The next time you’re out walking around the property, take a look down.  What is actually below ground, and more importantly, do you know who is responsible for it and what condition it’s in?

Today I posted four news stories about community associations around the country that found themselves stuck with major underground problems that were possible going to cost them hundred’s of thousands of dollars, and for which they had not set aside a single cent.

Is your association responsible for water, sewer and storm drain lines, water or sewage treatment, a dam, levee, retention ponds, hillsides (erosion), etc, etc etc.?  Do you know where the owner’s responsibility ends and the association’s responsibility begins?  Do you have accurate plans for what’s underground? Does your insurance cover any of it and should it? If the storm drains back up and flood basements, is any part of this covered?

How about your reserve plan?  Many reserve studies don’t take into account underground items.  Repairing or replacing underground lines isn’t cheap, so wouldn’t it be a good idea to have some money available for when (not if) they need to be repaired or replaced?  Take a look at your reserve plan and see if underground or water control items have been addressed.  If they haven’t you may need to plan to do some investigating in the near future.

In addition to their condition, you might want to find out if they were built to code originally, or if any repairs or replacements would require additional work to bring them up to current code.  One of the problems I’m currently seeing a lot of is that a major system fails, and the association finds out it wasn’t originally built to code (either the developer wasn’t required to, or it wasn’t inspected properly, or the developer never finished it and has disappeared.  Sorting out who is responsible and then trying to collect or enforce will cost even more.

In a few cases the local municipality has been willing to help, but you can’t count on that, but it is something you’ll want to explore if you’re looking at a major expense.  Just don’t rely on it, especially with current government cutbacks.

Counting on a long life-expectancy for major components has left a lot of association owners paying huge special assessments.  Don’t let this be your legacy to your association.  Take a walk, look down, and then go get the answers.