A Manager's Perspective

I’m an HOA portfolio manager in Littleton Colorado. I manage 8 of them. Been doing it for about 8 years and take pride in my work. Seen some horrible things done by volunteer board of directors that I’d call slumlords in open meetings if it didn’t get me in trouble. Almost all of my other volunteers are good though and would pay for a neighbor’s grocery bill if they asked them to. As managers, we have to bite our tongue and go along with most of what a ruling board of directors does in order to protect our paychecks for our company and self; I'm personally glad I put a foot down and got a client taken off my portfolio for their HOA Board's actions though. This brings me to HB 22-1137 and a question.

HOAs cannot fine for noise but apartments can. HOAs cannot fine for rules for 30 days but apartments can evict for lease violations in under 30 days. HOAs cannot evict tenants at all if it’s a rental and HOAs now must sue if a tenant or owner destroys the property in excess of $500. Apartment and rental deposits are well over $500, by triple at least. HOAs must pay for the return receipt, certified mail cost, of at least $9.00 and posting fees of process servers, which all income from HOAs come from the monthly, quarterly or annual assessment billing (paid by deeded homeowners). HOAs and the management company get a 7-day window to follow up and fine a homeowner. Any rental building would get more leeway. How is this fair?

Answer is it isn’t. HOAs have to refer residents to calling the police for noise which is much more hostile than sending violation notices and fines. We can send a warning letter or letters and that’s it… In writing our state legislature about this concern, I was advised to “read the HOA documents and contact local authorities or my HOA for assistance on noise complaints”. The response include reading the ”Bylaws” that deal primarily with voting, that HB 22-1137 had nothing to do with noise complaints and running HOA meetings along with other documents like rules and regulations. Guess what, a noise violation/complaint is in the HOA governing documents and rules. Honestly, we (HOA Managers) are going to give up without help and guidelines that are appropriate to protect the people (homeowners and tenants) that call us daily. We used to be licensed then you took it away. Yes you. It was taken away and I know many, including me, were very proud of earning that…

There’s a lot about fair housing in the United States. It’s a great ideal. Everyone should have a home to go to if they work hard at any job. Apartments and condo communities are a necessity for this to exist in our country. Not everyone wants a 4-bedroom and 4-bathroom house to maintain while living in it. Cost of living dictates housing availability and affordability.

The underlying point is that legislators and people don’t understand HOAs in general. Many times, they associate their management company as an HOA. They’ll get 200+ pages of closing documents and the realtor tells them to call XYZ if they have a question about the HOA. HOA’s are already required to provide annual education to homeowners but how many do it…?

I encourage you all ON THE TASK FORCE to read the basics (Decs, articles, bylaws, rules, design guidelines, sb 100 policies, etc.) … and laws that helped HOAs such as CCIOA and the SB 100 policies to make an informed recommendation on how to protect homeowners/consumers; make pros/cons lists for the items.

The only thing I see in HB 22-1137 that helps homeowners is that volunteer board of directors have to sign something to send a neighborhood member to collections. All the certified mailing, door postings, and treating property owners like little kids in timeout for 30 days is ridiculous. This was written for single family communities with homes being foreclosed upon for weeds and other covenant violations, not condos which make up a good 1/3 of the HOA portfolio in Colorado. Can you imagine giving your neighbor above you 30 days to take the leaky garbage to the dumpster...? IMO, everything else is a con in this bill as it is slighted toward single family communities; you all make your choices.

The county and cities give almost NO leeway on time to cure matters. How do I know, well they cite HOAs too. Why treat HOA's so far differently than other property owners in respect to standard maintenance obligations.

Honestly, I’d move to another state just because of HB 22-1137 but am staying due to my immediate family being here. I love helping people with their homes even though they seldom see it that way. I've had so many angry calls about the cure letters that it makes me not want to pick up my phone after emailing them out, which is good though as they don't have to cost $ by USPS...