HOA Hell!!

[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.