C Barefield's (barefield) Blog

HOA Reserve Funds: The drawbacks of Underfunding Reserves  We hear all the time that association boards want to avoid the confrontation and unpleasantness  of raising monthly fees. In fact,  sometimes when an association has a "surplus" in their saving account members want to roll back fees becau...

These are difficult times for many condominuim associations. Investors and owners who were on the bubble may be walking away or defaulting on association fees. Either way the COA boards may be in the difficult position of dealing with foreclosed units. Unfortunately the costs to maintain the comm...

I spoke to a caller who was asking about special assessments and how legal they were especially for someone who had owned thier unit for less than a year. This caller didn't even know that a special assessment is a demand for money that is in addition to the regular annual or monthly dues or main...

The simple answer is everything that the association owns goes into the study. In reality its not that simple. Some things go into annual maintenance and others are lifetime items that rarely would be replaced like a concrete curb. Basically reserve items have a life of more than 6 years and less...

Home Owner Associations and Condominium Associations provide for the maintenance of the association owned components of the property. The association are also supposed to have a capital expense account which is also called a reserve. This reserve account will fund the replacement of roofs, painti...

Every homeowner and condominium association should exercise a plan to repair and replace major common area components like roofs, siding, and decks. Healthy reserves are critical to a healthy association because: Buyers examine the Reserves before buying Lenders examine the Reserves before approv...

In Washington, Condominium Associations members need to consider a Reserve Study. The reason behind this is that many association are trying to keep annual dues low at the cost of future expenses. Recently a 10 unit complex had to levy a special assessment of $50,000 per member to cover deferred ...