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Archive for the 'HOA Information Officer' Tag

HOAs TO TAKE CENTER STAGE IN GENERAL ASSEMBLY

January 5th, 2013, 12:01 pm by

Incoming Speaker of the Colorado House Mark Ferrandino

Incoming Speaker of the House Mark Ferrandino brings a very personal perspective on homeowners associations to the Colorado General Assembly when it convenes next week.

He’s not a fan.

In fact, when I mentioned HOAs to Ferrandino during his newsroom visit Thursday, he had this response:

“Don’t get me started!”

Seems the leader of the Colorado House had a rude introduction to life in covenant-protected communities. You know, neighborhoods with volunteers to enforce architectural and landscaping rules to maintain community standards and protect property values.

“When I lived in an HOA, I thought of my HOA as being paid as part of my mortgage,” Ferrandino said. “Our HOA fees were $25 a month. They didn’t do much so it wasn’t really a lot of money.

“After living there about six months, I get a notice that there’s a lien on my property. I didn’t realize I wasn’t paying my HOA.”

The Denver Democrat was echoing a complaint I’ve heard often by folks who felt ambushed by the very existence of an HOA in their new neighborhood and the need to pay dues.

Ferrandino was shocked that his HOA board would take such a predatory approach to a new neighbor.

“The president of my HOA wasn’t smart enough to just walk down the street, knock on my door and ask for a check,” said Ferrandino, a fiscal analyst who has a master’s degree in economics. “I could have just written the check for $75.

“I was good for it.”

Instead, he ended up spending upwards of $500 to cover the court costs and legal fees associated with satisfying the lien.

“So you can understand my attitude toward HOAs,” Ferrandino said. “I actively look for areas that do not have HOAs where I will live.”

It will not surprise anyone, then, that Ferrandino welcomes greater regulation of HOAs, their managers and volunteer boards and expects several bills to be introduced.

“There needs to be much more accountability and transparency in HOAs,” he said. “We’re supposed to be a democracy. But sometimes they have dictatorial authority within communities.”

So I asked how he felt about giving the new HOA Information Officer, Gary Kujawski, power to investigate and enforce the 2005 Homeowners Bill of Rights as well as subsequent efforts by lawmakers to rein in HOAs, led by Sen. Morgan Carroll, D-Aurora.

“I’m open to it,” he said with enthusiasm. “I’d love to see a bill that gives people in HOAs a way to enforce their rights. So they have someone to complain to that can hold HOAs boards and managers accountable.

“We can pass all the laws we want, but if people don’t have a way to complain and enforce those laws, they aren’t worth the paper we printed the laws on.”

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Please follow this link to a December 2012  Side Streets column about recent changes in HOA law.

To read a May 2012 blog about the HOA Information and Resource Center, click here.

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PIKES PEAK REGION LEADS STATE IN HOA COMPLAINTS

January 27th, 2012, 1:15 pm by

Hello, neighbor!

Time again for one of my favorite topics: homeowners associations, or HOAs.

The HOA Information Office and Resource Center just released a year-long study of Colorado’s HOAs. Results are not pretty.

The HOA office fielded 3,053 inquiries, of which 478 were complaints.

Guess what area produced the highest number of complaints.

The Pikes Peak region, of course, with 21 percent of all complaints!

Are we a bunch of whiners, or what?

Not really, says Aaron Acker, the Colorado HOA Information Officer.

“We started with the presumption we’d get a lot of ticky-tack complaints,” Acker said. “We were wrong. Most of the issues were major ones.”

Complaints like HOA boards and managers hiding financial and governing documents.

“Transparency is a big issue,” Acker said. “Homeowners trying to get information are getting significant blow-back from their management companies or HOA boards.”

Aaron Acker, Colorado HOA Information Officer, spoke to a group of Pikes Peak region property managers and HOA board members on Feb. 15, 2011.

“People want to know what’s going on with their money. And HOA boards have a legal obligation to produce records at the behest of members. But we’re seeing a lot of complaints about them not responding, producing incomplete records, fighting requests or charging very high fees for documents.”

Access to HOA board meetings came up often in Acker’s study, as did failure to listen to homeowners — whether by property managers or HOA boards.

“These are pretty major issues, in my estimation,” Acker said.

Acker and his office were created by the 2010 Colorado General Assembly.

Upon opening the office last January, Acker was told to find and register all Colorado HOAs.

 (I used that abbreviation to describe single family resident neighborhoods, condo and townhome associations, voluntary improvement associations, property owners associations.)

So far, he has registered 8,037 asssociations, representing 838,211 homes, condos and townhome units and 2 million residents.

Colorado Springs and the Pikes Peak region are grouped in the South Central category, which has 661 registered HOAs. That’s about 8.2 percent of all HOAs registered. In other words, that 8.2 percent accounted for 21 percent of all complaints!

 (Industry experts believe upwards of 25 percent of Colorado HOAs remain unregistered.)

Acker said he hopes HOAs will use his findings as a wakeup call to reform how they interact with homeowners.

Lawmakers are digging into the data, as well, and likely will use it to decide whether it’s time to license property managers or give Acker greater power to police HOAs. Stay tuned!

Here is a link to a column and blog I wrote recently about the issue of licensing property managers.

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