A HOA or condo association member’s duties can involve overseeing repairs and beautification, minding taxes and assessments, collecting dues from community residents, fielding member complaints and navigating personality differences, and determining how dues are allocated. Many of these responsibilities are regular tasks such as landscape management, building exterior repairs, and handling property taxes. These duties can be especially overwhelming to board members who don’t have experience in these areas. Also, there can be too much work to be managed by the board alone…even for the experienced.
You don’t have to know and do everything yourself.
Many HOA and condo boards are now using outside services to handle time-consuming duties and responsibilities that require expertise that doesn’t exist on the board. Outsourcing allows the board to focus their attention on decisions for the property that require more planning and discussion. Also, outsourcing allow for more attention to be spent on decisions that involve the reserve budget. These boards are finding that off-loading some of the more mundane tasks allows them to focus on relationships with residents and on long-term decisions for the community.
So, what outside duties are HOA and condo associations outsourcing?
This is where the news is great. Outside companies, like Ardent Residential, exist to handle nearly anything your board might not have the bandwidth to tackle. Below are some of the outside services HOAs and condo associations most commonly outsource.
Financial transactions and record-keeping
HOA and condo board members are often not professional accountants or bookkeepers. Outsourcing the financial management to a financial management company can save a lot of time, money, and headaches.
A financial management company can efficiently handle your board’s finances by preparing monthly statements, distributing financial information to individual homeowners, and managing the HOA or condo board’s bank accounts and other assets. Management companies also can audit the board’s expenses and assist in the preparation of budgets that align with the board’s goals.
Enforcing HOA Community rules
Guess what? Every board’s least favorite responsibility can be outsourced to a management company. Community management companies can enforce the rules of the community on behalf of the board. They can regularly collect dues, pursue homeowners who have fallen behind on payments, and enforce any agreements that may have been put in place between disputing homeowners.
Many companies also offer secure portals for homeowners to pay their dues. All of these dues can be directly deposited into an association’s account. Automating this process provides convenience for homeowners and boards.
Property maintenance
Keeping the property looking good and functioning well is a major responsibility of any HOA or condo board. A management company can process work orders faster, provide emergency maintenance services, and follow up on planned renovations.
Providing customer service to members
One of the more frustrating responsibilities of an HOA or condo board member is answering late-night phone calls from homeowners with maintenance emergencies. As a management company becomes more involved in a community, it also will be who members turn to with problems. A management company typically has more dedicated staff and either has the ability to perform maintenance or has a network of vendors on whom to call, so member’s concerns can get fielded and addressed faster. Some management companies offer call center support 24 hours a day, seven days a week to field those emergencies, to help over the phone, and to engage your local contractors or maintenance personnel to make any needed repairs.
Homeowners Portal for Community Discussion
For non-emergencies, homeowners are always looking for a place to voice their concerns or to continue a discussion from a recent board meeting. Some management companies have online portals for homeowners to engage in discussions. These discussions can potentially resolve issues on their own outside of board meetings.
For HOA and condo boards that have turned to outsourcing, getting to leave many of their regular duties to a team of professionals results in less stress on their board, well cared for homeowners, and more time to focus on the issues that really matter to their communities.
Running an HOA or condo association is a lot of work, with a host of details that must be considered and minded. The record-keeping requirements and administrative duties can be overwhelming, and handling member concerns can seem like a full-time job. Ardent Residential can provide this critical support to your board. We can handle all those time-consuming, tedious tasks that take your board members away from the real reason they volunteered to serve: looking for ways to make your community a wonderful place to live. So, if you are looking for the outside services HOAs ad condo associations really need, contact us online or call us at 844-9-ARDENT.
