Special Assessment Letter from HOA

No problem you keep you us on our toes
At this point nothing has been tried as the legal costs associated with the change plus the 95% vote from the community to make any changes has made it not worth the eventual cost savings

Staci

 

Please tell me this is sarcasm

 

For some reason sarcasm is difficult to convey in written form.

 

Staci - This makes sense. This is what you should have told everyone up front.

 

Minus all of the equations, the explanation of the cost is given within post #6, msflynn's first post of this thread.

 

I should have been more specific. The details in Staci's post should have been included in the newsletter for everyone to understand not just those on this forum.

 

Due to the SA for snow removal and deadbeats I would like to rescind my Yes vote for an OpendBand SA. Please let me know how best to proceed.

 

You stated:

I think you are thinking a bit irrationally and rashly here....First of all, the slowplowing was a neccessity due to the LARGE AMOUNT of snow we had. My own parents live in Fairfax County in a very well to do area. They had the same amount of snow that we did....there neighborhood had ALMOST no snowplowing for the entire week!!! Why? Everyone voted NOT to have special assessments or to pay over the budget for snowplowing since they didn't think they would have such a storm like this. Well, you can guess what happened..people B*TCHED about the gawdawful road conditions. It was so bad there that it was pure hell on the car to get through.

You have to realize that these storms don't come very often and are far and few in between. I thought the special assessments were rather very fair and equitable. Im happy with it because I was able to get to work the next day after the snow storm. My own father wasn't able to get out for about three to four days due to the horrible road conditions. If you want to have lousy road conditions in the neighborhood so you can have some days off, then by all means move to my folks neighborhood where everyone tries to keep a small budget.

Secondly, rescinding the vote on the special assessment for the Open Band is not going to help you because both HOAs are run separately! First of all, you have to be nuts to NOT want to go after OpenBand for breach of contract?!?!? They are overcharging the SW HOA for services that are substandard. Its a ONE time fee, not ongoing and plus what's more..one person rescinding the vote is NOT going to really help stop the momentum going forward. I'd rather pay one special assessment of one month's payment to get a lawyer to get OpenBand to lower our monthly charges. I assume that you will be MUCH happier to save that one month's dues just to have HIGHER charges for the next 25 or more years?!?!? I think most if not all would rather want Open Band to lower their prices but in order to do that, we have to have an attorney to look after our interests and find the best strategy to make that happen!

Yes, sarcasm was present in my letter because I cannot for the life of me understand WHY you'd in your right mind want to change your vote??? Open Band is MORE expensive than our regular HOA dues.

*Getting off the soapbox*

 

Corn-

Just living within a budget - like the olden days. Perhaps if more people participated in this arcane process we wouldn't be holding the bag.

 

[You spouted-

QUOTE=shim;140259]Corn-

Just living within a budget - like the olden days. Perhaps if more people participated in this arcane process we wouldn't be holding the bag.[/QUOTE]

You've got to be KIDDING me! Everything is going up...prices for this and prices for that. Nothing is going to stay lower or cheaper. We all have to pay the costs for that. You cannot be possibly prepared financially for the SNOW of the Century storm here. Lastly, how the hell are you going to be able to avoid foreclosures??? Don't you know (or even understand) that BANKS will NOT pay for the delinquent accounts??? Once you file for bankruptcy, the debt gets wiped out clean. You are not able to sue to recover that.

Now, let's see if you can come up with something more rational than what you said! :indiff2:

 

Snowblowers are on sale at Sears... ;-)

 

Mr. Linux-

I do understand what Shim is saying here...and if you think having two special assessments are not an issue for me, you are wrong. I don't have LOTS of money like some people may have but I do put aside some money when I can for emergencies and that isn't even easy. I knew that when you belong to an association, anything can happen...and that means you have to plan for the unexpected. I appreciate the fact that you and the board gave us extra time to pay it and that was a smart consideration.

But the fact of the matter is that I am trying to point out that Open Band has failed to renew the Franchise License and has never made attempts to renew it and we cannot afford to postpone the opportunity to force Open Band's hand in getting them to the table to renegotiate the terms and fees. We all are already paying way too much in the way of SW Dues. $155 is a lot for each month to pay for shoddy and deteriorating services. Its going to hurt me too to cough up $155 to pay for the attorney but that is a lot better than having to pay $155 a month and possibly more next year. Id rather make an investment to see if we can get that monthly fee reduced.

Sorry if I hit some nerves here but people need to realize that living in a neighborhood with associations that have fees are not without risks to their own budgets. We are all in it together and we all have to find ways to reduce spending BUT when everything is going up, its hard to cut something without sacrificing quality or services that we all need. IT just gets on my nerves when anyone comes out saying that the board could have done better. I have served on a board of an association before and I do know very well how HARD it is to please EVERYONE in the neighborhood and not everyone is flush with money to be able to afford all the special assessments, etc. So the board has to do what is fiscally responsible for the common good of the neighborhood. Sure, some residents are going to be pissed off but that's the risks people take when they buy into an association. Ive heard SO many arguments when it comes to the budgets of an association....that is why not many people want to be on a budget committee because too many residents get mad (and sometimes irrational) over how the money is being spent.

Just what my thoughts are but I strongly believe that we all cannot afford to not go after OpenBand...we'd be crazy not to...Time is of the essence here and we need to reduce our SW HOA dues as its way too high.

 

Can we arrange kids activities next year to shovel snow from all residential streets after each storm? That way we only pay $5.00 to clear snow AND have something for the little ones to do. Voila – no special assessments! Problem solved.

 

Just for my understanding, why was $38 added for TH or Single family private streets ? If the private streets are maintained by HOA why should these owners pay the common $38.

 

Helium... from reading the description, the common $38 is to cover the cost of the common area snow removal (which all homes share responsibility for). Common area is not specific to the streets.

 

Dave, OK Thanks..

Another thought I had

I am a single family owner with a private street, and a fee of 148 hurts some of us especially in the current economical situation. And a 110 difference for private owners seems steep too. I believe we already pay additional HOA fee monthly because of the private street. I just have to sit here and hope that, that extra fee I pay is not used for other general maintenance costs. (No offense to other owners.)
I also wonder if majority of that expense was from townhouses and if the additional snow expense was equally distributed among private street single family owners and townhouse owners. That wouldn’t bee fair now would it ?

Staci, mentioned that being a non-profit maintenance costs cannot rollover, if there is a year with surplus instead of finding projects to spend that money on, how about distribute that money back to the owners ? That would make it easy to pay special assessment fee when there are additional expenses for a year.

 

The way the HOA is established there are 2 kinds of common area. Just regular common area that every home pays into (ie pools, nature center, community center, pathways, lights, etc) and then there is limited common areas this includes all the private streets with both SF and TH. Limited common area is paid for by those that benefit from it (ie you get the service you pay for the service). This is part of why there are so many fee structures around the community. There are SF fees, SF private street fees, Th fees, SF court yard homes (pay for their lawn services), class D membership (ie apartments) etc. For example the Th fee for trash removal is much smaller then that of a SF home. A TH owner pay your rate while SF homes pay theirs, we don't lump it all together as a single sum and then divide it.
As for the snow removal we segregate what is common area vs limited common area (it can be seen in any of our budgets). Nature center and HOA offices, pathways, certain sidewalks, would be part of the line item everyone pays for every year as everyone benefits from those areas being plowed. The part that occurs on just your street is listed under limited common area. We always budget more there as the expenses are always higher there.
I hope this explains it better, if not please PM me and I am happy to explain the whole budget process to you better.

Staci

 

BEAUTIFUL explanation! This is a great explanation and couldn't be more clearer than what it is! All should be able to understand this clearly.