe
New Audio/Video
Realty Times has added a video component to its articles.  The article to the left "HOA Reserve Failure Mode" is read in video mode by clicking on "Play Video".

You can download or listen to over 30 programs produced by the CAI-Illinois Chapter from their weekly radio program.  Click here to go to the page with the program directory


 

What's New in the Blogs
Who Is Responsible for Unsavory Guests?
Board Members should not Act Unilaterally
Legislative Session 2008: HB 08-1089 Introduced
Variable Assessments

Talk With CAM 021 Maintenance

Imposing Fines

Community Association Legal Audit (Part 2 of 2)

Condo Association for profit?

Now That Is What Community Is All About

Collapsing Florida Real Estate Market Means More Delayed Projects, And More Buyers Who Want To Cancel Contracts

Washington Post Article Provides Ideas to Increase Involvement in HOA Meetings

CAN
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