AZHOC - Arizona Homeowners Coalition
Voice for homeowner rights and justice.
azhoatruth@gmail.com
Login

Comments or Questions

 To post a comment or ask a question please either register here Click here or log in above.

Thank You

Please log in to submit content!

Unanimous Consent to re-paint?

Dennis, At our 3/29/2023, open board meeting, our board posted a slide titled “Unanimous Consent Affirmation.” There were two items, but one, in particular, struck me as odd. It stated “Guard Rail Painting Authorization: Request...
Read More

Liquor license

Hello, Dennis. I was recently elected to my HOA BOD and was just informed that my fingerprints are required for the liquor license that our community holds. This is not mentioned in our governing documents...
Read More

ARS 33-1813

Hello Dennis, Recently our Community attempted to recall 4 of 7 of our board of directors. The results were announced at the Special Meeting (via Zoom), and the tally was shown on the screen. Many...
Read More

Training

Dennis, I don’t think many of the BOD or the voting members really understand how the reserve study and operating budget work together to create the yearly assessment. They don’t understand the reserve analysis model...
Read More

Annual Meeting

Hello Dennis, Thanks for having me aboard and the important information that you pass on to people on this website. Rather than make several singular posts, I’m going to try to ask questions here and...
Read More

400% funded reserve

Dennis, I have encountered a situation in our HOA. 2 neighborhoods in our HOA are assessed a monthly assessment and a separate quarterly assessmnet tagged “LPSS (low pressure sewer system) assessment” . The money collected...
Read More
1 2 3 44
  • From Dennis Legere on Training

    DPK,

    I’ll gladly do a seminar for your community for free. Including an excel spreadsheet that I developed. for my own community. There are many professional reserve study companies that will try and sell you on their product and services. They develop pretty reports with grafts and charts and calculations for percent funded evaluation but all of that is really smoke and mirrors and is only as good as the initial assumptions. Depending on the complexity of your common property this could run you thousands of dollars, but if not truly understood by the board will be useless in one year or less. The only true issue with a reserve study is first to understand and determine your true needs and then to make sure that when each individual item needs to be performed there is enought money in the reserve fund to pay for that expense. Percent funded is a trully useless term but used by every reserve study company, the only true consideration is just in time funding for each and every item in your plan.
    Dennis

    Go to comment
    2023/03/23 at 1:44 pm
  • From Dennis Legere on Homeowners Contact Info

    Suzy,
    While the association will have all of that information they cannot release the phone number and e-mail address of any resident without their prior permission. the owners name and mailing address is a public record and you can request that from the association.
    Dennis

    Go to comment
    2023/03/21 at 5:36 pm
  • From Cynthia Black on Conflict of Interest

    Does this mean that our board, with the majority of members in one facet or another of the real-estate industry, have and can use their inside track on everything from condo unit conditions, and repair history to availability and upcoming sales?

    Go to comment
    2023/03/21 at 6:48 am
    • From Dennis Legere on Conflict of Interest

      Cynthia,
      While there is a conflict of interest provision in law currently it is very weak for these communities, but because a board member works in the real estate industry does not in and of itself constitute a conflict of interest. The board member cannot vote on a contract or action of the board that would benefit themself or any member of their immediate family without declaring the conflict of interest. The board member is not acting in good faith if he/she gives out favors in association business for quid pro quo commitment for financial future gain. This could result in losing their realtors license.
      Dennis

      Go to comment
      2023/03/21 at 7:09 am
  • From Fred on Annual Meeting

    Thanks for the reply Dennis.

    I’m going to make it simple. If we need 200 votes to meet quorum and only receive 170. The board President would say something like ” Since we didn’t meet quorum, we can’t hold the annual meeting” and closes out the annual meeting. This is the way it has been done in the past.

    Before he closes it out, I can simply state this is a violation of ARS 33-1804 section B and then the board will have to take some sort of action to meet quorum so that the annual meeting takes place.

    But let’s just say, I quote the statute, they blow it off and still close out the meeting? Then what? Game Over?

    Regarding the Management Company, yes they answer to the board and the board answers to the community. If I’m understanding you correctly, the board can have a meeting WITHOUT the management company present but it would still have to be open to the public of which I’m sure the management company would show up as being part of the public. I’m assuming there’s no way around this if it got to that point.

    Go to comment
    2023/03/20 at 9:06 pm
    • From Dennis Legere on Annual Meeting

      Fred,
      Fred the law requires that a meeting of the members must be held one a year. if the meeting is called and a quorum is not present it can not be held. So, what the board did violated the law. They were required to either change the quorum requirements or continue to call meetings until a meeting was held in that year. Terms for board members have expired and they need to be filled. You cannot continue a term indefinitely, because you cannot satisfy quorum. The board has the power to go thru the community and make sure that they get the required quorum at the meeting or change the quorum requirement to be more realistic.
      They can be held liable for violating the law via either a suit in superior court or a petition to the Dept of real estate and an administrative law judge.
      Community manager are not members of the community so they have no right to attend any meeting of the board or the members without being invited to that meeting by the board or the members.

      Dennis

      Go to comment
      2023/03/21 at 7:00 am
  • From Dennis Legere on Annual Meeting

    Fred,

    The law requires that an annual meeting of the members be held. It does not state called. If the required quorum is not achieved the meeting is not held and must be reconvened as many times as required to hold the meeting. The board can call meeting after meeting or change the quorum requirements to something more reasonable. The annual meeting is where the board positions are filled. While a quorum of the board can fill a vacancy in the board for the remainder of that term, they have no authority to elect or appoint a board member to a new term. This statute is often ignored as there are many communities in this state that have never held elections at all based on high quorum requirements. These quorum requirements can in most cases be changed by the board, but they don’t want to because they believe that they can extend their terms without needing elections. The statute for a planned community is ARS 33-1804 section B.

    The association board runs the community not the management company the board can do whatever it wants with or without the community manager. The community manager works for the board and not the other way around. The board can hire and fire any contractor at will and often with or without cause. You would have to look at the current contract between the association and the management company for the termination provisions within that contract. Typically it requires 30 days notice.

    Dennis

    Go to comment
    2023/03/20 at 8:05 pm
  • From Dennis Legere on HOA Auditors

    Todd,
    You are absolutely correct, but the law allows any association to choose between the three different types of annual financial assessment unless the governing documents dictate otherwise. Audit, Review or Compilation. Just remember if your CC&R’s or Bylaws say the word “audit” relative to annual financial assessment they are then required to do audits alone. Many older CC&R’s used the term in a general sense and not specifically intending for the detailed and expensive financial assessment of an “Audit”. But the way the law is structured irrespective of that possible intent, if it says audit the association must do an audit annually until such time that they process an amendment to the CC&R’s to utilize a different form of financial assessment.

    Dennis

    Go to comment
    2023/03/20 at 11:30 am
  • From Todd Stevens on HOA Auditors

    In my experience:

    1) HOA management companies provide a list of vendors that are registered with the Community Associations Institute (CAI) for the board of directors to choose from.

    2) HOA management companies recommend compilations over any other audit type

    3) Compilations are very basic and do not show cash flow through the accounts.

    4) Compilations depend on information that is given to them from the management company, so asking the auditor questions will most likely get redirected back to the management company.

    I suspect your ‘audit’ was actually a compilation.

    I have been trying to get our HOA to do anything other than a compilation financial review for years (early post on here) for the same GAAP-related issue(s) you mentioned.

    https://hoa.tascs.net

    Go to comment
    2023/03/20 at 8:25 am
  • From Lora Rudolph on Records request

    Dennis, your reply in this matter is most helpful. Can you recommend a method of review – direct access, PDF scans, paper printouts-that is most likely to result in approval of the request to review specific transactions such as tax-exempt reimbursements to Board members for meals and entertainment? The management company here stated they only provide paper copies, and that the paper copies cannot be certified as true and complete duplicates of the original. They are requiring 30 cents per page of non-certified paper. I don’t like the idea of printed paper circulating and favor seeing files electronically through a secure portal. Would this method be reasonable to request?

    Go to comment
    2023/03/18 at 7:58 pm
    • From Dennis Legere on Records request

      Lora,
      You are entitled to view any reasonable requested record of the association. There is no distinction between certified or non-certified records a record is a record, and the association has absolutely no right to retain two different version of a record. The law requires that you be able to view any record free of charge. they are allowed to charge you no more than $0.15 per page for any copies that your request. If you do not request copies than you don’t have to pay for anything but what the association shows you must be the official record of the association. If the association want to print out a document to show you that is fine, but it must be the official record and they cannot charge you for that printing. The law does not address electronic access to records but since most are stored electronically that is totally reasonable, but the association is not required to do so. If the association wants to be stupid the law does not keep them from being so.
      Dennis

      Go to comment
      2023/03/19 at 8:50 am
  • From Rhonda Wakai on Proper or Improper Process

    Beautiful, Dennis. We knew we were interpreting 33-1804 correctly but our President is pretty slippery and we needed the assurances you have just provided!

    Go to comment
    2023/03/18 at 12:46 pm
  • From Rhonda Wakai on Proper or Improper Process

    Thank you, Dennis
    To clarify, we are not technically a gated community. We have one gate to reduce through traffic but the other end of that street is not gated. And while the majority of the courthomes are clustered in one geographical location, there are some smattered elsewhere.
    Official notice of the meeting was sent out at 12:02 a.m. on the day of the meeting. When questioned, our President claimed ample notice had been provided at the previous Workshops and that the reminder notice sent out was “more of a courtesy” so that members didn’t have to search back through emails to find the Zoom information. He also falsely claimed the meeting information was on the community calendar accessible via the Management Company’s website. So much seems improper by my eye test.
    As far as added expense, there will be! And it will all fall on the Courthome owners who never asked for a sub-association.

    Go to comment
    2023/03/16 at 3:30 pm
    • From Dennis Legere on Proper or Improper Process

      Rhonda,
      Notice of a meeting of the board must be provided to everyone in the community. It this meeting was discussed at an earlier meeting to any member in attendance at that workshop it does not constitute adequate notice. Whatever approach the board uses to notice any other meeting was required to have been applied to this meeting as well. If they normally use a bulletin board or a web site to notice their meeting, they have to do the same for every meeting. 48hours is required prior to that meeting and not a minute less. Otherwise, how would anyone know where to look for a meeting notice. While not getting a notice does not invalidate the actions in the meeting the board is required to provide that notice and cannot just ignoir the law.

      Dennis

      Go to comment
      2023/03/18 at 12:40 pm