174 | Why HOA Elections Feel So Complicated

Andrea Peterson  00:00

Year after year, we do see a higher increase or an increase in the the online voters versus paper voters, which overall will increase participation. It will also lower the cost of the direct costs for postage paper mailing products. So, having an inspector that can do both can certainly increase participation and therefore achieving quorum on the first go around.

Announcer  00:29

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board members: Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You’ll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund  00:45

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I’m Robert Nordlund, and I’m here today for episode number 174, with a special guest appearing back on the program. I’m speaking, of course, about Kurtis Peterson from the Inspectors of Election, a sponsor for this show, and I showed up for this recording, and I found out that he’s invited his CFO Andrea Peterson on the show also. So we have a special benefit today, having two people from the Inspectors of Election on the show. Now, it’s dangerous for me to think back about the elections we did for our condominium association back in the 80s, that’s where I go when I think of my experience. Now we live in a very different, more complicated world. Now everything receives more scrutiny and it’s viewed with more skepticism, and we haven’t even begun to speak about the higher degree of litigation that we have in our society. So today we’ll have the special treat to hearing from Kurtis and Andrea from Inspectors of Election to hear kind of the behind the curtain story about what goes on in an electronic election support company nowadays. Well, we’re here weekly, so if you missed episode number 173 last week with a former law enforcement officer turned amazing board member, well, of course I’m speaking about Don Boswell, and if you didn’t like hearing what he had to say about service leadership-and I mean to say service leadership, not servant leadership-I hope you at least enjoyed hearing the confident, reassuring voice of a Virginia gentleman. I just enjoyed speaking with him, just the the audio of it. Well, if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today’s program to listen from our podcast website, hoa insights.org, or watch on our YouTube channel. But better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms or our YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future episodes. Now, becoming a subscriber is something we care about because it increases our podcast search ranking in the search results, and it helps others find this free resource so they can be better equipped to lead their association. And those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA Insights mug I have here. Kurtis, do you have a HOA Insights mug.

Kurtis Peterson  03:01

No, I haven’t gotten to the merch section yet. Okay, well, we’ll make sure

Robert Nordlund  03:06

we we now I’m on the record. I’ll I’ll make sure we get a couple to you guys. You can see our what we have in the merch store on HOA insights.org, or the link in the show notes. And while you’re there, at least download a free Zoom background that you can use for your next board meeting when you confidently announce your election results. Okay, so we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address, you can contact us at 8033130, or email us at podcast at hoa insights.org. We do try to shape our episodes based on what you ask and the stories you tell us, but today’s episode is on me. Elections are one of those things that you don’t think about when they run smoothly. You only hear about it when they fail miserably, and I’m not sure if there’s really much middle ground in between the two. So, welcome back to the program, Kurtis, and welcome, Andrea. Tell me to start. What were you guys doing earlier today before we started recording this episode?

Andrea Peterson  04:16

Well, I was just about to start doing some pricing structures,

Kurtis Peterson  04:21

and I was putting together election packages, amendment election packages, putting out emails to start online voting for a few associations, and preparing call for candidates, pre-ballot notices. I don’t know, Robert. How long is this program? I’ve been here since 6o’clock, and it’s 1o’clock already. So I yeah. Oh yeah. Okay. Well, I got another six hours to go. So

Robert Nordlund  04:55

yeah, sounds like the life of a small business owner. I remember talking. To an attorney who said he enjoyed having his own firm, his own practice, because he only worked half time, six a.m. to 6p.m. seven days a week. That’s right, and that’s that’s life. Anyway, um, let’s go back. Well, let me ask: Is what you do seasonal? You talked about an amendment package, things like that. Are there different flavors of elections that come through the year, or is it somewhat a constant randomness?

Kurtis Peterson  05:28

It’s pretty consistent. It and for us, it it ebbs and flows with with different parts of the country and even different parts of the state here in California where we’re based, so we’ll see a lot of elections in it in a certain region in California. In in other states, we see a lot of elections in one month. So it all kind of fluctuates. But for us, it’s you know we’re we’re busy year round. We slow down from you know Christmas through New Year’s, and and to look good in July, but other than that, it’s it’s it’s all the time.

Robert Nordlund  06:10

I can imagine that. Is there at least an annual meeting season or anything like that, or do you have higher amount of maybe special assessment votes in the summer when people are starting to think about budgets and they realize how much money they do or don’t have.

Kurtis Peterson  06:27

No, I would say because that that really it really is dependent on the association itself, you know. So it really goes from association to association.

Robert Nordlund  06:39

Okay, and do you find that maybe you’ll start with a a big annual meeting, annual election type thing, where they’re electing all the board member candidates, and they say, “Holy moly, that went smooth. We have an amendment coming up. We have a special assessment coming up. We have this coming up. And you realize, all of a sudden, you’re doing two or three votes or elections or oversights per year for the same association.

Kurtis Peterson  07:05

Yeah, and and a lot of times these associations will try to wrap them all into one, which can’t necessarily be done because you’ve got different quorum requirements versus approval requirements, and so you can’t put all these measures on the same ballot, right? If you’re sending out multiple ballots at the same time, then you you tend to get some corruption in one of them. Well, they’ll be returning a paper ballot back in the wrong envelope that shouldn’t be in there, and so that

Andrea Peterson  07:38

dilute both.

Kurtis Peterson  07:39

Yeah, dilutes both votes. Or, but you get you get you know voter exhaustion is really what it amounts to. I already voted on this. Why am I voting again? You know. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund  07:50

I was I was hoping you were going to say something like confusion rather than corruption because I think of you guys as absolutely preventing corruption, but I can imagine that you don’t want to create one thing for an association where it says answer these four things by September one, answer these three things by October one, and we’ll also send you a paper ballot for this other thing that you don’t have to have back until November one. I would find that just too confusing. We

Kurtis Peterson  08:21

try to separate those out as much as as possible. Sometimes the the boards are adamant about these, you know, two separate voting events going off simultaneously. As much as we try to, oh, tell them tell them not to do it. That’s a it’s a bad idea.

Robert Nordlund  08:42

Yeah. Do they think that there’s economies of scale or something like that? Yeah.

Kurtis Peterson  08:47

Well, I think they think that well, if we mail all this stuff out together or we send it out all together, that we’re only paying one price. It may be the case if you’re talking about direct costs of of postage and envelopes, but you know the printing is going to be the same, and you’re like I said, you’re gonna you’re gonna dilute one of them if not both of those voting events because people are gonna mishandle how they handle, especially with the paper election package. You know the online is tends to be you know a little bit more streamlined for people when they’re doing the online voting. You can keep those separate. But when you’re when you’re running a hybrid election with paper and online, and then having two paper ballots go out and sending out two sets of usernames and passcodes to log in for each voting event individually, it’s it’s a lot, you know. Yes, and and

Robert Nordlund  09:43

maybe two different return envelopes: one for the election ballot and one for the

Andrea Peterson  09:48

well, color code them.

Kurtis Peterson  09:49

Yeah, color coded, and even when we do that, people will send back both ballots envelope. So it it gets messy, and and you know we just. It’s it’s tough. I mean, homeowner. Although it’s all we think about all day, every day. You know that the ballots that come to people’s homes is not what they think about. It’s like I just I’ve got all this stuff all over. I don’t know what to do with it. I’m not going to do anything. They’ll figure it out, you know,

Robert Nordlund  10:15

or they’ll put the purple and the pink ballot in the same envelope because they see it’s going to the same place.

Andrea Peterson  10:22

Exactly. Realize that

Robert Nordlund  10:24

one is for this election on this day, and one is for the revision of the governing documents, and there are different things for different purposes.

Kurtis Peterson  10:32

Yep.

Andrea Peterson  10:32

And once opened, can’t count it for the next the next vote.

Robert Nordlund  10:35

And then, of course, you’ve added the extra complication of did mr. and mrs. Smith from Unit Number 102 already vote electronically? So then we toss their paper one, or which one counts? So you’ve got a complex situation on your hands.

Kurtis Peterson  10:52

Yeah, I first received, you know, and and normally the nine times out of 10, that’s that’s the online, right?

Andrea Peterson  11:00

Gee.

Kurtis Peterson  11:01

And then, but if we get a paper ballot and they go online, they they wouldn’t be able to access their ballot because it always already showed up as as a paper ballot receipt. Yeah, and

Andrea Peterson  11:11

cut them off from the electron. They can still go on there and and review the site, obviously, but they would be able to cast another ballot.

Robert Nordlund  11:18

So they can go on site, and I’ve voted through the inspectors of election before, and I’m carried to the site. I see the overview of what’s going on. I see the candidate profiles. I see the instructions. Vote for two of the five above, something like that. Whatever the instructions are for that, and I would imagine that if their paper ballot has been received, you can go back. You can look at it. You can review the candidate statements, but the vote now button is grayed out.

Kurtis Peterson  11:52

Well, you just go to the ballot screen where you would cast your ballot, but it would state for on our system anyway. It would state your ballot, your paper ballot was received on the date it was received.

Robert Nordlund  12:03

Got it. Okay, and like I think sometimes when I am driving and I got my navigation system going on in the car, and I miss a left turn, and then I realize I need to go to the post office, so I’m going somewhere else, and I’m really confusing the navigation system. I am so glad that it doesn’t start giving me back talk. Like, dummy, are you really making all these wrong decisions? So good for you to not have your software say, “Hey, knucklehead, you already voted.

Kurtis Peterson  12:37

Well, you never know. I mean, a paper ballot goes to a home with multiple owners. Oh, two or more owners, and and one of the owners casts the paper ballot, and the email to vote online is sitting into the other individual’s inbox, and and we get the paper ballot back and we type it in, and then he goes to vote online and says, “Well, what do you mean? My vote’s already been cast.

Robert Nordlund  13:07

Oh, gee, you got my curiosity piqued. So, what if? Okay, there’s at least two ways to own a home as a couple, right? Or maybe as an individual, maybe they haven’t moved the home into what do you call it to joint property,

Kurtis Peterson  13:27

a trust, a trust or something.

Robert Nordlund  13:30

Okay, so what do you do? I’m taking you down a rabbit hole here. What do you do when mr. Smith owns the home? He’s the legal owner, but the mail comes in and the spouse votes the ballot. Spouse is just a resident, not a legal owner. Is that

Kurtis Peterson  13:50

not an owner on title? Well, then we have to compare that to our membership list that was provided to us, and if we do not show whoever signed for that ballot as a legal owner on title, then we have to deny that ballot.

Robert Nordlund  14:08

Okay, good for you. Gee, this is complicated. What what got you into this business?

Kurtis Peterson  14:16

Well, for me, nepotism. Okay,

Kurtis Peterson  14:21

my mother, the late great Marge Peterson, founded the business with her business partner Mark, who has unfortunately recently passed away as well. I think I met Mark Slits.

Robert Nordlund  14:33

Yeah,

Kurtis Peterson  14:34

even to Mark, former

Robert Nordlund  14:35

Navy guy, San Diego.

Andrea Peterson  14:36

That’s correct. Correct.

Robert Nordlund  14:37

Okay.

Kurtis Peterson  14:38

Yeah. So back in 2006, when the Davis Sterling Act went in went into effect,

Robert Nordlund  14:47

that’s California now.

Kurtis Peterson  14:48

That is California. They started this business, seeing the need for the independent third party to oversee the election process to conform with with the civil code. They started it on. The three pillars of, you know, the best best people in the industry working for the company, totally independent third party administering the election, and the best technology put out to to handle the process.

Robert Nordlund  15:21

That’s a strong foundation.

Kurtis Peterson  15:23

So that’s how that started, and and I got involved with it, being the son of Marge and building websites and doing marketing materials, and and so they got me involved, and I’ve just grown with the business ever since.

Robert Nordlund  15:41

Fantastic, and I think back. There’s been so much change to the industry. It started, as you suggest, with someone just inspecting the election. It sounds like you grew with technology to have it be not just inspecting, but administering and also operating the Election online,

Kurtis Peterson  16:03

yeah. Well, I mean, we it was mainly paper way back in 2006, but but ours has always been a turnkey operation as well. That you know, we we prepare the documents that go out, we receive all the ballots, we tabulate, we provide the results. That’s that’s an arm length kind of a stance for the manager and the board of directors that nobody can point the finger at them saying you had something to do with this election of which I’m not happy with. And the board and the management can say we had nothing to do with the election. You know, we contracted with the inspectors of election as a completely independent third party, they have no stake in the game in this association whatsoever.

Robert Nordlund  16:46

Tell me, it started in California. How many states are? Do you know how many states are serving at this time? 20. Oh wait, wait, wait. That’s radio silence.

Andrea Peterson  16:56

Yeah, 25,

Kurtis Peterson  16:58

maybe 25.

Robert Nordlund  17:00

For those of you not watching on YouTube, 25,

Kurtis Peterson  17:04

half of them, half of them. I don’t know,

Robert Nordlund  17:06

half of them. Yeah, okay. It was fun.

Kurtis Peterson  17:08

I’d start. I could spew them off, but we don’t have that much time in this program. But yeah, I mean, we’re working across the country in in many states. Not not all of them, but but a lot of them.

Robert Nordlund  17:19

Very nice. Well, I’m looking at the time. It’s probably about time to take a quick break and hear from one of our general sponsors. After which, I want to come back and hear more about how COVID changed things, your vision for the future of the industry, and generally provide more common sense for common areas.

Russell Munz  17:36

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Robert Nordlund  18:08

And we’re back. Well, before the break, we’re having a great conversation with Kurtis Peterson and Andrea Peterson, CEO and CFO, respectively, of the Inspectors of Election. And during the break, we started to talk more about how things change and what brought them to where they are here today, and the question I wanted to ask was: What changed in your business after COVID? How did COVID affect the work that you guys do?

Kurtis Peterson  18:31

I don’t know if it was after COVID, during COVID, or while COVID was was introducing itself. We had a pretty extensive growth spurt in 2020 with with a change in law here in California requiring that the inspector of election not be anyone that’s under contract with the association, which made managers ineligible to act as the inspector of election. When I say under contract, the only the inspector of election, if that’s all they’re doing, maybe under contract with the association. We had an influx of business at that point, and historically, we’ve always gone in California here anyway, and in other states. But in California, here we’ve always traveled to open and tabulate ballots in in front of the membership at a at an annual meeting or special meeting for that purpose. When COVID hit, we switched to this online virtual venue for conducting elections, and we’re actually in one of our meeting rooms right now. Members can view the opening in the in the tabulation in in real time, right? And so we’ve gainable ballot, and so we drop the ballots in. They can see the numbers populate.

Robert Nordlund  19:52

Really,

Andrea Peterson  19:53

share screen so that they can watch the live tabulation as the scanner inputs the data.

Kurtis Peterson  19:59

Sure.

Robert Nordlund  20:00

And you record that? I trust

Kurtis Peterson  20:01

we do not.

Andrea Peterson  20:02

We do not know. Sometimes, sometimes the board will want it recorded. I mean, certainly can if that’s something that they want to do.

Kurtis Peterson  20:08

We don’t normally do that, but

Robert Nordlund  20:12

yeah, I didn’t know. I didn’t know if they want to see and document that process, or they just want results.

Kurtis Peterson  20:19

A little bit of both. Well, people, you know, I don’t know if a lot of meetings really record when they’re live, and so when we listen to a virtual venue, I mean, there’s some some associations that recordings not allowed. It’s situational basis. Somebody wants to record, then then that can happen. We don’t care either way. We really got nothing to hide.

Robert Nordlund  20:39

Well, you said earlier it depends on the association. It depends on the state. It sounds like so much of what you do is absolutely custom.

Andrea Peterson  20:47

Every election is custom. Yep. Okay.

Kurtis Peterson  20:51

But with COVID, you know, we having to go out with this influx of business out to we’re in North San Diego County, having to go to Chula Vista, all the way up to San Francisco, up to the desert. It’s tough to go too far west here

Robert Nordlund  21:08

without a boat.

Kurtis Peterson  21:08

Yeah, Alina, that you know we can’t can’t do five or six elections a day like we’re doing now. If we had to be on site for all of those, that changed our business, I think, dramatically, and not only our business, but you know, all the inspectors that handle you know these associations in California. Anyway, it changed the layout, and so now with this new virtual platform, it it makes it a lot less expensive for the associations with all that travel time, I mean, we travel four hours to do a 15-minute meeting. It just doesn’t make sense.

Robert Nordlund  21:49

Well, so it sounds like the your online election capabilities. I would assume that’s a lot less expensive solution because you’re not mobilizing a live person to sit in the car for a while,

Kurtis Peterson  22:01

right? Well, I mean, when we’re there’s a difference when we’re talking about let’s make sure we’re we’ve got apples and apples here. Okay, we’ve got online elections. We’re talking about online voting, but we’re talking about is is actually attending meetings in person site versus virtually in a platform like this, where we can show the opening and the tabulation of many of the paper ballots.

Robert Nordlund  22:24

Got it.

Kurtis Peterson  22:25

But the online voting reduces the number of actual paper ballots we have. If we’re doing let’s say 100 unit association and we’re only mailing paper ballots to five of those members, you know. We’re only get two or three back, if any. Yep. And so there’s there’s no need for us to show up on site.

Robert Nordlund  22:52

Yeah. And they’re going to mail it to your office.

Andrea Peterson  22:54

Those five people.

Kurtis Peterson  22:56

Yeah. Those five people would mail it to our office, and then we can open and tabulate in in this scenario here, that’s what mainly back to I guess the the main question COVID that that changed our business tremendously, the

Andrea Peterson  23:09

ability to and and the ease of access to the different virtual platforms that really became available, and then everybody’s comfortability with that. And before COVID, I never went to a Zoom meeting. I, you know, I didn’t really know what that was or the virtual aspects. Yeah, so that really it helped in many ways. You know, we were able to conduct more meetings in one day. We were able to not have to charge that travel time and having our inspector sit for four hours on a freeway or five hours on an airplane, a 15-minute meeting. So that was it. Was a great benefit to so still is a great benefit to the association with this platform.

Robert Nordlund  23:53

Yeah, I like that. Well, let’s take that same question about a different angle. What did COVID do to your clients?

Andrea Peterson  24:01

Initially, it really backed up their meetings because everything was in Plano. We we couldn’t go on site.

Robert Nordlund  24:08

There’s a lot of shutdown going on. Yeah,

Andrea Peterson  24:10

yeah. We had to do quite a bit of makeup and restaggering of terms, if that was the case, or then the introduction to a virtual platform and getting people comfortable with that.

Robert Nordlund  24:22

I’ve heard so many attorneys say that COVID made people more anxious. It made a lot

Kurtis Peterson  24:30

more

Robert Nordlund  24:32

incivility. Yeah, it seems like you’re a company that fundamentally brings peace to an association, brings conclusion, and there’s less opportunity for a board member to get something wrong. I can hear Kevin Davis in my head talking about the way a board member can make a decision that’s wrong, an accident. They missed a page, or they. This is the way we’ve always done the election, and accidentally get something wrong, and all of a sudden they have a problem on their hands, and. You guys, you guys bring peace. We

Kurtis Peterson  25:02

certainly like to think so, Robert. That’s not always necessarily the case, you know. As you said, COVID anxious with a lot of these dissociations that we do. That’s high anxiety, and we don’t get involved in the politics, so we don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes, between interpersonal relationships, between board members or people trying to get on the board, whatever the case may be, we don’t we don’t want to be a part of that. We want to make sure that the election information goes out. It’s legal. It’s fair for all members. Everybody has the opportunity to cast their ballots, get them back to us, and that the tabulation that we do is timely and accurate, and more more important than timely is accurate.

Robert Nordlund  25:51

So, if you have an online election that concludes at the end of day today, when do they get results? Next day,

Kurtis Peterson  26:02

end of day today.

Robert Nordlund  26:05

It’s like, bang, instant.

Kurtis Peterson  26:07

Well, you know, for most of the elections that we do, as soon as we that’s cut off, we’re we’re tabulating the paper ballots and then adding in the online counts and certification is there. So it it doesn’t doesn’t you know? I mean, the online there’s there’s no time to count that, right? You run your report after the voting is done, that’s up. I’ll just use an example. We’ve got a meeting on Saturday.

Robert Nordlund  26:33

Okay,

Kurtis Peterson  26:33

80 ballots, 100 ballots, something like that. All the rest of the people voted online. There’s hundreds of those. I don’t even know how many

Andrea Peterson  26:41

400

Kurtis Peterson  26:42

yeah something and then so whatever time it takes us to get out 100 ballots and run those through the scanner that’s it so the polls close at 10 o’clock 10 a.m. I expect we’ll be done by 1030

Robert Nordlund  26:57

you don’t have to wait for a committee you don’t have to wait for two people to inspect. You don’t have to wait for all this kind of stuff, and it’s it’s right. Like you said, it’s accurate. Yeah, I like that. Does an online service does a service I shouldn’t say an online service a service like yours help associations achieve quorum more frequently? Does it help there be? I want to say a competitive election process where you have more candidates. Does it lower the threshold to everyone being involved when they have the inspectors of election involved?

Kurtis Peterson  27:34

That’s kind of a loaded question, there, Robert. We wouldn’t know if people weren’t involved. That’s a

Robert Nordlund  27:40

good point because all you touch is the ones that you touch.

Kurtis Peterson  27:43

Yeah, but we do have history from year to year with with associations, obviously. And if we’re talking about participation and achieving quorum, you know, apathy really resides in in the associations that are running well, right? That if if things are going well in the association, good management, good board of directors, whatever the case may be, then there’s apathy. If things are going south for whatever reason, then there tends to be more participation, and then, like you mentioned earlier, higher anxiety.

Robert Nordlund  28:18

Interesting. So actually, lack of participation is potentially an indicator of everything being done well, so people don’t have problems. It’s almost like keep on going, keep on doing good things,

Andrea Peterson  28:32

keeping on. What we have, we do have history, like Kurtis was saying, with associations that we are doing a hybrid voting event for, where year after year we do see a higher increase or an increase in the the online voters versus paper voters, which overall will increase participation. It will also lower the cost of the direct costs for postage paper mailing products. So having an inspector that can do both can certainly increase participation and therefore achieving quorum on the first go around, three to one. Right,

Robert Nordlund  29:12

that’s another C word: confidence. You you bring confidence. You bring peace and confidence. I like that, Kurtis, Andrea. Thank you so much for having you on the program. It’s been great. You heard all my questions. I find this fascinating, and it’s great to hear your comments on how to bring peace and efficiency to the election process. Any closing thoughts to add at this time,

Kurtis Peterson  29:41

well, not not necessarily for me. I just want to thank you for having us on. This is always a treat to do this.

Robert Nordlund  29:47

Oh, it’s great to share a success story. If you’d like to get in touch with Kurtis or learn more about online voting, you can go to their website. Simply enough at the Inspectors of Election, all spelled out. Dot com to our audience. We certainly hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer  30:15

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173 | Why Wise Counsel Keeps Your HOA Thriving

00:00

I would hope that anyone who lives in Twin Hickory could live the way that I did for my first 10 years here. That you don’t have to worry about. It’s taken care of. It’s it’s nice, and it’s it’s beneficial to be here. But I think that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to make it right for them, so that they don’t have to worry about it.

00:27

A regular highlight of the HOA Insights podcast is our Board Heroes feature, where we dedicate one episode each month to celebrate the remarkable efforts of HOA board members. To us, a board hero is one of the 2 million elected volunteers who deserve recognition for excelling in a role that often goes unnoticed. Today, we’re excited to spotlight one of these exceptional board heroes and share their inspiring story. If you match our definition of a board hero or know someone who does, please reach out to us. Our contact details and those of our sponsors are provided in the show notes.

00:57

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I’m Robert Nordlund, and I’m here today for episode number 173, the fascinating board member I met at the CAI National Conference in Florida in early June. I happened to sit down at a table for lunch next to him, and after a few minutes, I was captivated by our conversation. I later found out, not surprisingly, that he was there at the conference to receive CAI’s 2026 Byron Hankey Award for long-term volunteer service to the community association industry. So I was lucky to sit and chat with him at lunch. Just happened to be a lucky man taking an empty chair, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy the opportunity to hear our conversation in just a few minutes about stepping up and stepping into leadership. So, if you’re a new listener, we’re here weekly with episodes to help you with the hard work of being a board member. Last week, for an example, was episode number 172 with regular co-host and management expert Julie Adaman. In that episode, we talked about how to address and combat the power of denial at your association, just plain ignoring things. So, if you missed it, you can catch prior episodes on our website at hoa insights.org, on any major podcast platform, or on our YouTube channel. And if you like the show, by all means, subscribe and join us in our mission to improve board member leadership all across the country, one episode and one association at a time. Subscribers and positive reviews boost the show’s location in search engines, helping common sense for common areas to be found by more board members, helping more associations across the country. Well, if you haven’t been to our website, we have some great merch for sale, like this mug that I keep here on my desk, and also some great free stuff like board member Zoom backgrounds that you can download for free for your next online meeting. We enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. So, if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at hoa insights.org. But today’s episode is on me, so let me introduce him. Don Boswell is a retired sheriff and law enforcement officer, I should say executive, in Virginia. He’s a homeowner and a volunteer at his association and in his local Virginia CAI chapter, and I’m sure I’ll miss many other ways and places where he serves others. So, Don, welcome to the program.

03:32

Thank you for having me, Robert.

03:34

Well, it’s fun to have a Virginia gentleman on the show. I was just enjoying as we were warming up, enjoying your accent and just enjoying what you’ve brought to the entire community association industry. But let me start out with how long have you been a homeowner in our community association industry?

03:53

Well, the association community actually opened up first about in 2000, and my wife and I purchased a home then, and we lived here. And I didn’t really think about what was involved to keep the community going so well. I just knew that everything looked good. You know, hedges were trimmed, the roads were maintained, the lights, people kept their homes up, and we went about our our lives working and raising a family

04:26

here. Fantastic! Now we’re talking about a small association, big association. Tell me more.

04:32

Well, this Twin Hickory Associate Homeowners Association is a fairly large. We have about 1500 homes now. There are six sub associations. I’m on the master association, and we also have commercial properties in the development as well. It’s large enough that the developer put in property so that we’re basically adjoining a new high school in our county. New middle school and a new elementary school.

05:02

You know that sounds like there’s a lot of richness there with developing a fully featured community. They got your commercial. They’ve got schools. It’s not just an association outstanding by itself. And is it done or is it still growing? Tell me more. There.

05:19

It’s still continuing to grow, the developer has has rights to add to this as long as they’re within a half a mile of our boundary. And in fact, in the last couple of years, a new section has been developed with some condos, and that condo group is going to have a small commercial section with offices in it as well, so they they’re starting to sell, and that’s helping us out with the cash contribution for new home purchases in the in the community. is one of our methods of helping to raise a little more money to to operate the community as it grows.

05:58

Got it. So when someone buys in, then they automatically pay one or two months of homeowner assessments that goes into the capital fund somewhere or something like that.

06:08

Right now, they do a they do a capital contribution at closing of $600 as a new buyer in the in the association. If you’re already here and you buy a bigger home, you’re you’re scot free, but newcomers help to contribute because they they’re benefiting from you know the development, the maintenance of the property all along.

06:31

Well, growth is good, I guess that helps to fund the association. Tell me about your path to getting on the board there.

06:38

As you mentioned, I was a former law enforcement administrator and executive of sheriff, and we bought him here when it was brand new. Some of so because we liked it, and went about our our daily routine until I retired in 2013. Spent a couple of years, just kind of relaxing with my hound dog around the house. My wife hadn’t retired yet, and I was beginning to get a little bored because I’d had a fairly active career and active life. And in my mailbox appears this this brochure from the association saying they needed a board member from my neighborhood, so I I filled it in and and sent it back, and lo and behold, I was the only one and got elected.

07:32

Okay, so you were like, okay, this could be interesting. I need something to do just to keep my brain going. Volunteer can’t be too hard, and you find out you’re the only one, so you feel like you’ve been suckered into something. Or what was your initial experience there?

07:49

This has been a fairly stable board in this area. Most of the people, when they do come on new, there’s usually only one, one or two new, and a lot of the people have been on for like I’ve been on, this is my 10th year, and we’re also part of the part of the expectation that everybody follows is you first you start off as just a director for a few years, and then the then you get to be the secretary, and then you get to be the treasurer and the vice president, and then after nine years I got to be president, and it’s it’s a very collegial group because of the sub associations for the condos. Some of the some of the activity there, we really don’t get involved in that in that aspect of it. Being as big as we are, we we do we do have a large management company that provides an on-site. We have a full-time on-site community manager and a full-time on-site lifestyle director for our recreation and activities.

08:55

You got a management company to help you out on-site. You have sub-associations, each with their own board, and you have associations that have been there for a long time. You’ve got the new condo association coming on on one side, so there’s a lot of things going on, not only new and old, but I would imagine single family home areas and condos. So it sounds like you have an interesting mix of things happening there.

09:21

It’s a pretty nice mix, and in fact, actually, Hunt actually put a an independent apartment complex. One of their Aberly complexes is is in the center of the association. They don’t they have their own recreational facilities and don’t use ours, but they’re you know they’re located in and there’s there’s also there’s also a a three story 50 plus retirement apartments that are in condos that are that are rented leased by people. It’s part of our part of the commercial part of the. Of our association.

10:01

So, one other good thing I hear is that it was somewhat of a stable board. There was a progression, and so it’s not like the there was a lot of upheaval chaos. Sounds like there’s institute. My term is institutional knowledge, where what we’ve done, this is the good things that we’ve done, and you learn before you get onto a position on the board. You’re just a voting member. I like hearing that. Tell me, what are the kind of things stylistically that you’ve been known for? Do you have a guiding mission and vision and values, things like that to say this is how we do things at Quinn Hickory.

10:45

Again, it’s the same. We’ve had the the same management company since the since the beginning, so that’s that they’re there long term, and basically we just want it to be a premier place that people would want to live here, would want to recreate here, and work from here. I mean, it’s just we just want it to be a great place to live, and want it to be one of the premier communities available. And especially being older, we we want to make sure that we that we keep our facilities upgraded. A couple of years ago, we had an an extremely large water slide for the children at the pool and the young people at the pool. We just re had that refurbished. We’ve just this year we actually had the main pool had to repanel it and get it refurbished. So I mean, we try to stay ahead of the game in maintenance things that we our irrigation systems. Some of the things that we that we had did we did to upgrade that because it’s such a large group and a number of a number of lakes for water retention with fountains and pumps in it. We got a deal where some new wireless controllers that we got a really a really good deal to beta test some some wireless controllers to help reduce the cost of maintenance of the from the mechanical one. So we we try to be a little bit progressive. It’s been a very very conservative board the whole time that I’ve been on it, and in fact this last time we actually had a past president come back and get back on the board. Who’s so as I said it’s it’s a it’s very stable. One of the things that helps us that that perhaps that some associations don’t have is in in our county. The county maintains all of the roads, so in the subdivision areas for the single family, all of those are maintained by the county. So when when the snow hits us, which we had some heavy in January here, it it makes it a little easier for us. Everybody knows it’s the county that didn’t do what they wanted instead of the association

13:07

reaching out to the board. Yeah,

13:10

we’re we we have that off. We have that off. Only the the sub associations, the condos, have to arrange their own snow removal. But so that aspect of it, we’ve just got a lot of things that have fallen in place, I guess, traditionally, and over time by maintaining our facilities, it’s just been a very stable place to be, and most of the we have very few. Most of the concerns that we hear about come from the tennis teams and the swim teams. That, as far as wanting more features and and more time available on the tennis courts and on the and in the pool, we’ve been fortunate that the middle school that borders our facility, which we have walkways to, they put in a whole group of pickleball. So we have we’ve avoided that conversation because the people can just go right to right right out in almost in the community area, and and we don’t get the pickleball and the tennis people butting heads over the courts. So I guess we environmentally we kind of we kind of have had a calm kind of an easier road than some so some associations have.

14:34

Got it. We recently had a board hero who was talking about the hurricane that went through their association, and sounds like you’ve had some of the right things fall in place. So, if you want to play pickleball, it’s not like you have the pickleball crowd saying we want to turn two of those tennis courts into four pickleball courts. They can just go over to the middle school and play on the middle school’s courts.

14:55

Right.

14:56

Cool. Okay. And I got to ask, have you? Tested out the new water slide at the pool.

15:02

No, I have not.

15:05

Okay, that’s going to be my challenge to you.

15:07

Unfortunately, I’m one of those fair-haired people that I I don’t tan. I just blister and turn red again. I keep wearing all of my fishing shirts and things, and keep hats on when I’m out to avoid avoid getting too much sun.

15:25

Got it. So you’re not a real pool type. And from my background, I got to ask. It sounds like things are going well. Do you have a reserve study company that’s guiding you and helping you anticipate the new things that need to be done to to make sure that you are regularly prepared.

15:41

One of the things that that we do that I have and I’ve tried to to talk this up a lot is we do rely on on experts. I mean, we very seldom look at anything with anything legally or any writings or rules without having our attorney review it and bless it for us or anything new on financing, or the way we account for things, we have CPA. We even have because of all the water retention situations that that we have here. We’ve got a retired professional engineer from the county who was actually involved in all of the original planning-we’re lucky of that-the original planning of this POD for this community that we retain him to to provide us with that kind of that kind of advice. Even on landscape, on landscaping, part of the responsibility we have an independent horticulturist and arborist that comes in once a month, and contractually he grades the work that month. And sometimes it falls that our expectation was too high, considering rainfall, heat, temperature, some of the things that go on. Sometimes he he rules in favor of the landscaper, and sometimes he rules in air favor and tells them they need to do a little bit better job. But it keeps us from having to be in a be in a confrontational, and we understand that we don’t necessarily have all of the expertise that’s necessary to make those kinds of judgments as to what’s a

17:22

key thing. Can I get you to say that again?

17:25

We understand as a board, and I haven’t had anybody that I’ve worked with on our board that thinks that they know so much about any of this that we don’t that we feel like we don’t need to to go to actual professional people that we retain to to help us and guide us where we need that.

17:47

Yeah, because after all, you’re a volunteer board, and

17:50

right,

17:51

you’re just trying to do the right thing. And the question is, what is the right thing? And that I’ve been to so many seminars; they talk about the business judgment rule, which is duty of care, duty of loyalty, and duty of inquiry, and that third is knowing when to ask questions to get the wise counsel that you need. And you’re talking about a huge place here, 1500 some homes. It’s growing, a lot of diverse home types, people, older homes, newer homes, just lakes, infrastructure, a lot going on. Hey, I don’t think I got a clear answer to that question. Do you have a reserve study? Is that one of your onset? Okay, fantastic. Okay, good to hear that.

18:36

Yes, we do.

18:38

Well, we’ve got a lot more to talk about with Don, but I want to hear how he connects years of service in law enforcement with the board and why he is unlike so many board members that just get burned out and frustrated. But we’ll talk about that when we get back. It’s time to take a quick break and hear from one of our generous sponsors. After which we’ll be back with more common sense for common areas.

19:04

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19:35

And we’re back. We’re speaking to Don Boswell, fantastic Virginia gentleman with a background in law enforcement, specifically the sheriff’s department in Virginia, and I want to ask Don, connect me if you can between your years of service in law enforcement and now your years of service in volunteering for the board at your association.

20:00

I feel there’s a lot of similarities between the responsibilities of of law enforcement. I mean, in Virginia, our law enforcement code of ethics. The first thing is is that the fundamental duty of an officer is to serve the community and safeguard lives and properties, and that’s the fundamental responsibility of of boards and the managers for a for a community. We’re supposed to, as a law enforcement officer, you’re supposed to smile and stay calm in the face of of scorn and ridicule as well as danger. You’re not supposed to act officiously, as we we know the negative versions of the so-called Karens in in the community, the police officers that that do that cause an equal amount of of consternation and and problems for the 1000s of law enforcement officers that do what they’re supposed to do. So I see the parallels in in a bad decision from a homeowners association meeting the news to the same thing with with police officers that have gone bad and done something of that nature. Again, you’re supposed to, from a code of ethics, you’re supposed to to not permit your personal feelings or your prejudices or your aspirations, or animosities, or friendships to affect your decisions. You’re supposed to make the best decisions, irregardless, because you’re deciding for the community. You’re not deciding for you, as as an individual. You’re supposed to do it without fear or favor, without malice or ill will. And then another part of this that I that I take very seriously. One of the last things in the in the law enforcement code of ethics is to take every opportunity to enhance and improve your level of knowledge and competence in doing what you’re doing. That was my rationale for studying and and obtaining the certified community association manager designation, which I was able, which I did, so that I would I felt obligated, and most of my activity, the levels of activity that I have continued to evolve in, is I’m trying to learn as much as I can to have the greatest impact on making sure first that my association is well prepared to continue in the future. My wife and I are 75. We know that there’ll be somebody here in this house in in the future, and I want it to be as good for them and and ongoing. And as I said in the first part, how our board has built and has longevity and service and and a longevity and and the knowledge of what makes this a good community. I will hope to pass that on to the next group when I when I do go off the board, and if I can have an impact at this at my chapter level for the Central Virginia region, and even at the national level, which which has motivated me to get on the homeowner leaders council to do that. I will say that that you know the the big one big difference is is that it is the boards make the decision. It’s not an individual thing like it is with a police officer out on the street, and we’re very cautious about giving off the cuffed answers as individuals. Our off the cuff answer is is that’ll be a board decision? I can’t make that decision. I can bring it up at the board, and I can talk with the other board members and reflect what what your concerns or issues are. But the board it’s the board’s decision is the only is the only thing that counts, not what I say as an individual. So governance is is is different, quite different.

24:04

Well, it sounds like all the things you’ve been talking about resonate with your heart. I’m not sure if that’s the way you grew up, or just it just became how you think, how you act. But I can see the parallels now, and I’m seeing so many good things at Hickory twin hickory. You didn’t have a real mission statement, but it sounds like the board is aligned in saying we want to make this a great place to live-not just now, but into the future. And so they appreciate that they’re carrying the baton. You’re right. Perhaps the first couple decades of owners there at Twin Hickory, and there will be many of other decades of owners after you, and so you’re setting the stage and the pace with the right kind of things. And boy, building a culture, and I’m gonna write that down. Build a culture.

24:59

I would hope that. Anyone who lives in Twin Hickory could live the way that I did for my first 10 years here. That you don’t have to worry about. It’s taken care of. It’s it’s nice and it’s it’s beneficial to be here and to be a premier community in the in in the western end of our county. And I hope that that it could be that easy for the vast majority of the homeowners here and residents that that aren’t intimately involved in the governance model. But I think that’s what we’re here for. We’re here to make it right for them, so that they don’t have to worry about

25:41

1. I got into this entire industry by being the president of my 71 unit condo association. I was a young professional. I was mortgaged up to my eyeballs. Had to make this condo thing work. Had to make money on it, and so I plowed a lot of time into it. And inside, I felt good because it wasn’t just for me; it was for 70 other people, and I felt so good about that that everything I did selfishly for me and my unit ended up being good for everyone else. And I I hear that in your voice too about wanting to make it a good place for so many other people, so they don’t have to be on the board, so they can relax.

26:26

And that’s that was one of my motivations of being active in the in the legislative action committee for Virginia, which unfortunately I’m terming off this year because I’ve done that for 10 years. I had done that professionally in criminal justice, and I got asked almost immediately, would I be interested in serving on the LAC? And I and I did, but I took about six years before I agreed to move up to be you know to be the chair because I felt like I needed to learn a little bit more to do that. But there, we’re trying to make sure that we have good legislative laws in Virginia that benefit and maintain the autonomy to the greatest extent we can of the of the individual community. So again, there, I’m trying to make a statewide impact through that. I don’t know as far as as what I do. In I caught a little line that I that came from Law and Order in in 2003 that I heard that resonated with me when the the character of of Arthur Branch was talking to Jack McCoy, and he about something that went that he did, but it didn’t it didn’t benefit him. He said sometimes the good you do doesn’t do you any good, and you have to look at things in my perspective to look in the mirror and to know that I’ve done the right thing that I can live with, and if it doesn’t turn out so good for me, you know that’s all right as long as you as long as you’ve done the right thing, and I try to live by that.

28:11

I like that. I I was able. I was scribbling here quickly, and I’ll get that into the show notes. So, as I asked you at the very beginning, before we started recording, what makes your experience so different? We have so many board members that are struggling, that are frustrated, that find this hard. They can’t wait to get off the board, and here you are going deeper and deeper and deeper. And you said you were disappointed that you were getting termed out of something, and you were cautious in taking leadership at the legislative action committee level, so it sounds like you are taking careful steps forward. But can you summarize why it has been such a positive experience for you? Something that you have chosen to continue to do in your life to serve your community.

29:00

Well, I guess it would go back to the to the last line in the J.C. Creed, and I don’t know if you know what the J.C.s are. They’re not any anywhere near as big a organization as they as they used to be when I came along as a young man. But the last line of it is that service to humanity is the best work of life, and I have continued to to believe that, and do whatever I can do to contribute to serving my community, my fellow residents, the people in my state, the people in the in the country. I feel like that’s that’s the purpose that we they we have put here, and I’ll continue to do that as long as I am able.

29:51

Yeah, leverage starts with you, starts with your spouse, starts with your family. It grows out and out and out from there for the good decisions you. Help other people enjoy their life and make life easier and better. Life is hard. It’s hard being an adult. It’s hard being a responsible person in the world. It’s hard for me owning a business. There’s so many regulations, so many requirements, so much staff. Life is hard, and if you can plug in and make life a better place, that’s a wonderful thing that allows you to fall asleep peacefully at night. Well, Don, thank you so much. It was great having you on the program to help our board members see that there can be calm out there in the midst of the the struggle of being on the board. Any closing thoughts to add at this time.

30:41

Thank you so much.

30:43

Well, that’s fantastic to our audience. We certainly hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today. That helps you bring common sense to your common areas. I’ve captured some of what Don said. I’ll make sure I get those into the show notes, and we look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

31:03

You’ve been listening to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. You can listen to the show on our podcast website, hoainsights.org, or subscribe on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also watch the show on our YouTube channel. Check the show notes for helpful links. If you like the show and want to support the work we do, you can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing you can do is engage in the conversation. Leave a question in the comments section on our YouTube video. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast at hoa insights.org, or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gain any insights from the show, please do us a huge favor by sharing the show with other board members you know. You can also support us by supporting the brands that sponsor this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast do not constitute legal advice. You’ll want to consult your own legal counsel before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light Video and Marketing. With Stoke Light on your team, you’ll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect with Stoke Light.

172 | Stop the Denial & Save Your HOA!

Julie Adamen  00:00

Being real and being authentic with your homeowners about where your community is at, where your board is at, and how we’re trying to deal with these situations in front of us will go a long way. Will you have detractors? Of course you will. Everybody’s an expert when they’re not in your chair, but you have to realize that’s just part of the game. If you are being who you really are, and you’re going to address the real problems, you will find a tremendous amount of respect. People will respect you tremendously, is what I meant to say.

Announcer  00:30

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board members: Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of election. You’ll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund  00:46

Hi, I’m Robert Nordland of Association Reserves,

Julie Adamen  00:49

and I’m Julie Adamen with Adamant Inc. And this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund  00:54

for common areas. Well, welcome to episode number 172, where I’m again speaking with management and leadership expert Julie Adaman of Adamen Inc. Well, we were both struck by a bump in our industry, and it’s the amazing power of denial. And sometimes there’s a clear path forward, and the obstacle is not the facts or the cost; it’s just simply denial. So, what do we do with that? And that’s a topic we’ll be wrestling with in just a few minutes, we are here weekly. So if you missed last week’s episode 171 with board member Rose Walker, that was a treat. It’s worth going back and catching that episode. Rose is the vice president of her Florida condo, and it got hit by a hurricane and other challenges. Yet she and the board were able to move forward and find calm after chaos, and that’s a heck of a story that she was able to tell. So, if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today’s program to listen from our podcast website, hoainsights.org, or search for HOA Insights on YouTube. But better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, or subscribe to our podcast’s YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future episodes. And so the podcast increases in the search rankings and becomes more findable to more board members, and that helps us in our goal to give more board members the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their association. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA Insights mug I have here. Got my merch. Julie’s got to have one. Yes, yes. The merch that we have here we keep on our desk. It reminds us of we’ve got a lot of board members to take care of,

Julie Adamen  02:38

and they keep coming in and rotating out,

Robert Nordlund  02:40

and they keep coming in and rotating out, and there’s a lot to tell them. And boy, we feel like we have a lot that we can offer. So we got that from our merch store, which you can browse through on our hoa insights.org website, or the link in the show notes, or you can simply visit just to pick up some great free stuff there, like board member Zoom backgrounds that you can use for your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. So, if you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address, keep in touch at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at hoa insights.org. But today’s program is on us wanting to bring this challenge out in the open. So, Julie, as we were talking before the program, you’ve seen this industry from the management side and the board side. Where do you see denial stopping progress?

Julie Adamen  03:36

Everywhere. I would just say it’s a larger. Yeah, was that what you’re afraid? I was afraid you were going to say that. You said something earlier, Robert, as we were talking beforehand. It’s it’s kind of the human condition for sure, and denial is again not a river in Egypt. However, it is, but not what we’re talking about. But I think denial is something we, as a society or as a world, are now in so much denial about so many things, and then you know, as we were talking about that, I was thinking, why, why is that? Why are and this and I would say it is, and you know, of course, I’m not, but I’m a realist. I I always have been. If you guys have listened to me speak before, you can pretty much guess that you know I’m. If I see it, I’m going to call it. I’m going to call it what it is. So I think that a lot of people are in denial because honestly, life is hard, and there’s so much coming at you. Whether it’s the community that you manage, or the community that you serve on the board, or you live in, or it’s the general populace, it’s elections, it’s the news, it’s whatever’s going on in the world. It’s all the stuff that bombards our inboxes, and actually, this device, which is in front of your face all the time, and it’s just right there all the time. So, I think that a lot of denial happens because people just don’t want to face it. Now, why they don’t want. Face it. Why would it be? Well, number one, it’s uncomfortable. Number two, it doesn’t fit my image of myself or my mindset about something in particular. Or it’s just easier to pretend it doesn’t matter. If I didn’t have headphones on, I would go la la la, put my fingers in my ears, and it affects everybody. But in terms of how it affects community associations. There’s two sides of the denial, obviously, and it’s the management of it, meaning whether you have a manager, management company, in-house manager, or you’re the managers as board members, or it’s on the board side strictly as board members. And again, I think it’s the human condition, but it’s something I think we can address and maybe start to dig our way out of because it’s easy. It’s easy to be in denial. Well, that’s not really happening. Take it right to your wheelhouse, Robert Reserves. Oh, we don’t need to put money in there. Oh, you should take that about the reserves and talk about denial about reserves.

Robert Nordlund  05:58

Yeah, I want to get to that, but I think it’s important for us to lay this foundation that it’s a human condition. It’s not a community association issue.

Julie Adamen  06:07

No, it’s a human condition.

Robert Nordlund  06:08

Life is a hard place, and remember our kids talking to us. I don’t know if it happened in your family, but I have two kids, and they were saying, “I want to grow up, but it seems like it’s hard growing up. And yeah, grownups work. Grown up pay the bills. We pay taxes. We make decisions.

Julie Adamen  06:26

Responsibilities. They have responsibility. Responsibilities. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund  06:29

you’re responsible for your family, for the car running. Uh huh. For me, my wife’s car needs to have fuel and needs to be clean. There’s a million of these.

Julie Adamen  06:39

Not to mention the business you run and your employees and all the the downstream things that happen. Yeah, it’s a lot. What do the what do the kids call it today? I don’t want to learn adulting.

Robert Nordlund  06:48

Well, this is hard, and so is denial part of just our survival instinct that we have to dull some of the edges so we can feel good about ourselves and we can feel good about who we are, who we’ve become. My wife and I had an interesting conversation with another couple over the weekend, and I’m going to get some of this wrong, at least. But the wife was a therapist. It was fascinating to hear her talk about humans and how so many of her patients pursue a dopamine hit. They they have something pleasureful, and whether it’s scrolling or whether it’s binge watching on Netflix, have something that we find pleasureful. And alcohol, drugs,

Julie Adamen  07:30

you know, you can just go right down the line. The

Robert Nordlund  07:32

simple things, but we’re talking here about volunteer service, being a board member, and we’re talking about a manager who is serving others in dealing with a lot of their dirty laundry, a lot of their arguments, a lot of their lack of clear direction, and I think there’s some degree that it’s just-I don’t want to fail, but it’s partially the nature of what we’re dealing with. There’s a lot of being in the community association industry that is just playing hard, and you have to you have to dull some of the edges, or you’re just going to get, or you’re going to go off and live in the woods somewhere all by yourself. I hear that all the time from people. That’s not a good solution. Yeah. Okay. We had some notes here, but for a board member, there it manifests itself in so many ways. It’s not my problem. Point to the manager; it’s their problem. Or it’s not my problem. It’s I just have an unusually lousy set of homeowners at our association, or what could it be? Physical. Our association. Oh, gee, the landscaper planted the wrong plants, and they ran over the sprinklers, and so everything’s breaking and denying the fact that you’re the one who hired the landscaper. Yeah, and you’re the one who’s supposed to follow up on the landscape. Yeah,

Julie Adamen  08:51

you know, you know, Robert, I was gonna say thing about these about the board members. I think because when you run for the board, I mean, which I’m doing formally, I sent my stuff into yesterday. Good. Now, for me, I know exactly what’s involved. This is my wheelhouse. I’ve been doing this for nigh onto 40 years now. But for most people who become board members, they have no idea what they’re in for. I mean, they may have gone to a board meeting or two or three, or they just volunteered because nobody else would. Congratulations and thank you, but so they have no idea what they’ve gotten into. And a lot of our folks, like where I’m living, I mean, I’m one of the few people that still works, and a lot of these folks are retired. Some of them been retired for 20 years, and they get on the board, and they’re like, “Whoa, there’s a lot going on here. And then they get that God. I’m retired. I don’t want to have to deal with this. Honestly, I don’t blame you. But the truth is, is that if you these things are all happening around you, to you, to your board, to your community, and to put your fingers in your ears and say la la la is not going to make it go away. So if I understand. Understand the natural inclination to do so. Well, that’s not really a problem. Well, we don’t really need to fix that. Oh, I don’t want to spend that money. All of those non-decision decisions, which is where this all leads to. You’re saying, well, I didn’t make that decision. Well, being in denial is making a decision. You’ve decided not to deal with it. So you just didn’t say it to yourself. After understanding the inclination, I want to say that when you are in denial and you’re you’re really not looking at reality and calling it what it is, I mean, you know, is that an elephant or is that a pug dog? Well, that’s a pug dog. It doesn’t look like an elephant, right? But if you call it an elephant, you are not being authentic. You are putting up a facade of your own, so you’re being fake. And I think another problem with all of us is we are surrounded by so many people who are in government, who are you know in our institutions,

Robert Nordlund  10:55

business

Julie Adamen  10:56

businesses, yeah, absolutely business, and they’re just full of baloney. And we all know it. They’re lying. We know they’re lying. They know we know they’re lying. And but we all just kind of go along. But as board members, you know, you are really sitting at the tip of the spear of localized republic government. Your democratic republic. I had to tell somebody this on my swim club about two weeks ago. Who was, well, how come they didn’t poll us about what we thought? I’m like, you know, this isn’t a democracy. It’s a it’s a republic, and they’re not going to poll eight people over a schedule change at wherever. Well, I don’t even remember now what it was.

Robert Nordlund  11:31

Let me stop you right there. My understanding is a democratic republic is we elect our leaders, who then make the decisions.

Julie Adamen  11:40

Yep.

Robert Nordlund  11:41

Okay. Good. Just want to make sure I was on the same page with you.

Julie Adamen  11:45

Yeah, you are. But as board members, again, you’re on the tip of the spear of this. And if you feel like I didn’t sign up for this, I don’t want to do this, and you’re just warming a chair. Well, maybe they need you to warm the chair. You have to know that, and then you’re gonna, you know, kind of move off the board later, but if you’re a long-term board member and you find yourself not wanting to face things, and I get it, but I’m gonna posit to you, you’re being a phony like everybody else. You are not calling the pug dog the pug dog and the elephant the elephant. When you find yourself doing that kind of thing, I’m gonna challenge you to be real about what is going on. I think our entire world is sycophonies, and they they are craving they are craving authenticity. And as board members, you are in the perfect place to enact it locally. I mean, all politics is local. Well, the things that you do as board members affects the people living around you, and I know you’re all like going, “Yeah, that’s the problem. It kind of is, but it’s also a wonderful thing in the sense that if you are doing what is right, if you are calling the pug dog the pug dog, as opposed to calling it an elephant, people will respect you for that. If you are saying, “Well, that’s not really a problem, and three quarters of the constituency knows it’s a real problem, you look very foolish. Now, your life may be on the surface easier, but you’re not doing what’s right. I would challenge you to be authentic about it because people are craving it, and they will support you. That’s where I’m going with my candidacy for my board spot, it

Robert Nordlund  13:21

comes back to being a board member is hard. We’re we’re not going to deny that you’re a fiduciary. You are an elected leader of a usually a multi million dollar not for profit real estate corporation, and there’s work that has to be done. It’s not a social club. You can be sued for what you do or don’t do for the decisions you make.

Julie Adamen  13:42

You will be ultimately criticized everywhere, from Facebook to Nextdoor. My advice: stay off those.

Robert Nordlund  13:47

But there are some wonderful things you can do because it is your community. It’s where you live, and we’ve heard some stories here. We do board heroes once a month or so, and there are some who just ache with how much they care for their association. There was one board hero we had who had been removed, overthrown, kicked out, and she still she still yeah it was a coup yeah at their association, and she still ached for her. I said, “Well, why don’t you sell and leave? I love this place. She would get back on the board, and the new board. I don’t need to tell you that story. I wish I remembered the episode number, and then even last week with Rose talking about how they have chaos at their association, and how she and the other board were able to find calm to lead them through. There are wonderful things you can do, and a little bit has to do with who you are. You know, are you are you ready for it? And Julie, I like what you were saying about be real. We have an opportunity to stand out and say, hey, neighbors. And in my world, we’ve got a roof that’s getting really old, and it’s going to be really expensive. I don’t have the power to make it magically new again. It’s going to be expensive. In the meantime, we’re trying to do some simple things: add some pet waste stations and some little things that we’re going to fix that crack by the mailbox. That’s quality. Those are quality of life

Julie Adamen  15:24

issues. Those small things. Yes, like fixing the potholes. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund  15:27

Yes. Yeah. Or the the graffiti on the subway. The little things that make a lot of difference. What can we do? Because we’re here to help maximize your enjoyment of life here at this community association. That’s that’s wonderful when you address the reality. When you are there to say, “Hey, neighbors, we are in this, and you have community, you’re banded together. We have an epidemic of loneliness in this country, and for people to say, “We are in this is our community, and as board members, you had the opportunity to be. What were we talking about? You said the word real,

Julie Adamen  16:07

authentic,

Robert Nordlund  16:08

transparent, authentic, authentic to communicate to be able to make a mistake and say, “Oh, gee, yeah, we we planted the wrong flowers, or that shade that we painted the ironwork. I guess wasn’t black. It looks like it’s dark brown. Yeah, I’m so sorry about that. Can you live with it for five more years, and we’ll get it black next time? Just little things where you can say just helps make our Happy Valley Villas unique.

Julie Adamen  16:36

Doing it the way you just said that kind of self-deprecate, and I think some things that happens with us as as board members is you know a lot is riding on your shoulders and people are quick to criticize but sometimes you just got to go stuff happens or sorry we’ll we’ll fix it next time a little self deprecating humor but admitting the mistake frankly even before if you can get in front of it and admit the mistake that happened and go yeah are bad. We did not mean to make that happen, or whatever it was like that. People, they really don’t mind the mistake. They may grouse, but they don’t mind the mistake. It’s how you address it that they will remember. That’s I give that advice to community managers all the time. It’s in my online courses for them. Is that it’s not the mistake; it’s how you fix it. If you think you made a mistake and then you need to be in denial about your mistake, you’re compounding the problem. Just sorry. Sometimes you just have to do it. Fall on the sword. It’s done.

Robert Nordlund  17:32

Yeah. Yeah. Well, if you are not making mistakes, you’re in denial.

Julie Adamen  17:38

Yeah. And you’re not doing anything if you’re not making mistakes. You’re not doing anything. I sent out an

Robert Nordlund  17:42

email yesterday to one of my partners. It said January 1516, and 17, and I don’t know why I said January 1516, and 17. It was 1314, and 15. And I was like, follow it up. I am so sorry. Those are the wrong dates. And we all make mistakes. It’s how we bounce back. Are we going to clear them? Are we going to fix them? Are we going to make them better? If you are not making mistakes, you’re in denial, and I think that’s part of those things too that you need to be clear about. How am I going to get out of this?

Julie Adamen  18:14

Yeah, it’s you know the first thing is to be honest about about it with yourself, and then to be honest about it, with your constituency, you know what, and I mean that doesn’t mean you have to run out there, set your hair on fire, and you know, and just you know, stand in the middle of the street and beg forgiveness. It’s not that. It’s just, you know, if you make a big deal out of it, everybody’s going to make a big deal out of it. But a little self-deprecation, little humor goes a long way in these type of situations,

Robert Nordlund  18:42

Julie. I’m looking at the clock here. It’s about time to take a break and hear from one of our generous sponsors. After which, we’ll be back with more common sense for common areas, and we’re not denying it. We will be back in just a moment.

Paige Daniels  18:55

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Robert Nordlund  19:27

And we’re back. Well, Julie, during our break, we were talking about it’s not if you are in denial, but what you are in denial about. And so, to our board member audience, I want to challenge you. What are you feeling uncomfortable about at this time? And I want to. We’re going to spend a couple of minutes talking about how then you can turn this big ship around in the ocean that has a lot of momentum. Maybe it’s been years of being proud of how low your assessments are, and you’re looking at. The insurance bills, your reserve underfunding, all those kinds of things, and you realize we we’ve got a collision. We’re we’re not going somewhere good. Where where do we go with this?

Julie Adamen  20:12

That’s a really good question, and and this is something that a lot of associations have dealt with. Champlain Towers, they tried to, and that ended in disaster. They tried it, though. But you know, a lot of associations face this. More and more are facing it every single day because of so many. Now the associations are getting older-20, 3040, years old-and for so long. And you, I would venture to say that most of the audience of board members out here is going to be nodding along. What’s the biggest problem they’ve had? They didn’t raise assessments to keep up with expenses, realistic expenses. Not I’m in denial expenses, realistic expenses. So let’s say this has been going on. The reason I pick on this, and I know we talk about this a lot on this podcast, but it’s probably the number one thing that, in in my observation, low these 40 years in the industry, that is the problem, is that no one wants to raise the assessments, and it’s been going on for a long time. Now you’re the board. You’re now on the board where you have to do something. You’re like Robert said. Your insurance bill has gone up. Now that’s like across the board across the country. That is a real thing. So, if you’re thinking, “Well, we’re just going to stop landscaping, you can’t do that. But to keep the assessments where they are or artificially low, okay. So, I would say if you are going to take on something like that, if it’s that type of, you’re going to have to raise assessments higher than what your documents provide, and you’re going to have to get a vote of the ownership, especially, and maybe get a loan or any one of these huge, huge tasks you’re going trying to tackle. It starts small in the sense the board has to coalesce and say and agree on what they’re going to do, and let’s say okay

Robert Nordlund  21:57

what they’re going to say and

Julie Adamen  21:58

what they’re going to say. And again, you need to come up with a program, a communication strategy, to get that to the owners. And this isn’t going to take six months. It might take two years. It just depends on how big it is, how big the community is, and how difficult this is going to be. But it’s again, no more denial. We’re facing reality as it is, this is an elephant, not a pug dog. And the elephant in the room, we’re going to introduce him, and he is that we need to raise assessments and probably get a loan to cover the shortfall we’re going to have with our let’s just say our insurance payment, as well as some other stuff we need to take care of and fund reserves. Many associations have that trifecta or more facing them. So, what do you do? You have to again face reality, get together, agree you’re going to do it. Talk about your communication strategy. I would actually encourage you if you need to hire someone to help you with that. If you’re able to, if you are pretty computer literate, you can actually use some AI programs to help you with that. I recommend Claude. I think it’s the best. You may have to pay a little bit for it, but if you’re not good at that, maybe you have an adult child who is able to do that for you or help you with it, and put together a program along with how we’re going to. That could be emails. It can be the newsletter. It’s the website. It’s town hall meetings. It’s maybe even one-on-one meetings. It’s small group meetings. Again, it’s not going to be six months. It may be a year, could be two years. But you can right that ship. You can turn that battleship around with number one authenticity, which means you have to be real about what the problem is, where you’ve been and where you need to go, and then you need to bring people along with you. You don’t want to tell them about it. Well, you do want to tell them about it, but it’s not a teaching, you know, shove it down their throat. It’s a bringing them along into the process of how we have to do that, and that will be your most successful tactic to get this kind of thing done.

Robert Nordlund  24:04

We words. We have this. It’s not you need to vote for this, but we have this challenge.

Julie Adamen  24:11

Our community. Our community. Yes. Yeah. You know, it’s easy to get in the us versus them thing in this business. I mean, having been on the management end for so long, it was always us versus the association. Sometimes the board. Usually, often the boards were with you. It was it was like you and the board versus the homeowners. But that, and I get why it is that way. I’ve lived it. But if you’re trying to take on this type of program, this type of undertaking, it has to be our and we. Robert is 100% right.

Robert Nordlund  24:39

And then you talk about communication strategy. It may be just a multi-month. You may need to start a newsletter. You may need to start a text train. You may need to start emailing. You may have to

Julie Adamen  24:50

have a dedicated website page to it. I mean, just dedicated to what’s going on here about this.

Robert Nordlund  24:56

Yeah, and again, there may be some costs in that, but we’re talking about the health of the community. And so, a few $100 can make a difference in the home values of 127 people, and make a real big difference because that’s what we’re talking about. Everyone’s largest investment here, and so it’s worth getting it right. Communication, transparency. I like your idea of enlisting people one on one. Maybe you do it committee by committee. Maybe you get a budget committee, and that way, if you have five board members, now maybe you got five committee people that can then be ambassadors throughout their building, their floor, their age group, the dog walkers, the tennis, the swimmers, the the the the moms with small kids, to spread the word out that yeah, this is this is we, this is our community here, and we had a leak in the roof over on Building Four. Did you know about that? All of our roofs are getting gold, and it’s going to be expensive. And unfortunately, we don’t have the money, so we need to get the money together. This is real. It’s real, and it’s going to support our property values. And so, if we want our two bedrooms, one sold for $450,000 last year, if we want them to continue to sell at that rate or higher, we’ve got to sink some money into this place, and that’s strategy. And there’s maybe some words like you saw. We and our. The other is in my world in reserves. There’s so many people who think reserve funding is for the future, and we try to counsel them. No, it’s not. It’s for now. You need to pay the roof deterioration bill, the asphalt deterioration bill. It’s as real as any other thing. It’s more. It’s so much more like a usage fee that we pay on an ongoing basis. So bringing it real and bringing it to now helps. But then again, that we come-we’re back to being honest, being transparent, being real, those kinds of things.

Julie Adamen  26:58

Yeah, yeah. Being real and being authentic with your homeowners about where your community is at, where your board is at, and how we’re trying to deal with these situations in front of us will go a long way. Will you have detractors? Of course you will. Everybody’s an expert when they’re not in your chair, but you have to realize that’s just part of the game. If you are being who you really are, and you’re going to address the real problems. You will find a tremendous amount of respect. People will respect you tremendously, is what I meant to say.

Robert Nordlund  27:29

I guess two things: being a board member is hard, and you who are listening know probably what the problems are and what you are trying to deny. So address those. Address those with the board and create a plan. And then I was reminded by Rose last week: you got to take care of yourself. You got to find a happy place. You can’t be carrying the problems of 127 or 322 or 18 other homeowners all on your shoulders. Don’t don’t burn yourself out. Your association needs you. So make sure you’re taking good care of yourself. Julie, are those kind of the what closing thoughts do you have to add at this time? Well,

Julie Adamen  28:08

you pretty much nailed that, Robert. But the thing is, I just want to tell board members that, as Robert said, it’s not easy. We know it’s not easy. We’ve both been on boards. I I told you I’m running for my board again. Why? Because I’m nuts, but also because I care. I really care about it. No, I seriously, I’m going to live here for another 25 years. So I care, and there is no sense in going into something like this for any other reason than because you care and you want to help. If you’re going into being a board member because you know, look, I’m going to be the big man on campus or the big woman on campus and think that’s all it is is that kind of you know you’re going to point and tell people what to do, you’re there for the wrong reasons and it’s highly inauthentic. You know if you’re there because you want to help, very authentic, and people will respond to it. And you know what? When they see you and they see you start to succeed this way, they want to be a part of that. People want to be a part of something successful. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund  29:00

you can create something good, and you can create something wonderful. Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to bringing many more episodes to you week after week after week. We’ll be here, and it’ll be great to have you join us on a regular basis. Spread the word.

Announcer  29:24

You’ve been listening to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. If you like the show and want to support the work that we do, you can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing that you can do is engage in the conversation. Leave a question in the comment section on our YouTube videos. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast@reservestudy.com, or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gain any insights from the show, please do us a huge favor by sharing the show with other board members that you know. You can also support us by supporting. The brands that sponsor this program. The opinions expressed in this program are for general information purposes only and are not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or on any specific security. It is only intended to provide education about the financial industry. To determine which investments may be appropriate for you, consult your financial advisor prior to investing. Any past performance discussed during this program is no guarantee of future results. Any indices referenced for comparison are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. As always, please remember investing involves risk and possible loss of principal capital. Please seek advice from a licensed professional. Capital CS Group LLC is a registered investment advisor. Advisory services are only offered to clients or prospective clients where Capital CS Group LLC and its representatives are properly licensed or exempt from licensure. No advice may be rendered by Capital CS Group LLC unless a client service agreement is in place. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light Video and Marketing. With Stoke Light on your team, you’ll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect with Stoke Light.

171 | How Do You Lead an HOA from Chaos to Calm?

Rose Walker  00:00

I don’t think a lot of people realize what they’re walking into when they walk into boards. I think for myself, I thought I was going to be coming into something with open arms, not realizing that everybody is from a different. They look at life from a different perspective, and and it was definitely an experience, and it’s still an experience. Yep. I do value the new board members we do have this year because they all bring something to the table different, right? And that’s what it’s about. It’s about different people bringing things to the table. A

Announcer  00:38

regular highlight of the HOA Insights podcast is our board heroes feature, where we dedicate one episode each month to celebrate the remarkable efforts of HOA board members. To us, a board hero is one of the 2 million elected volunteers who deserve recognition for excelling in a role that often goes unnoticed. Today, we’re excited to spotlight one of these exceptional board heroes and share their inspiring story. If you match our definition of a board hero, or know someone who does? Please reach out to us. Our contact details and those of our sponsors are provided in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund  01:07

Welcome back to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas. I’m Robert Nordland, and I’m here today for episode number 171 with a delightful board member I met at the recent CAI National Trade Show and Conference in Florida in early June. I was in the trade show area, and she started telling me about her challenging experience being vice president of her 106 unit deteriorating condo association. I think, is there any other kind of condo association than one that’s subject to deterioration? Anyway, frankly, I was captivated, so we corresponded, and the result is the conversation we’re going to have in just a few minutes. I believe you’re going to enjoy hearing her story about going from chaos to calm. Now, if you’re a new listener, we’re here weekly with episodes to help you with the hard work of being a board member. Last week, for example, was episode 170 with regular co-host and insurance expert Kevin Davis on how big business, specifically the insurance companies and the mortgage lenders, are looking closer and closer at what you’re doing at your association. In other words, the consequences of the maintenance and the budget decisions you make can have significant implications. So, if you miss that, you can catch up on prior episodes on our website hoa insights.org on any major podcast platform or on our YouTube channel. Now, if you like the show, by all means subscribe and join us on our mission to improve board member leadership all across the country, one episode and one association at a time. Subscribers and positive reviews boost the show’s location and search engines, helping common sense for common areas to be found by more board members, and that helps more associations all across the country. Now, if you haven’t been to our website, we have some great merch for sale, like the mug I have here on my desk, puts a smile on my face, and some great free stuff there, like board member Zoom backgrounds that you can download for your next online meeting. Now we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. If you have a hot topic, a crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast@honsights.org. But today’s episode is on me, Rose Walker. My guest today became the vice president of the Windsor West Condominium Association, and quickly found it was not a cakewalk. So, Rose, welcome to the program.

Rose Walker  03:40

Hi, thank you for having me. This is this is enlightening and therapeutic at the same time.

Robert Nordlund  03:47

I know some of your story. I’m looking forward to kind of pulling it out and hearing the magic of it. Tell me, what state is Windsor West located in?

Rose Walker  03:57

We’re in Florida.

Robert Nordlund  03:58

Okay, and how long have you been an owner

Rose Walker  04:01

about a decade.

Robert Nordlund  04:03

Okay, and have you been a board member all that time, or just more recently?

Rose Walker  04:07

No, this is my second year.

Robert Nordlund  04:10

Okay, makes

Rose Walker  04:10

sense than being a board member.

Robert Nordlund  04:12

What got you? What changed you from being a interested homeowner to being a board member?

Rose Walker  04:18

Our community initially, there wasn’t a lot of connection with the board members and the homeowners here for many years. Over time, I was able to connect with one of the people that were interested in being on the board, and I knew that person. I knew what type of person they were. I knew their intention. I inspired them to get on board. They got on the board, and they would share little bits and pieces of things. And you know, I’d always try to support. And then eventually, one of the the board members asked me, “Hey, you should look at.” Looking to get on the board, you know, applying to get on the board, running for the board. Yeah, yeah, and and I thought,

Robert Nordlund  05:06

how many board members are we talking about here? We talking five or seven

Rose Walker  05:10

or so before I ran, there were only three on there, and then when I ran, there were five, and there were only three previously because of certain board members falling off, coming on, falling off. So, from my understanding, they didn’t have a true vote because there was so much chaos going on prior to me coming on. So there were three left, and then the next the next opportunity for voting, I was able to obtain getting on the board.

Robert Nordlund  05:46

Good for you. Now, so you got on the board. We’re here at 2026 as we’re recording this, and you you’re in Florida, so you were talking about Hurricane Ian that came through. What was that, 2022, and that did some damage at your association.

Rose Walker  06:05

That hurricane, it it it affected a lot of just our whole area in Florida. Very traumatizing for a lot of people. I can say that that was the door opener for our next level of chaos, right?

Robert Nordlund  06:24

As if okay, I’m I’m from Los Angeles, so chaos for me is an earthquake. I happened to be in Florida during Hurricane Ian. I was over on the other coast, and so it was just windy and messy. But I I know the reports of Tampa, St. Pete, and Fort Myers is a little bit further south.

Announcer  06:45

Yes,

Robert Nordlund  06:45

help me with my geography. Okay, so we got hit pretty hard.

Rose Walker  06:48

Yes, yes, yes, yes. We got hit really hard. Our our roofs roofs were greatly affected. I know people that I’ve known here in this community that had to leave because the roofs were so bad. There was water leaking in certain people’s homes. There was mold. There was it was it was really really really bad

Robert Nordlund  07:13

bad things going on. Yeah

Rose Walker  07:15

yeah yeah it was it was well

Robert Nordlund  07:17

from everyone listening they’re saying oh poor dear! And I want to say congratulations for stepping up in that environment and saying, “I can help here, and I appreciate and applaud you saying, “Hey, there needs to be some leadership here, and I would love to pitch in and help out and see what I can do.

Rose Walker  07:39

I will say this: I did not get involved into the board until 2024.

Robert Nordlund  07:46

I know, but okay. I just want to make sure with that entree, you’re like, yeah, this is, and people are even leaving. It’s a disruptive event, and but you’re saying, okay, this is my home. We’re going to make it through, and by golly, someone’s got a lead, and it could be me, and so you stepped up, but you dangled something in front of us all. You said the hurricane was only the beginning. So tell tell me why a hurricane is just a beginning.

Rose Walker  08:13

Here’s the thing I want to I want to say. Sometimes you can be in something and not know you’re even in it. I think my community was a community that was in survival. We were just here. We were just grateful we had a place. We were just grateful, whether things were updated or not at that time before the hurricane. We’re just glad to have a place to be to call home. And I think when the hurricane came, it disrupted the comfort of being uncomfortable. So really, we were uncomfortable, but the hurricane came and awakened a lot of things that we needed to review. You know, in our community that we hadn’t. And honestly, the the board that was there prior to the two previous boards that we have we’ve had were not ready for it, nor were they prepared, nor it’s unfortunate there were certain actions that were done that wasn’t in the best in interest of the community.

Robert Nordlund  09:19

Yeah, well, I gotta say, being on the board is hard all across the country, and every association has its flavor or own set of challenges and problems. Florida associations have legislation issues; they have hurricane issues. There’s a lot going on. You have perhaps I can stereotype and say age-related issues, where a lot of people just want to be left alone and enjoy the warmer weather. So it takes a lot of courage. We talk about you need courage to be on the board. You need to be curious what’s going on. You need to care about the association. You need to be curious, and you need to communicate. Effectively, so good for you to step in. So the hurricane disrupted the status quo, and all of a sudden opened up, loosened some things, and so tell me what what started happening there.

Rose Walker  10:13

On my end, it seemed before I got on the board. It seemed you know, like I said, that the the by the person I did know who now is our president. He was going full speed ahead, working on a lot of things that were happening in our community. And once I was, once I got on the board, I was able to get a front row seat to everything that was going on. And what I can say is there were so many open fires that they had been in go mode for so long they didn’t know how to slow down the the previous board they didn’t know how to slow down and really or bring the the other two board members that had just got voted on into it. It was almost like, okay, just just just come on the board and and and and you’ll figure it out.

Robert Nordlund  11:08

Yeah, help. We got so much to do. Yes, so much

Rose Walker  11:10

going on.

Robert Nordlund  11:11

Pitch in and grab something and try to make it better.

Rose Walker  11:14

It was almost like you should already know what

Robert Nordlund  11:17

to do. Okay,

Rose Walker  11:18

right. It was that kind of experience for me, and because my background is team and like business strategy and things, it was almost like, okay, when are we all gonna sit down and really talk about you know what is where we’re going, what’s gonna happen? So it was more like getting on a train that was going 1000 miles per hour, and learning as you go, learning about all the court situations we were dealing with, learning about the the you know some of the issues in the community that were occurring at the same time, trying to put you know a schedule on certain things because things were happening so fast.

Robert Nordlund  12:04

Figure out the priorities. Yeah, you didn’t. Okay, I’m gonna stereotype here, and I’m gonna think. Okay, how how old is Windsor West? 100 plus units. We’re talking 20 years old, 30 years old.

Rose Walker  12:16

No, no, no, 7272, 1972. Yeah, 1970 years old. old, and 1979. It became a condo association. It was a common complex at first.

Robert Nordlund  12:29

All right, so we’re in the almost 50-year-old range. Okay, so it’s got some legacy issues, some significant deteriorated assets, a few cycles of roofing and painting and asphalt and all that kind of stuff, and then it gets hit by a hurricane, and you’re getting involved, and it’s okay. Now I’m getting a grasp of it. There’s a just a lot going on because the nature of a property, and then you learn something new.

Rose Walker  12:56

Right. So when I came onto the board, I I thought I thought I was just coming onto a team,

Robert Nordlund  13:03

right?

Rose Walker  13:03

And what I what I realized was that it wasn’t necessarily a team. It was certain people that were on the board that were. I’m gonna say they were doing the best that they could on what they knew and the situations that we were in. So I didn’t know a lot of what was actually going on until I continued to be on the board, and I would get bits, and I would I would be learning as I was going.

Robert Nordlund  13:29

So busy doing that you didn’t have time to see the big picture,

Rose Walker  13:32

right? And and also understand the value of knowing who’s on your board and what values those people can bring, because sometimes when you’re used to not being on a team, you don’t know how to even that you don’t even know how to utilize the team that you have. That what value they bring. So the board as a a team, it’s it’s like you have this person, this person, this person, this person. Some people on the board are always working. They have a full time life. They may not be as accessible. Some people are retired. They don’t have anything else to do but the board. Some people may be in a situation where they have a partner and that that husband takes care of this and this is their extra thing that they do. And this person may have this, and then you may have the the mother who’s a single mother who’s like, oh, let’s be a team, and it’s like, wait a minute, what is what is all of this, guys? Let’s calm our nervous systems. Let’s let’s let’s work on that and let’s work together as a team. But what I will say is, from my experience, one of the biggest things I learned was that people are still looking at people through the lens of their own personal judgments of people, instead of looking at people as equality, looking at people as a team, looking at people as okay, you were voted on. Let’s see what we can do. My experience was sometimes being seen as not. My value wasn’t seen because some people’s personal perception of of myself, right? Yeah,

Robert Nordlund  15:18

you’re a young female. How can you know anything,

Rose Walker  15:21

right? Right. Yeah. Solo. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund  15:24

Team dynamics, but there’s something you keep alluding to. And there was chaos at at the association. There was chaos on the board. They’ve gone from three people. You’re now up to five. But you got so much going on that it’s like grab a broom, you know, go go go. Rather than okay, what are our priorities? What is our vision for the future? What roles are we each going to take that fits us well? It seems like it was just go go go. I get that, but I I keep hearing a sense from you that there is this desire to reach a more peaceful place in the midst of this. Where can we find everyone doing the right things, finding jobs that suit them, getting to a conclusion, leading this association well? And you introduced that to me when

Announcer  16:10

yeah

Robert Nordlund  16:11

we had our first conversation about getting from chaos to calm. But tell the audience about one more thing about what was disruptive there at the association, before we take a break, we

Rose Walker  16:22

had a lot of people here that weren’t supposed to be here

Robert Nordlund  16:26

on the board or at the association.

Rose Walker  16:28

In living in this community, we had a lot of, and that was one of the areas that had to be dealt with as far as cleaning up the community. Hence, when I say there was so much chaos. There were things going on that, like I said, the hurricane brought to light with the new board members coming on and making sure the place was safe, making sure that the people that were in this community were willing to abide by our laws and things like that. So that definitely was a part of us getting to a certain level of calm to where we are now.

Robert Nordlund  17:06

Got it. Just kind of bringing law and order to wild, wild west.

Rose Walker  17:10

Right. Yeah. And then, and we, gosh, some of the example. I can give you an example. I think we had a. I know. We we had a home where someone was literally housing, just housing tons of people, and it was so bad that once we’re able to go in and see what was going on, it was nothing but a house but beds, and it was just like bussing people in and out of wherever they were bussing them from, and they were using this plat. They were using this crash pad as a crash pad, but it was a lot of different people, opposed to also people that should not have lived here because of their backgrounds and past experiences that they’ve had as well. So we had a lot of cleaning up to do in this community, a lot.

Robert Nordlund  18:00

Okay, now there are going to be people here who are thinking, “Well, our problem was our flowers died quicker than we thought they would last, and they’re all of a sudden realizing, “Oh, gee, I’m glad we didn’t have roses problems at our association. Well, let’s take a quick break now and hear from one of our generous sponsors, and after that, we’ll be back with some more common sense for common areas. Hi,

Kevin Davis  18:19

I’m Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin Davis Insurance Services. Our experienced team of underwriters will help you when you get that declination. We provide the voice of reason, someone who will stand by you. Our underwriters bring years of knowledge to our clients that can’t be automated by technology or driven by price. As a proud NWS company, we bring true value to your community association clients. We are your community association insurance experts,

Robert Nordlund  18:48

and we’re back. Well, we’re describing a situation at Rosa’s Association where she stepped in, and it was busy, busy. There’s projects to do everywhere, problems everywhere you looked, dragons to slay alligators at your ankles, and that was just normal days at Windsor West. So, what started to turn the corner? Were you was it another circumstance, or was it you and the other board members? What was the the event or the dynamics that started to change things?

Rose Walker  19:19

So, so here’s what I want to be. I want to clarify and and be transparent about. I truly believe that the people that were on the board prior to me were there for a reason and a season. I believe that the work they did was not for me to do, and I couldn’t do it in that level of chaos.

Robert Nordlund  19:40

Okay,

Rose Walker  19:41

when I got on the board, and I saw that amount of chaos, court battles, people-you having to to to really, really, you know, get it out of the system. We didn’t have a pool. We didn’t have a gym. I’ve been here a decade, and we didn’t even have a gym for a

Announcer  19:55

decade.

Rose Walker  19:56

Our pool had been closed for years. There were so many moving parts. We had so many condos open, you know, but it’s just left and right. the the the The place was falling apart. Just so many different things, and the the board before me, that group of three, were valuable to that chaos.

Robert Nordlund  20:16

Yeah,

Rose Walker  20:17

me coming on in the midst of that chaos. I am not a chaotic person, so me coming on, I believe, was to start to help in the chaos, but also be clear that we want to shift out of the chaos.

Robert Nordlund  20:31

Right, Bridget, forward,

Rose Walker  20:33

bridge, bridge it forward, and hint where I’ve I’ve always I’ve always as a person said that the previous board members thank you for what you’ve done. Now here’s the thing about shifting from chaos to calm. Some people may not desire that level of calm because they are more chaos is more normalized for them, and I’m not saying that’s that, but I’m saying I’ve learned that in my journey that it is some people that’s their place of comfort, right? That is their place of comfort. So for me, working with the board when it was five of us, doing as much as we could, and just honestly, it was hoping that in the future we would get more people on, or diversity. Whether I stayed on or some other people came on to also add to the dynamics of the board. It’s just like being married, right? Okay. You know, and I and I don’t need you to comment. Okay, but I know you have a beautiful, beautiful experience. But it’s just like a marriage. If you’re partnering with this person and you’re looking for a way out, and they’re giving, you know, making it more challenging than it has to be, there’s discomfort there, right? I know there’s no perfect. Please understand this. There’s no perfect, but that person that has the calm or the desire for calm really wants everybody to experience the calm. You do. You want everyone to be able to say job well done. You don’t have to fight anymore. You don’t have to argue anymore. You don’t have to fight this court battle. You don’t at least for a season. Can we have a season of calm after all the chaos, right? So what ended up happening for us is we had a very very strict way of Michael the

Robert Nordlund  22:33

board president.

Rose Walker  22:33

Yeah, our current board president who definitely dealt with a lot of the chaos, and I was I was more of the calm, so I was like his, you know, yeah, Batman and Robins,

Robert Nordlund  22:45

right, right, right. You you complimented each other.

Rose Walker  22:47

We complimented each other. I like that. Yeah, yeah. So in that in that arena, it got to the point where, like I said, I think certain seasons are over at certain times, and moving on to the next year, we had a vote, and then the vote revealed what the community wanted, and then we had another board, which is the board we have now. And probably in the first couple of months, we made some adjustments, and we ended up filling up most of the the um the the the condos that were open oh my goodness we started closing out which it was time as well it was time as well for these these these last couple of court battles to close out we just closed one actually today it the the last finally close yes and that was that was a bit of chaos as well. And it took it took a team, though. It took a team, the board as a team, to close that down, to to to get it to the place of calm. From my journey, my experience, when it comes down to chaotic associations, even you know board members that can be somewhat have that level of a little bit of chaos in them, and it also just you can feel it amongst the board as well, right? I think it’s healthy to note that some people you cannot change. You do have to put protection over yourself and see how you’re going to maintain yourself, and honestly, I don’t think a lot of people realize what they’re walking into when they walk into boards. I think for myself, I thought I was going to be coming into something with open arms, not realizing that everybody is from a different. They look at life from a different perspective, and and it was definitely an experience, and it’s still an experience. I do value the new board members we do have this year because they all bring something to the table different, right? And that’s what it’s about. It’s about different people bringing things to the table.

Robert Nordlund  25:00

Yeah, well, you’ve said a few things, and some things you’ve said multiple times. You said seasons. Well, there’s seasons at the association physically, seasons at the association operationally, seasons at the association financially, and it’s nice to hear you say that yes, there was a board that was there that was able to wrestle with the chaos, and you were part of the bridge to the future, and you had an election that brought some new personalities onto the board that were able to sound like kind of go with you, go into a future where there was a season with that the dynamic of a few new personalities. You were part. You and Michael were able to say, okay, where can we go now? And you were able to say, you know, let’s let’s start ticking off these problems. Let’s wrap up this lawsuit. Let’s get some of these units sold. Let’s. Can I ask? Did you get the pool opened?

Rose Walker  25:49

Right. Yes. Well, actually, we got the pool opened. So, actually, we just got. I think we just got the email yesterday or today. So we should be opening up in the next couple of days. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund  26:00

So you got you got a board that is like okay, we can tick these things off, and it sounds like you’re bringing balance. You have the right team. I appreciate the dynamic of who you have on the board, and I I wish that you have just a wonderful season ahead of you for peace and calm as much as you can have in a condo association at Windsor West, and I think it’s just a fascinating story that you bring to the table about how there are these seasons and how you can be a factor and influence. And it does take time. There’s a momentum factor, and you also, I’m crossing my fingers for you, no hurricane, you know, that just throws everything into chaos right there. But

Rose Walker  26:45

I want to add something though. I want to add something really quickly. I want to add the importance of board members making sure they’re taking care of themselves mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically. Because once you go into you come into the environment of a board. It is not a it’s not a group thing. It’s you’re really running. You’re a part of a business. You’re overseeing a company. You’re overseeing people. You’re overseeing financial certain things that mean something to people. And whether you have 50 people in that community or 200 or 300, that’s a lot of responsibility for people. So when I say chaos to calm, I’m not just talking about the association, the community. I’m talking about the person as an individual,

Robert Nordlund  27:39

yeah,

Rose Walker  27:40

and making sure they protect themselves as well.

Robert Nordlund  27:43

Yeah, if you get the life sucked out of you, then you have nothing more to offer to the association. So you need to put up your your boundaries, but hopefully you can have boundaries-a place where you find peace, whether it’s reading a book or going to somewhere. I don’t know what it is, but you need to be able to have something that you offer to the association, and I liked hearing that you and Michael started to complement each other and work as team members. And boy, I love it when I hear about a board that says this person does A, this person does B, this person oh they’re wonderful at C. They’ve been such a breath of fresh air to our board, and and then there’s old Fred who is still trouble. But we’re great. We’re

Rose Walker  28:29

grateful for the we’re

Robert Nordlund  28:30

but we’re

Rose Walker  28:31

grateful.

Robert Nordlund  28:32

Yes, we’re grateful for everyone who is on the board, and you know what, we will make something great out of it. Is that fair to say,

Rose Walker  28:40

absolutely, absolutely, cool,

Robert Nordlund  28:42

cool. Yeah. Well, thank you, Rose. It was great having you on the program to help our board member audience see that there can be calm on the other side of chaos. You can see it, you can smell it, and you can be a part of the board actually getting you there. So, any closing thoughts to add at this time?

Rose Walker  29:02

Just to everybody that you know that sees this. First of all, thank you so much,

Robert Nordlund  29:07

Rose. It’s a pleasure.

Rose Walker  29:08

No, absolutely. What you’re doing and just providing this platform, honestly, I think it should be a platform that is introduced to people to start to watch before they get on boards, so they can have an idea of what they’re getting ready to walk into, and ask themselves, is this is this something I can do safely for myself and for my family? It’s not a email thing; it’s a people thing. So, you know, with what you’re doing and the kind of work you’re doing, I just want to make sure that you know how phenomenal and how grateful I am that I got to meet you, and for everybody that watches this, you know, take care of yourself and send love to every single person on your board. We don’t know their journey, we don’t know their story, but we we want to touch and agree that everybody we work together as much as we can. So that’s that’s my heart to everyone that watches this.

Robert Nordlund  30:03

Fantastic, Rose. Well, this is the community association industry, and as much as it’s homes, and some people think it’s their castle, it is a community. And for us as leaders and board members to bring community into our association and make it a a welcoming, calm place we like to call home. That’s more power to you. Well, anyway, if you want to hear more from Rose Walker, you can see here on our YouTube channel. If you search for Ms. Raw Speaks, that’s M S R A W Speaks on YouTube. And with that, it’s time to now say thank you very much for joining us. We certainly hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense and calm to your common areas. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer  30:58

You’ve been listening to HOA Insights: Common Sense for common areas. You can listen to the show on our podcast website hoa insights.org, or subscribe on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also watch the show on our YouTube channel. Check the show notes for helpful links. If you like the show and want to support the work we do, you can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing you can do is engage in the conversation. Leave a question in the comments section on our YouTube video. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast at hoa insights.org, or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gain any insights from the show, please do us a huge favor by sharing the show with other board members you know, you can also support us by supporting the brands that sponsor this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast do not constitute legal advice. You’ll want to consult your own legal counsel before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stokelight Video and Marketing. With Stokelight on your team, you’ll reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the show notes to connect with StokeLight.

170 | Are Lenders & Insurance Grading Your HOA Board Now?

00:00

Because whenever you don’t maintain an association, guess what happens from an insurance point of view? Your rates will go up. If I go into your community association and I do an inspection, because I’m looking at your premium of a you know $30,000, and obviously the tree has not been trimmed correctly, you know I see the gutters have not been taken care of, I see this stop sign there, but this shrubbery growing over the stop sign. I’m going, uh-oh, this is not going to work. So now your $30,000 premium you’re paying now 60 or $70,000. Okay, all because you failed to maintain your association.

00:34

HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies that care about board members: Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You’ll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

00:50

Hi, I’m Robert Nordland of Association Reserves, and I’m Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense for common areas. Well, welcome to episode number 170, where we’re again speaking with insurance expert and regular co-host Kevin Davis. It’s been a while since Kevin and I have done a podcast together, so it’s fun to be back on the show together. I feel like we’re getting the band back together and having this conversation. Before we started, we were trying to remember make sure we got all the settings right, but I think we’re we’re good to go here. Well, Kevin and I were recently sharing how the walls around our industry are moving. Seemed like the whole situation is changing, and we wanted to have a conversation on this subject and share it with you. It used to be that board members could make decisions, good ones or bad ones, and few people knew about it. Just the members of your association or the members who cared, but that’s changing with insurance companies and lenders, the banking industry, caring about your budget decisions like never before, and with significant implications. Well, to catch you up a bit, if you missed last week’s episode number 169 with Helen, a recalled board member on how life has been at her association now that she’s no longer on the board, and how the new board is facing exactly the same financial pressures that caused the uproar where she was recalled. They’re facing the same things and dealing with the same facts. Was a fascinating conversation, and if you missed that episode or any other prior episode. Take a moment after today’s program to listen from our podcast website hoa insights.org, or search for hoa insights on YouTube. But better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, or subscribe to our podcast YouTube channel so you don’t miss any future episodes. And so the podcast increases in the search rankings and becomes more findable to more board members, and that helps us in our goal to give more board members the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their association. Those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA Insights mug that I have here. Kevin has one too. Great, and we got that from the merch store, which you can browse through from our hoa insights. org website or the link in the show notes. Show notes, or you can simply visit to pick up some great free stuff there, like board member Zoom backgrounds that you can use for your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you, responding to the issues you’re facing at your association. That’s what this podcast is all about. So, if you have a hot topic, crazy story, or a question you’d like us to address, you can always contact us at 805-203-3130 or email us at podcast at hoa insights.org. But today’s program is on us. We wanted to share a few insights about what we see coming. So, Kevin, you’ve spoken a few times on how what a board does directly affects their premiums. When we add that to Fannie and Freddie’s higher standards for condo associations, what does that start to tell you?

03:59

Thanks, Robert, and great. It’s great to be back together. It has been several months, so I love these conversations because we never know where they’re going to go. Yeah. And today, what we’re going to go to to me, I think today’s conversation is about this, is two entities have decided that we believe that community association board members are not doing the job they should be doing, so we’re going to force them to make better decisions. Those two entities happen to be lending institutions and insurance companies. What they’re saying right now is that if you do not behave in what we believe is in the best interest of our organizations, we’re not going to insure you. We’re not going to give you a loan. That’s what’s created a major problem today for community associations, and you have to understand that it’s such a major problem that if you don’t do things the right way, if you don’t enforce the rules, you don’t collect assessments, you don’t maintain your association, you’re going to find yourself in front of a judge and a jury trying to explain. And all of a sudden, having spend 1000s and 1000s of dollars to protect that board of directors-that’s

05:06

sobering. I think, well, Kevin, I think you and I can go back to when we were homeowners and board members and condos long, long time ago. And at that point in time, I thought I was making decisions that affected 71 homeowners at my association. That’s the only audience, but I think what we’re seeing now is that there are some very significant big organizations, like you said, the the lenders and the insurance companies. They’re involved, and you, the board, are not just serving the homeowners, you’re serving those big businesses. They have a vested interest in your association. How well are you taking care of it? Are you collecting the right amount of money so that you can provide for the needs of the association? It’s no longer just your closed circle there, just you and your bunch of homeowners. Can we say most of which kind of don’t care, apathetic until you raise the assessments. But now you have this other. It’s like you have a a 60% homeowner here that you really need to make sure that they’re happy. That you are, or maybe that’s what it is like. We’re dealing with a larger audience, and you have a majority board member-not a majority board member, a majority homeowner-you got to keep happy. Is that maybe another way to look at this?

06:28

Sure, let’s look at it realistically. Board members, when they become board members of community associations, right? They know they have a job. They have a fiduciary responsibility to maintain, collect assessments, enforce the rules. That’s their number one responsibility.

06:42

Those three things you keep saying them, you keep saying them over and over again, because that’s what it

06:47

1. That’s what it is. Now, just think about the people, and you just said it before. You have people who live in these community associations who don’t care apathetic. I’m a business owner. You’re a business owner. If you have, if you’re apathetic and you have employees, guess what? Those employees to become apathetic. They no longer care. If I don’t care, guess what? They don’t care, and guess what happens in a community association? You have board of directors who don’t care about those three things. Then people who live there don’t care about those three things until you raise the assessments. Right? You you now you’re creating more money. Now of a sudden, guess what? What do you mean you charge me more money? And that’s where it starts at. You know that board of directors there has a fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest of the association because you have people who live there who don’t do that. Now all of a sudden you have institutions to say, guess what? We want to force you to to do those jobs because whenever you don’t maintain an association, guess what happens from an insurance point of view? Your rates will go up. If I go into your community association and I do an inspection, because I’m looking at your premium of a you know $30,000, and obviously the tree’s not been trimmed correctly, you know I see the gutters have not been taken care of, I see this stop sign there, but this shrubbery growing over the stop sign. I’m going, uh-oh, this is not going to work. So now your $30,000 premium you’re paying now 60 or $70,000. Okay, all because you failed to maintain your association.

08:14

And then of course the the next step is disgruntled homeowners who say, “I’ve lived here for eight years. The homeowner assessments have been $275 a month. What is the board? What is this board doing crazy now that it’s now up to 425? They must be doing something wrong. It’s the board’s fault. And what I’m finding interesting is that other boards were perhaps at fault, and it’s this board, the current board, that is finally doing the right thing, and they’re getting heat for it.

08:48

Yes, and what they need to do again, what happens is this, and it’s good if the new board decides to do it, because the new board decides to do it. They have some, you know, grace period to come up there and say, “Guess what? This is what we’re going to do. The problem, though, is you have that old board has been there forever. They decide that. Well, guess what? We got to start maintaining this building correctly. Okay, and in order to do that, we have to change our assessment from 200 to $400. Guess what? People who live there is going to save. It’s your fault because why didn’t you do it before? You’re stealing the money. We haven’t seen any of the documentation, so now all of a sudden, because you haven’t managed your association as well as you should have managed it, and now all of a sudden, insurance is coming down on you, and the lenders are saying no. All of a sudden, you’re gonna start doing that right job. Now you have a problem because the people over there lack trust. They don’t believe you because you haven’t done it all along. That lack of trust is one of the key problems when association go from apathetic to caring. So when the unit owners live there and they don’t care, and all of a sudden you make that change when you say we need a special assessment, we need more money. Then all of a sudden the trust is out the window because. Never thought about it. They never concerned themselves with the day-to-day operation, but now all of a sudden, that money factor in there is where they say, “Uh-oh, we have a problem. And now all of a sudden, now problem is that they don’t go to the “Let’s talk about and figure out what it is. It’s you’re dishonest, you’re incompetent. You know, those are the two words that usually you see whenever your assessments start to go up, and you don’t have proper documentation, you don’t have proper communication. You’re not transparent. You know, Kevin, I’ve got

10:28

two thoughts going on in my brain. One is it sounds like a parent who’s got a high school kid, and they’ve been doing fine. Let’s say getting B’s, A’s, B’s, C’s. You know, doing fine, and all of a sudden they’re slipping down to seize, and the parents are saying to each other, “Okay, we got to have a curfew, we got to tighten up, and you can’t drive more than 10 miles away from our house. You know they’re tightening up the rules because they want to enforce better behavior. They want some studying going on. If you want to play on the volleyball team, if you want to run track, you got to get your grades up to a B, not just a C. You know, there’s incentives and there’s motivation. So I feel like Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the lenders and the insurance companies are saying, “Oh yeah, there’s consequences to this. If you’re not behaving, your allowance is going to change. Your freedoms are going to change; those kinds of things. And I wonder if that’s a little bit of-I guess that’s how I’m feeling that it makes sense. Now, the other thing is the transition. We talked about last week’s episode was Helen, a board member, who was recalled for trying to do the right thing. Expenses were where the expenses were. They wanted to levy a special assessment, and the homeowner said no, and she got tossed out. And now this new board that promised no special assessment is facing the need for a special assessment. You slipped it in a couple of times, and this is my my second thought: communication. Is there a way to not solve this problem, but smooth this situation at your association. Is it so much about communication? You know what? What are we at the board facing and doing?

12:10

You gave the perfect example when you have a teenage son, and you say, “Uh oh, we have a problem here. You are a A minus B plus student because if you A plus student, you’re always going to be A plus. Yeah. So you’re B plus or B minus student, and you start becoming C or C minus. Now you said, okay, now it’s time to install discipline. What happens in these community associations is you don’t do anything. So once you get that C student and then your C minus students, you put your head in the sand, and now they’re a D student, and now it’s suddenly a student don’t care. That’s what happens in community associations. You get into a point where you put your head in the sand instead of taking care of at that moment when they become a C plus student. You say, “Well, they’ll get better. They’ll get better. Let’s hope they get better. And you know, which was never planned. Yeah, exactly. So now they’re a D student, and then they don’t care anymore. Now they go to school and they don’t care anymore. And we all have. I grew up people that I knew that were well, had great friends. My daughter had great friends that all of a sudden, by the time they got in that 12th grade, they didn’t care anymore. And what happens is now we have these community associations who don’t care anymore. And now that’s when insurance says, guess what? We’re going to charge you for it. That’s when the lender says, guess what, we’re not going to loan. And the problem with that is, is that I now of a sudden I want to move into a brand new community association. I did my research and it looks great. Now all of a sudden I find out I can’t get a loan. I can’t get a loan because guess what? They haven’t can’t have proper insurance. They have a reserve study. They have the things they should do. All of a sudden, it’s my lucky day because I was about to buy into a place that didn’t was. It’s not. It’s not to my standard. It’s below my standard. So now I’m walking away. That’s the issue. It’s not a matter of those students who are C students. A parent came in and says, “No, we don’t. That’s not acceptable behavior. We want you to go back to where you were before. We understand you’re a teenager now, but these are the rules. This is going to abide by. What happened? We allow the C student, the B students becomes D students,

14:14

and not care. So we’re talking about our our board member audience here, and we’re trying not to offend them too much. We want to encourage, so I expect that some of you listening are thinking, “Is this me? Or this sounds a little bit like me? Or this is absolutely not like me. Like you said, there’s the A students that just do it right and always do it right, and I get that, and that’s absolutely wonderful. Now, the good thing about what we’re talking about with Fannie and Freddie and the insurance companies. If is if you are doing things well, there’s no change. No problem. No problem. If yes, the average association needs to be setting aside. For instance, the average association needs to be setting aside about 25% of their budget towards reserves, and Fannie and Freddie just raised it for condos up from 10. 15% If you’re in the 25% range, this means nothing to you because you’re already doing it right. And so, we want to say on one hand, everything’s changing. The noose is tightening. The parents are implementing tighter controls. But if you’re getting A’s, if you’re doing the right things, it doesn’t affect you,

15:21

and that’s what we said when we first started. It’s like there are associations out there who consistently do what they enforce the rules, collect assessments, right, maintain the property. It hasn’t changed. It hasn’t changed in the 45 years I’ve been in this industry. It’s the same thing. Now, what has changed is you know the building’s gotten older, so they need more maintenance than they did before. Okay, it’s gonna be more expensive than it was before, but you have to be more diligent than you were before. You know the people who used to in the past say, “I hope” or “Keep my fingers crossed. Guess what? That doesn’t go to work anymore. You want to have to understand that you have introduce your responsibility to act in the best interest of the association. If you do not act in that best interest, guess what happens? But here’s the good news, and I think you analyzed it already, Robert. Is that A students will always be A students? You know, so good associations will always be good associations. We’re drawing a day. The people were listening right now, and they were smiling because guess what? That’s not us. You know, we enforce the rules. We maintain the association. You know, we like assessments. You know, yeah, it’s harder now than it was before because guess what? Our building’s a lot older now, and we have to do more than we’ve done before. But we’re transparent. We we communicate. You know, we I feel we do pretty good, you know. Helen, who has a mentality, who says that this is what we’re going to do for our association. But what happens somewhere along the line? It went from a to a b to a c to the people not caring. It’s not the board doesn’t care. It’s the people who live there who stop caring. The board you can have an a plus board that will always do A plus material, but you have people who live there that doesn’t care. But here’s the good news: if you have A plus board of directors, the insurance still will look at that A plus board and say, “You know what? Accidents happen. Accidents happen. We’re not going to hold you responsible board because of an accident that a once in a lifetime thing happens. We’re going to hold you responsible for your lack of maintenance. Okay, we’re going to hold you responsible for the things that you should be doing that you’re not doing. You know, I’m

17:30

thinking about what has changed. I got a few more ideas. You talked about the buildings getting older, but I want to bring a couple more to that. But at this point in time, I want to take a quick break and shift us so we can talk more about how we can solve this, how we can deal with this. But at this point in time, let’s take now a quick break to hear from one of our generous sponsors. After which, we can be back with more on this discussion, bringing common sense for common areas. Hi,

17:54

I’m Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin Davis Insurance Services. Our experienced team of underwriters will help you when you get that declination. We provide the voice of reason, someone who will stand by you. Our underwriters bring years of knowledge to our clients that can’t be automated by technology or driven by price. As a proud NWS company, we bring true value to your community association clients. We are your community association insurance experts,

18:22

and we’re back. Well, Kevin, during the break we were speaking more about this, but talk to me about our conversation. If you’re a caliber board, you’re trying, you’re doing your level best. What is it that happens when the homeowners tend to drift away from you? What what kind of situation do you have there?

18:42

And that’s a good point because again, let’s go with Helen again. Helen, she has she’s an A plus board member, and let’s say the rest of the board are A plus. They got recalled because the people who live in that association, in a lot of associations today, we’re not civil to one another. We don’t we we don’t treat each other with respect that we used to treat each other with, and that’s where the problem lies in today living in community associations. We live in a 50-50 world, where half the people they’re like the other half, you know, because they wear the red hat or the blue hat, whatever it is. And associations are the same way. If you live in one of those associations, okay, you there is you don’t you have there’s a lack of trust. Okay, you look at that board, that board, and you feel like number one, they don’t represent my values. Okay, they don’t care about the things I care about. They don’t even speak the same language I speak. You know, and not English or anything like that. But they don’t speak the same language in terms of you know in terms of smiling, in terms of being kind, or they could be kind and civil, and they don’t want that. They they want you know drama. They they want they want to attack their board members out there who deal with people, you know, confront people all the time. That’s confrontational. There’s other ones that are kind. That type of personality is going to rub people the wrong way. So as board members, again, it’s. Your job to look to, especially if you A plus board member. And guess what? People who listen to this podcast are A plus board members because they’re there for a reason. They listening to our podcast and going to learn how to manage the association better.

20:13

Yeah, to get the best tips and absorb things and how to exactly better.

20:17

So now, how does that happen if all of a sudden I’m looking across from them because they don’t like the car that I drive, or they like the stickers I have on that, and they automatically don’t think. This is where the key to to really understanding how communication transparency is so important. I mean, at the end of the day, there’s no two things are more important when you are living in a community association and you happen to be a board of directors, understand the responsibility that you have fiduciary responsibilities that you have to be fully transparent because when they come to you and that you can see in their faces that they don’t like the fact that they’re not going to like you no matter what because you don’t have that red hat on or because you are whatever the reason is, and all of a sudden that’s when that transparency comes into play. Guess what, guys? We have a special assessment coming because the balconies need to be repaired. Here’s the documentation from the specialist. Here’s the documentation from our reserve study specialist that tells us what we need to be done right now. Has nothing to do with the car I drive, nothing to do with the hat I’m wearing. Has to do with the fact that one simple thing, that this is what we need right now, and we need to have a special assessment, and we need to collect this money as fast as possible. And the main reason why this is a problem today, you have older communities out there that has not taken care of themselves the way they should have taken care of themselves. So you got an A plus board in play today that says, “Guess what we’re going to do? We want to make sure our association is maintained in the way that people want to come and live here, and the value of our home will increase from point A to point B.

21:57

It seems like the board members are dealing with visualizing. a bunch of witches around a big pot, and they’re stirring the pot. And the pot is full of buildings getting older. There’s been COVID, and so people are just more tense. There’s more incivility. We’ve had years of and you would throw in some years of inflation, stir it around, and we’ve got a stinky stew. And we add to that just the fundamental that community associations are based on the concept that these well-intending volunteers are now fiduciaries. And put someone in charge, you elect them in charge, and all of a sudden they’re the authority figure, and a lot of people. Oh, you can add authority figure into the stew, and a lot of people just don’t like to be told what’s what. They they want to live in their home. They want it to be their castle, and they don’t want someone else to tell them that’s going up from 475 to 550 per month next year. That’s they don’t like that. So there’s a pretty awful stew in there that the board members are dealing with, and I guess the question is, how do we start to put some salt in there or some baking powder? I’m showing I don’t know about cooking baking soda to to reduce the stinkiness or the the vile nature. How can we smooth that out and get it back to this is our community where we are together. We’re co-owners in this community. We are maintaining the property. We’re collecting the assessments. We’re running a clean financial house. The pot is not leaking. The stick that we’re stirring it in is not breaking off in the middle of the stew. And what I say: maintaining the property, collecting assessments, enforcing the rules. We are Happy Valley Villas, and we are trying to be Happy Valley Villas. It’s us. How can we help this toxic situation to be a more palatable?

23:55

And that’s the problem there. You know, especially today when we’re looking at these community associations out there who haven’t done those things well now want to, and that’s where we’re at right now. A lot of people out there want to do things well, want to do things better. Now I say is that there has to be a change in attitude with the board of directors. It has to start from the top. If I am anxious and I am concerned, you know, I have these issues that I’m worried about. It’s going to impact the where we live again. I said at the beginning, Robert, you and I, business owners, if I’m apathetic, if I don’t care, the employee is not going to care. Okay, or even go back to the parent. As a parent, if I’m looking at my my teenage son and he he’s not getting the B’s. He’s getting C’s and C minuses. I have a choice. Okay, board members have a choice right now. They can say, guess what? You know, we see our association is going is turning from a B plus into a C minus a C, and we even see it going to a C minus. Let’s make. Effective immediately, what are those corrections we need to make in order to have people believe that association is a B association? Again, A and B association will always be A and B associations. When it starts to the when it starts to move down that aisle, then we have to get together as board members saying we need to make the change. We have to make a statement that says, “Guess what? Our association has value. Our association across the street, all our units in our beautiful community associations has increased by 10% 15% over the past five years. But guess what? Our neighbor association has not. So, what is the value of our community association? What do we bring into the table that makes people in our association make them feel good? It’s that our value increase. But not only our value increase, but guess what? We have you know celebrations. We care, you know, and that’s what association board members have to be able to say to the people who live there that we care. Now they may be apathetic. They may not care. But you know what? There’s nobody who listens to Human Association walk up to and say, “Robert, how you doing today? You know. Guess what? We’re you know what? Guess what? We’ve made budget this year. We’re not. We don’t have to increase the assessments as much as we have done in the past because guess what? Our numbers where they should be. Celebrate the victories. Celebrate those small victories.

26:24

Yeah, we were fearing a 20% insurance increase. It only went up by eight and a half percent. Eight and a

26:29

half percent. And go back and say the reason why it went up eight and a half percent. Because these are the three things that we did this year. Yes, it costs more money, but at the end of the day, we save money. We now have insurance that guess what? It is cheaper than the association across the street. I go to CAI meetings, the Community Association Institute. I talk to fellow board members, and they’re getting 30, 40% rate increase on the insurance, and we’re only getting eight to 10% Are we doing that because we care as a community association? And that’s the key. Board members got to care.

27:01

Yeah. Hey, there was a friend of my son’s who was looking at condos in my area of town, and was looking at two, and one of them, their insurance went up by $50,000. And I did some digging into that and found out that their association didn’t do any fire prevention trimming, and the association that happens to be a client of ours, I checked, and they found out that they spent 10 grand to do the the fire prevention trimming to get a border. And so, yes, this one association spent 10 grand, but the other association’s insurance went up by 50 grand for not doing something, and that’s the pitch. You need to say yes. It’s more expensive, but we’re doing the right things. We are maintaining the property. We’re enforcing the documents. We are collecting the assessments. That’s one of those great situations where spending 10 grand ends up saving you 40,000, and by sitting on your hands.

27:59

And this goes back to our original statement: Insurance companies and lenders are saying, “Guess what? We’re going to say no unless you do the things you should be doing. I wanted to buy this association, brand new association. I walk in there, and guess what? The lender said no. That means the person who wanted to sell it means they lost. They they lost a sale, their house, and not only that, nobody will buy that place now. So all of a sudden, Robert, if you’re living there and you’re ready to sell to downsize and you can’t sell, you’re not happy with that association board because the board failed to either not maintain it, didn’t collect assessments, or didn’t enforce the rules. It all goes back to one of those three things or all of those three things.

28:39

Yeah, a couple years ago, homes were selling for two bedrooms were selling for 500,000, and now they’re down to 450 because the lenders and the insurance companies are realizing that our association hasn’t been taking care of business. Maybe that’s what we’re talking about. Yet the walls are moving, but as long as you are taking care of business, then you’re ahead of things, and I think the walls are moving with the insurance companies and the lenders primarily to give a kick in the pants to the the D and low C type associations. They want to prevent those associations from having the the freedom to do poorly as they’ve done in the past.

29:21

Look at car insurance, right? You you get in all the accidents, you get a ticket. What happens through your car insurance? Exactly. So, but look at your face right there. So, what that means? You’re very cautious when it comes to driving. You won’t get any accidents. You won’t get any driving tickets. You know. I remember. You know, you go to the stop sign and used to do the rolling stop. No, you don’t do that anymore because I got I got a ticket, and I complained, right? And it was one of those video tickets. I was riding through Beverly Hills, right? I went to a stop sign in Beverly Hills, and I said, “I can’t believe I stopped! And they showed me a video of it just riding around there. Didn’t even slow down. I’m surprised my car didn’t turn over, you know. And but again, it’s like I had to go to traffic school because I my. Insurance to go on. Insurance told me I will insure you, Kevin. But you got to do a good job, or else you’re going to lose your insurance, or you’re going to go from here to here. Board members and community associations-they’re saying the same thing. You got to maintain your association. You have to collect that assessment. You got to force the rules, or else guess what? Your insurance will go from $8,000 or 8% increase to a 50 or 60 or 100% increase. That is saying loud and clear. And lenders saying the same thing. I’m not going to loan it if you don’t have a reserve study. If you’re not reserving properly, and all of a sudden I’m living in a place where I can’t sell my unit because guess what? The board breached their fiduciary responsibility because they’re not doing those three things they need to do

30:42

well, Kevin. It’s great to have this operator to speak to you. I came here with a little bit of a problem trying to how are we going to wrestle through this topic, and I so appreciate the clarity you bring to it, and just be able to talk through it right in front of our audience here. So, any closing thoughts to add at this time.

31:02

You know what? First of all, play it back together again. Looking forward to future future talks. But this is a this is one of those things that overall we have to remember being board members of community association. The world is changing. The expectations that’s placed upon us. But if we break it down and make things simplistic as possible, guess what? We will have an A at B building forever. A students, B students will always be A students and B students. They will always do the right job. Helen is a perfect example of somebody who did the job perfectly, got recalled, and they still deal with the same problem. Helen has a sense of satisfaction because guess what? I did my A job. Board members continue to do what you you should do and do the good best job possible. At the end of the day, you’ll be in a better position.

31:47

Yeah, we’ve talked in the podcast previous episodes about the 4c’s. You need to care about your association. You need to be curious to find out what the problem and the solution are you need to be courageous and implement it, and you need to communicate that to the homeowners. It seems like that’s what we’re talking about here. So it’s it’s not hard, but boy, I wish we had a a magic wand so we could give our audience an extra dose of courage because they are dealing with a little bit of a toxic stew here. Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. Thank you for joining us today. We look forward to bringing many more episodes to you week after week after week. We’ll be here, and it’ll be great to have you join us on a regular basis. Thank you so much. Spread the word.

32:41

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