May 5, 2025 • 33 mins
Civility is declining and HOA communities are paying the price. Learn what’s behind it and how to restore trust and respect at your HOA!
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Why are today’s HOA boards facing so much hostility? Today Robert Nordlund and Ed Hoffman discuss the real reason for the decline of civility in community associations and the rising stress on volunteer board members and managers. From post-pandemic aggression to social media pile-ons, learn why directors are burning out, managers are quitting, and communities are struggling. Let's talk about real ways to de-escalate HOA conflict, improve communication, and bring back respect. Whether you’re on a board or managing one, let's lead with calm, clarity, and confidence.
The views & opinions expressed in this program are those of the Hosts & Guests, intended to provide general education about the community association industry. The content is not intended to provide specific advice or recommendations for any individual or organization. Please seek advice from licensed professionals.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ed Hoffman (00:00):
What we're seeing is the the
(00:02):
frequency of certainthings has increased
substantially, sohostility and just
negativity, directed,harassment directed
directed towards theboard or individual
board members and themanager. I mean the
managers, they're kindof taken the brunt of
(00:23):
of most of it, becausethey they're oftentimes the the
face, you know, that'sthere, that's the
managing agent for theassociation, and
they're the peoplethat deal with the
owners the most
Announcer (00:35):
HOA Insights is brought to
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Association reserves,community financials,
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Services, you'll findlinks to their
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Robert Nordlund (00:50):
Welcome back to Hoa insights,
common sense forcommon areas. I'm
Robert Nordlund, andI'm here today for
episode number 104,with a special guest
that I heard at arecent conference, and
I came up to him rightafter the program to
see if he could sharethat same presentation
with our podcastaudience that speaker,
Ed Hoffman, is anexpert in the practice
of communityassociation law, being
(01:12):
one of the under 200associate Association
attorneys in thecountry that have
their college ofcommunity association
lawyers, professionaldesignation. He's a
prolific author andwell received speaker,
and certainly he captivated myattention during his
presentation, and hepractices law in the
great state ofPennsylvania. I wanted
(01:32):
to have ed on theprogram to share what
he's learned fromworking with boards
over his years, andspecifically how
things have changedover the last few
years. We want to giveyou our podcast listeners the
understanding andinsights you need so
that you can creategreat communities.
Last week's episodewas number 103, and it
was an interview witha fascinating board
(01:53):
hero who's taken itupon himself to
minimize his southern CaliforniaAssociation's exposure
to wildfires. Thosehave been big in the
news lately, and ifyou missed that
episode or any otherprior episode, take a
moment after today'sprogram to listen from
our podcast website,www.hoansights.org or
watch on our YouTubechannel. But better
(02:14):
yet, subscribe fromany of the major
podcast platforms soyou don't miss any
future episodes, andthose of you watching
on YouTube can see theHOA insights mug that
I have here, got onecourse for me having
to do with reservefunding, which you can
browse through fromour HOAinsights.org
website, or the linkin the show notes,
(02:36):
you'll find we havesome great free stuff
there, like board member zoombackgrounds and some
specialty items forsale, like this mug.
So go to the merchstore, download a free
zoom background, takea moment look around,
find the mug that youlike, and email me at
podcast@reserveside.comwith your name,
shipping address, mugchoice, and mention
(02:58):
episode 104 mug giveaway, and ifyou're the 10th person
to email me, I'll shipthat mug to you free
of charge. Well, weenjoy hearing from you
responding to theissues you're facing
at your association.
So if you have a hottopic, a crazy story,
or a question you'dlike us to address,
you can contact us at805-203-3130, or email us at
(03:22):
podcast@reservestudy.comWell, this episode was
prompted by Dave fromPhoenix, who asked, in
our upcoming election,candidate statements
are almost what I candescribe as unkind. We
have two opposingfactions here. It's
not just the election.
You can see it in lessfriendliness as people
(03:44):
pass in the halls. Isthis normal? So let's
get right to it. Ed,welcome to the
program. And how wouldyou respond to Dave?
Well,
Ed Hoffman (03:53):
first I'd say, Hello, Dave. And
next I'd say, well,thank you for having
me on Robert before wereally get started
here. I appreciatebeing able to speak to
you and your podcastwatcher slash listeners. Dave is
absolutely correct.
And there's been athere's been a kind of
(04:14):
a shift or a seachange in how in it,
at least in myopinion, with respect
to civility and communityassociations,
especially over thelast five years. And I
know you attended thelaw seminar presentation, and
there I spoke andasked the ballroom
(04:34):
full of people, howmany people think
COVID impacted theindustry negatively,
and even to today.
What I mean, I don'tmean necessarily by
sickness, but I meanjust the shift in
mindset that occurredas a result of COVID
because of becausepeople were locked
down, and what we sawhappen in associations
(04:56):
was. Because peoplethat oftentimes you
never heard from, theyall of a sudden, were
active and werecontacting management,
contacting the board,because they were
there. They weren'tgoing anywhere. They
were stuck, and theywere complaining. I
shouldn't even use theword complaining,
bringing matters tothe board at slash
(05:18):
managers attention,where previously, that
person didn't becausethey had nothing else
to do for many hours aday, they weren't
commuting to work.
They could have beenworking at home. Not
everyone couldactually work at home,
right? So you had alot of situations all
around the countrywhere all of a sudden
there were people thatwere there that
weren't there before.
And what I mean by thebreak in in it break
(05:41):
in psyche, more thananything else, I think
that it shifted themindset of people.
They became more aptto to be combative and
aggressive when itrelates to bringing
things to the board'sattention. So what I
what I've seen morethan I've ever seen in
(06:05):
my career to date, inthe last five ish
years since the pandemic, is thenumber of recall
elections to removeeither a board member,
multiple board members, or theentirety of the board,
where we we wouldseldom see that. I
mean, I did. I've beendoing this a while,
and you would see itcome pop up every few
years. I was seeingmultiple of them
(06:28):
happening every year,sometimes in the same
community, which isreally, real, really,
yes, really wild, right?
Robert Nordlund (06:36):
So multiple, multiple
warring factions within the samecommunity, you
Ed Hoffman (06:40):
would, you would like to think
that that's not thecase, but obviously,
sometimes thedocuments are drafted
in a way that lead tothat, right? Unless
you change, unless,yeah, unless you
change the documents.
So, but, yeah, there'sbeen a situation
where, since since thepandemic, things have
really shifted. It'simpacted boards. It's
impacted managers, andit's just it's not I
(07:03):
don't think it'sgetting better. I
think the civility isactually getting
worse. One examplewould be a rise in
director and Officerliability claims
across the board. Youcould speak to almost
any, any specialist inthe industry that we
all, we all know thesame people who who do
this on a nationallevel, and they,
(07:25):
they'll tell you thesame thing, that
there's a massivechange in the amount
of DNO claims. And DNOused to be, if you
remember back in theday, it used to be
literally related tothe claims would be
related to the boardbreached its fiduciary
duty, meaning theyshouldn't have spent
the money they made adecision that impacted
(07:47):
the finances of theassociation. Now, a
lot of Do you knowclaims are being
brought alleged thatthe board breached its
fiduciary duty, andthen insert, insert
the allegation. Sobecause they are not
trimming the bushesthe same for my
neighbors as they arefor me or or trash can
violations, I don'tbelieve that everyone
(08:11):
else is getting everyone else isgetting fined for
trash can violations,but I am so now I'm
suing the board ofdirectors and the
association. You knowin the background, you
can we know that theassociation had 150
trash can violationsto 150 people over the
last couple years.
It's not just the oneowner, right? But the
(08:32):
allegations have shifted in theplaintiffs lawyers.
They're, they'rerepresenting them, if
they're, if they're inat the court level, are throwing
everything into thewind because it's a
fee shifting statute,right? So the Fair
Housing acts a feeshifting statute, and
if they they prevailon one allegation,
they get all theirattorneys fees. It's
been very interestingfrom a litigation
(08:52):
standpoint, and from afrom a General, General Counsel
standpoint, meaningseeing what's happening with the
elections and justgovernance in general,
and then thedifficulties that that
have occurred since,since pandemic.
Robert Nordlund (09:07):
Well, I've got a few follow
up questions. I'mimagining you've seen
a real change in howyour law practice has
changed, the differenttypes of things that
you deal with on anongoing basis. Yeah, I
Ed Hoffman (09:18):
wouldn't necessarily,
necessarily say thatlaw practice has
changed too much. Westill, we ultimately
still do the same kindof work. But what
we're seeing is thethe the frequency of
certain things has increasedsubstantially. So DNO
claims have obviouslyrisen, like, like I
previously stated,also hostility and
just negativitydirected harassment,
(09:41):
directed directedtowards the board or
individual boardmembers. Can even
committee members,depending on what
committee they are andthe manager. I mean,
the managers, they'rekind of taking the
brunt of of most of itbecause they. There,
oftentimes the theface, you know, that's
(10:02):
there, that's themanaging agent for the
association, andthey're the people
that deal with theowners the most So,
and I'm seeing managea good managers leaving, either
leaving that locationand asking to be
reassigned, if theywere the larger
management company, ifit's feasible or, or,
um, quitting that,that management
(10:24):
company and going toanother one, hoping
that there's a bettergig for them, right,
greener pasture, yeah.
Or, I've seen this.
I've seen this nowmore over the last few
years, leaving themanagement industry
entirely, just leavingand going and doing
something else. Theirmanager is actually
staying in thecommunity association
industry and butthey're going with
other vendors andpicking up other
(10:45):
positions with them,because they're not
getting the day to dayabuse that they were
facing at times as a manager.
Robert Nordlund (10:54):
That's interesting. We are
getting some managers,nicely credentialed
managers, reaching outto us saying, Hey, I'm
good with numbers. Ilike budgets. Seems
like life might benice preparing reserve
studies. And now I'munderstanding why that
might be the case.
They've, they've beensitting on a fire and Robert
Ed Hoffman (11:15):
not all the time. I mean, not
every time, yeah, butI'm See, I'm yeah, I'm
seeing it. Some peoplejust want a career
shift, but, but I'mseeing, you're right,
though, but I'mseeing, I'm seeing the
fire is, is theproblem more often
than than it used to be? Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (11:29):
well, before we started
recording as we werejust catching up on
what's been going onlately. You also
talked about how hardit is on the managers
for a couple ofreasons. One of the
reasons that you saidthe board not supporting the
manager. What doesthat look like? What I mean by
Ed Hoffman (11:43):
that is, if the manager comes
to the board and themanager is actually so
the manager has twoboss ultimately, two
bosses at an association,typically, the first
is the board ofdirectors, and the
second is if it's athird party management
company, not a directrelationship, where
the management companyor the association is
employing the managerdirectly as an
(12:04):
employee, they would also have arelationship. Their
actual employer wouldbe the management company,
Robert Nordlund (12:10):
right?
The boss of themanagement company or
director of property managers,
Ed Hoffman (12:13):
yeah, whoever it is, yeah,
you know. So it'd belike the office, the
assistant to theregional director, or
something like that.
So at the end of theday, whoever the
manager, goes andreports the trouble to
meaning, I'm gettingharassed. I'm getting
abused people. Thisperson is scaring me.
There's too muchaggression going on by
(12:36):
owners coming into theoffice, the board has
to listen to that, andthe board has to
escalate that, right?
And what I mean bythat is the board has
to Shut, shut down thethe owner who's coming
in and doing that. Andthen, if they were for
a management company,a management company
can't sit on its hands, and themanagement company
should support its ownemployee, and the
(12:57):
management companyshould take actual
steps to to help themanager. And I've seen
again, this isprobably in the last
year or two, managersgetting reassigned,
more often than not,to different
properties. And it'snot a fault of the
management company.
(13:17):
It's not a fault ofthe board. It's the
fault of the peoplewho are causing those
problems, and at leastthe management company
is willing to movethem somewhere, right?
But that that doesn'tsolve the problem,
because if someoneelse comes in, you
know, it's like afaucet keeps dripping
unless you put a newwasher in, yeah? So if
you don't fix thefaucet, it's going to
(13:37):
keep dripping, andthat's what happens
with with this kind ofthing, and the other
side of the coin isboard members leave
good board membersleave good committee
members leave thesevolunteer positions.
By the way, they'renot getting paid.
Basically, they say, Idon't have time for
this. And it's a fourletter word. It begins
with S, I don't I'mnot doing this for
free for this type ofabuse, right, or this
(14:00):
type of harassment,and I'm not sleeping
at night. I've heard,I've heard all of this
from people, andthat's, again, I
think, since, sincethe pandemic, I've I'm
hearing more of this Iever heard in my career. Folks,
Robert Nordlund (14:12):
you're hearing it. Hear from
an attorney who's onthe front lines dealing with
associations and Edyou've been doing this
for decades.
Ed Hoffman (14:19):
Yeah, yeah. I started off. I
kind of had theopposite upbringing,
as they as they say inthe industry, as most
HOA lawyers, Ishouldn't say most,
but many of them weredeveloper lawyers.
They were real estatelawyers, rep that
represented developersand were drafting
documents and and Iwas, I had the
opposite background. Iwas never really a
(14:41):
traditional realestate lawyer. I was
in the trenches getting hired torepresent associations, even I
wasn't their generalcounsel. I was getting
hired, typically byinsurance companies,
to come in andlitigate cases and defend the
associations andlawsuits. So I kind of
have the back that thereverse and then
moving forward as Idefended so. Many of
them, they for, asthey say, some, for
(15:02):
some odd reason,started to like me and
hire me, and the restis the the rest is
history. But, um, youknow, one led to the
other. It's alwayssomething right? I want
Robert Nordlund (15:12):
to talk about fixing the
problem, but I'mlooking at the time.
Let's take a quickbreak to hear from one
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Robert Nordlund (16:04):
Now we're back Ed right
before the commercialbreak. We're talking
about how there's alot of problems out
there that arepotentially forcing
board members out,committee members out,
managers out, makinglife difficult for
them, and that's goingto continue unless you
solve the problem, theunderlying irritation.
(16:24):
So how does a boardbegin to touch that
irritation? And inKevin Davis's words,
lower the temperaturein the room, make
things a littlesimpler and easier there at the
association, so thetensions don't run so high.
Ed Hoffman (16:39):
So I guess the first thing we
should, we shouldbring up, is that the
reason why this is aproblem, and consistently is a
problem, is associations weren'tare not set up. We're
not set up, and stillare not set up to deal
with mental healthissues, right? And
mental health isdriving the bus on a
(16:59):
lot of what's, what'shappening these days
with this type of behavior. Soassociations are meant
to manage the propertyand manage the
finances, right? Thatthat's their, literally, their
entire function.
They're not socialservices agencies.
They're not they'renot there to to
manage, typically manage people,especially other
(17:19):
owners, you knowadults. The premise is
adults should beadults. So that's the
starting point. Andthen where you where
you go moving forwardis, as far as lowering
temperature, there's,in my opinion, at
least what I've seentime and time again,
and whether it's incourt or outside the
court or just meetingwith owners at an
(17:43):
annual meeting, ormeeting one on one
with owners in theboard, is there's a
clear lack of communication manytimes between the board and or
management and theowner or owners. And
what I mean by thatis, I don't know how
many times I've, I'veheard I just, I just
(18:05):
wanted someone to listen
Robert Nordlund (18:07):
to me, to be heard, to
feel that person, tofeel like someone cares. Yeah,
Ed Hoffman (18:11):
and there are two sides. Listen.
There are two sides toevery story. And a lot
of those three, yeah,yeah. A lot of those
people did, did havethe opportunity to be
heard. In fact, ourstatutes, most of the
statutes in mostjurisdictions, require
an opportunity to beheard if there is a
like a violationissue, and you're
going to find themsome states, I'm also
(18:33):
licensed in NewJersey, they have mandatory ADR
provisions in there.
Pennsylvania, we don'thave mandatory we have
voluntary ADR in ourstatute that was put
in however many yearsago, but it's not
mandatory. Somedocuments, and I say
probably 5% of the ofthe communities I
represent have somesort of mandatory, mandatory ADR
provision in theirdocuments. What I say
(18:54):
is, don't, don'toverthink this. If
there's no ADRrequirement, don't
overthink it. And thisis also assuming, by
the way, it's not ahostile, aggressive
situation. Yes, ifit's dangerous, call
the police. Don't,don't get in the same
room with people. Andthis is, this is not
what I'm recommending.
(19:15):
Doesn't deal withthat, nor do you ever
want it to be in thatsituation. Not your
job, but, yeah, butlet's offer to meet
with them. Let's offerto meet with them and
try to hash this outand and a lot of
times, boards say, Iwe don't want to meet
with them, because allthey do is harass us.
And I'm like, I getit, but maybe they'll
stop harassing you ifwe're able to talk to
(19:37):
them. Could be a pipedream, but guess what?
It's worked sometimes.
Let's talk about personality.
Robert Nordlund (19:44):
The every board has a
personality made up ofa bunch of different
people, differentcharacters. And we've
all seen the television dramaswhere there's good
cop, bad cop, thatkind of thing. Is
there perhaps a roleon the board for.
Someone to be thepeacemaker. So if this
person in unit number13, I was like to use
(20:05):
unit number 13 if theydon't like the board
president, maybe youdon't have unit number
13 owner meet with theboard president, maybe
you have the Member atLarge, who's the
smiling guy or thesmiling lady? And they
say, oh, you know,yeah, sometimes he or
she chooses the wrongwords, and maybe that
(20:27):
person can that kindof defuse some of the
issues. Sure,
Ed Hoffman (20:32):
if we already know that
there's a personalityconflict between a
board, a board memberor multiple board
members, and the ownerthat's that's
complaining. We're notgoing to try and sit
them down with theowner. We're going to
have different boardmembers. And I usually
want the manager inthere as well, because
they're, again,they're the ones that
(20:53):
are bearing most ofit. And then I offer,
I, you know, I offerthe board, I'll make
myself available ifyou want me there. And
most of them do, bythe way, interesting,
yeah, because they, Iguess, because I'm,
even though I represent theassociation, I am the
only one there withoutskin in the game with
respect to being anowner, right? So I'm
(21:13):
more of a neutralparty that way. I'm
not neutral when itcomes to asserting the
association's rightsand remedies, but I'm
trying to actually getsome sort of
conciliation to occur.
That's my function atthat meeting. And if
it's feasible, great.
If not, then we'reGuess what. We're back
to where we
Robert Nordlund (21:33):
already were. And I don't know
what your hourly rateis, but I'm thinking
that if a board has areal problem with the
person in unit number13, it may be worth a
couple hours of yourtime to sit down. And
I'm not gonna sayarbitrate, but allow
just the air to clearand make the problem
go away. Is that maybesome of the best money
(21:54):
they can spend? Maybe,
Ed Hoffman (21:56):
yeah, depending on the
situation and theother side of the coin
is, and I'll spend,like, you know, 45
seconds on this,neighbor to neighbor
disputes betweenowners, you know the,
you know, the fenceline and owners, when
owners, when they hateeach other, yeah, and
I've had really,really crazy things
(22:16):
happen in that, inthat area, But the
regulations under theFair Housing Act have
changed in a mannerwhere there, if
there's some sort ofdiscrimination alleged, then the
association likely hasa duty to at least
offer to step in andtry and help resolve
the dispute, ratherthan just letting it
(22:37):
go as alleged I've hadin the last two years.
And I'm not kiddingyou when I say this,
I've had three or foursituations where both
parties are accusingthe other of discrimination. So
it's like crossdiscrimination, and
you don't even andcoming in cold, you
don't know what'shappening. You don't
know who to believe.
Yeah, a lot of boardsdon't want to deal
with that, becausethey say, Well, if
(22:58):
that's not our business, it'sneighbor to neighbor
disputes. And I say,right, but when it
rises to the level ofalleged discriminatory
conduct, the FederalFair Housing Act now places some
responsibility on on the on theassociation. In fact,
I had a a HUD persontell me on a on a
(23:23):
conciliatory call,once your client is
able to send theviolations to people,
because the guy said,I read your documents,
and you could sendviolations to people
for for a trash canviolation, at the same
time, you're notwilling to keep the
piece there. And iteven says in there, if
things become anuisance or annoyance
(23:44):
for an owner, in thedocument, the
association shall XYZ.
And you know, the hubHUD understands it. So
here's the otherthing, though, that
takes to the tango aswell. Both owners
would have to show up.
And usually when weoffer this one says
yes, the other onedoesn't. And probably
(24:05):
60% of the time, maybe70, the other 20% of
the time, to 30, bothsay no, and then 10%
of the time they say yes. So
Robert Nordlund (24:15):
it is hard to get them in
the same room to eventalk it through.
There's a visceral
Ed Hoffman (24:19):
hatred of by the owners, and
that's never a goodsituation to have, right? Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (24:26):
okay, well, let's get back
to what we can do forour audience. Here.
You talked aboutcommunication, and I
think that, I believethat nature abhors a
vacuum, and so ifthere's absence of
communication, peopleare going to make up
their own narrative.
And so you've got totry to get ahead of
that. And maybe that'sthe standard things,
the newsletter, theboard meetings. Maybe
(24:46):
it may be the boardmembers intentionally
check the mail twice aday just to get out
and walking throughthe halls smiling. Can
you work those? Littlethings over and over
and over again, sothat you're starting
to bridge that gapbetween the board and
(25:06):
homeowners and makethe board members more
human, make them moreaccessible, get some
communication out inthe open. Because if
you who is it thatsaid, the only problem
with or the biggest problem withcommunication is
thinking that it hashappened something like that.
Ed Hoffman (25:23):
Yeah, and I get an association
realm in Pennsylvania.
By the way, we have noSunshine Law, for lack
of a better word, asit applies to Association, board
meetings. So we don'tboard meetings. Don't
have to be open to members inPennsylvania. We have
to, generally therequirement is under
our nonprofit Act andother other things,
(25:44):
like bylaws, you haveto have an annual
meeting once a year.
And some communities,that's the only time
that the board is seenor heard from
directly. Is at theannual meeting. We don't have a
requirement. And thisis the issue, if
people are, if the alot of the P A lot of
the people, they'renot happy or alleging
(26:05):
there's a lack oftransparency. Oh,
they're operating insecret. Yeah, right,
there's a lack oftransparency. However,
the law doesn'trequire them to have
open meetings.
Sometimes I nudge theboard, depending on
how many people aresaying it, while you
open up, 25% of them,four times a year open
up if they're meetingmonthly or and that's
(26:26):
up to the board todecide how it wants to
do that. I have boardsthat don't have a
requirement, and theyhave every meeting is
open everyone. I likethat. And I have well,
and I have other boards in somecommunities, it's hard
to get things done,though, when that
happens, right? And Ihave other boards that
decide two times ayear or three, but at
least they're openingthem up, and the transparency is
(26:47):
something that triggers a lot ofpeople, or lack thereof?
Robert Nordlund (26:50):
I was gonna say lack
thereof. Yeah, if youcan, the more you can
do to have it be ourcommunity and not the
board versus thehomeowners. I think
that's gonna go a longway to settling problems down,
releasing tension and real
Ed Hoffman (27:03):
quick story. I've had
multiple communitieswhere a person was the
squeaky wheel, complaining,complaining,
complaining. There'sno transparency. The
board's acting insecret. They're doing
everything wrong. Ithink there's illegal
things going on.
They're stealingmoney, whatever it
would be. That personthen runs for the
board. That persongets on the board.
That person then getson the board and
(27:25):
starts working withthe board and realizes
none of that is true.
And then I say to theboard and to that
person, wouldn't ithave been nice if you
were able to conveyall of this in a way
that everyone alreadyknew that there was
nothing nefarious oror, you know, going
on. If there was moretransparency, then
it's kind of like thelight bulb goes off.
Robert Nordlund (27:46):
Yeah, no, I think that may
be the gem of thisprogram right there, getting the
information out. Theboard, being
transparent. Say, looklike a magician does.
Look I got nothing upmy sleeves. We are
just volunteers tryingto run this place. The
bills are going up, sowe need the
assessments to go up.
I still remember, I'mdating myself. There
(28:06):
was a Seinfeldepisode. Where was it?
Do you rememberJerry's dad was down
in a condo in Florida?
Yeah? Del Bo gotelected. Yeah, there
we go. Got elected tothe board, and Jerry
Cadillac, Cadillac,Cadillac. Yeah, right.
The time was just sounfortunate. Kind of
last question I wantto try to bring this
to a close here on thepodcast, we talk about
the four C's. Theboards need to care.
(28:28):
They need to becurious. They need to
be courageous, and they need tocommunicate. Well,
does that capture itfor you? Or how? What?
What kind of words do you use tocharacterize, you
know, this board overhere, they're doing a
great job, because they are X. I
Ed Hoffman (28:47):
think all those attributes that
you, you brought upare indicative of a
well functioningboard, right? And, and
whether it's thosespecific attributes or
others, I think, Ithink the what makes
boards successful, ina general sense, is
(29:07):
due diligence,communication with the
owners to tell themwhat's going on, and
also foresight, havingforesight to understand what's
coming up and how Tocommunicate that with
owners what moneymight be spent big
projects. You don'twant to drop something
on them that a milliondollar project is
coming up just out ofthe blue. You want to
(29:29):
start a year ago ifyou knew about it,
not, not if a bridgecollapses in your
community from atropical storm or
something, which I'veseen. So that's a
different situation.
But that being said,you never want to be
in a situation wheresomeone, especially a
judge, is looking atthe board and saying,
What did you know andwhen did you know it
(29:51):
right when you'redealing with spending
other people's money,
Robert Nordlund (29:54):
good records, good meeting
minutes, all that kindof stuff, and having
that available forpeople to review. You.
Thank you, Ed, It'sgreat talking with
you. I'm so gladyou're able to join us
on the program heretoday. Any closing
thoughts to add at this time?
Ed Hoffman (30:06):
Ah, no, I thank you for for
having me out. Iwould, I would submit
that, you know, boardsand this, I guess the
closing thought, Iactually do have one
boards and managersshouldn't get
discouraged over this.
And I think, I thinkwhat, what they need
to understand is,there they can't be
(30:26):
called upon. They have a lot ofperfectionists that
serve on boards. Can'tbe called upon to be
perfect, but youshould be you should
be doing your duediligence as a board
member and fulfillingyour duty. And board
members should always,always understand that
there's help aroundthe corner, meaning
(30:46):
professionals, thestatutes and the
documents alwaysprovide that part of
the process is callyou know, if it's a
financial issue, callyour CPA. If it's an
engineering issue,call your engineer. If
it's a reserve issue,call your Rs. Do I get
the reserve studydone. Call your
attorney, rely on theprofessionals to help
you. Don't make alldecisions, and you
mentioned the vacuum.
Don't make all decisions in thevacuum, because that's
(31:10):
actually how you stayout of trouble.
Robert Nordlund (31:12):
I like that. Well, if
you'd like to get intouch with Ed, you can
visit his law firm's website athoffmanhoalaw.com
that's H O, F, F, M, an, H O, A, law.com and
Ed you said you practice inPennsylvania and New Jersey? I'm
Ed Hoffman (31:28):
licensed in New Jersey. I just
primarily practice inPennsylvania though.
Robert Nordlund (31:32):
Well, we hope you learned
some HOA insights fromour discussion today
that helps bring you,helps you bring common
sense to your commonareas. You think I
could get that right?
Well, we look forwardto having you join us
for another greatepisode next week.
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What we're seeing is the the
(00:02):
frequency of certainthings has increased
substantially, sohostility and just
negativity, directed,harassment directed
directed towards theboard or individual
board members and themanager. I mean the
managers, they're kindof taken the brunt of
(00:23):
of most of it, becausethey they're oftentimes the the
face, you know, that'sthere, that's the
managing agent for theassociation, and
they're the peoplethat deal with the
owners the most
Announcer (00:35):
HOA Insights is brought to
you by five companiesthat care about board
members, association,insights and marketplace
Association reserves,community financials,
Hoa invest and KevinDavis, Insurance
Services, you'll findlinks to their
websites and socialmedia in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:50):
Welcome back to Hoa insights,
common sense forcommon areas. I'm
Robert Nordlund, andI'm here today for
episode number 104,with a special guest
that I heard at arecent conference, and
I came up to him rightafter the program to
see if he could sharethat same presentation
with our podcastaudience that speaker,
Ed Hoffman, is anexpert in the practice
of communityassociation law, being
(01:12):
one of the under 200associate Association
attorneys in thecountry that have
their college ofcommunity association
lawyers, professionaldesignation. He's a
prolific author andwell received speaker,
and certainly he captivated myattention during his
presentation, and hepractices law in the
great state ofPennsylvania. I wanted
(01:32):
to have ed on theprogram to share what
he's learned fromworking with boards
over his years, andspecifically how
things have changedover the last few
years. We want to giveyou our podcast listeners the
understanding andinsights you need so
that you can creategreat communities.
Last week's episodewas number 103, and it
was an interview witha fascinating board
(01:53):
hero who's taken itupon himself to
minimize his southern CaliforniaAssociation's exposure
to wildfires. Thosehave been big in the
news lately, and ifyou missed that
episode or any otherprior episode, take a
moment after today'sprogram to listen from
our podcast website,www.hoansights.org or
watch on our YouTubechannel. But better
(02:14):
yet, subscribe fromany of the major
podcast platforms soyou don't miss any
future episodes, andthose of you watching
on YouTube can see theHOA insights mug that
I have here, got onecourse for me having
to do with reservefunding, which you can
browse through fromour HOAinsights.org
website, or the linkin the show notes,
(02:36):
you'll find we havesome great free stuff
there, like board member zoombackgrounds and some
specialty items forsale, like this mug.
So go to the merchstore, download a free
zoom background, takea moment look around,
find the mug that youlike, and email me at
podcast@reserveside.comwith your name,
shipping address, mugchoice, and mention
(02:58):
episode 104 mug giveaway, and ifyou're the 10th person
to email me, I'll shipthat mug to you free
of charge. Well, weenjoy hearing from you
responding to theissues you're facing
at your association.
So if you have a hottopic, a crazy story,
or a question you'dlike us to address,
you can contact us at805-203-3130, or email us at
(03:22):
podcast@reservestudy.comWell, this episode was
prompted by Dave fromPhoenix, who asked, in
our upcoming election,candidate statements
are almost what I candescribe as unkind. We
have two opposingfactions here. It's
not just the election.
You can see it in lessfriendliness as people
(03:44):
pass in the halls. Isthis normal? So let's
get right to it. Ed,welcome to the
program. And how wouldyou respond to Dave?
Well,
Ed Hoffman (03:53):
first I'd say, Hello, Dave. And
next I'd say, well,thank you for having
me on Robert before wereally get started
here. I appreciatebeing able to speak to
you and your podcastwatcher slash listeners. Dave is
absolutely correct.
And there's been athere's been a kind of
(04:14):
a shift or a seachange in how in it,
at least in myopinion, with respect
to civility and communityassociations,
especially over thelast five years. And I
know you attended thelaw seminar presentation, and
there I spoke andasked the ballroom
(04:34):
full of people, howmany people think
COVID impacted theindustry negatively,
and even to today.
What I mean, I don'tmean necessarily by
sickness, but I meanjust the shift in
mindset that occurredas a result of COVID
because of becausepeople were locked
down, and what we sawhappen in associations
(04:56):
was. Because peoplethat oftentimes you
never heard from, theyall of a sudden, were
active and werecontacting management,
contacting the board,because they were
there. They weren'tgoing anywhere. They
were stuck, and theywere complaining. I
shouldn't even use theword complaining,
bringing matters tothe board at slash
(05:18):
managers attention,where previously, that
person didn't becausethey had nothing else
to do for many hours aday, they weren't
commuting to work.
They could have beenworking at home. Not
everyone couldactually work at home,
right? So you had alot of situations all
around the countrywhere all of a sudden
there were people thatwere there that
weren't there before.
And what I mean by thebreak in in it break
(05:41):
in psyche, more thananything else, I think
that it shifted themindset of people.
They became more aptto to be combative and
aggressive when itrelates to bringing
things to the board'sattention. So what I
what I've seen morethan I've ever seen in
(06:05):
my career to date, inthe last five ish
years since the pandemic, is thenumber of recall
elections to removeeither a board member,
multiple board members, or theentirety of the board,
where we we wouldseldom see that. I
mean, I did. I've beendoing this a while,
and you would see itcome pop up every few
years. I was seeingmultiple of them
(06:28):
happening every year,sometimes in the same
community, which isreally, real, really,
yes, really wild, right?
Robert Nordlund (06:36):
So multiple, multiple
warring factions within the samecommunity, you
Ed Hoffman (06:40):
would, you would like to think
that that's not thecase, but obviously,
sometimes thedocuments are drafted
in a way that lead tothat, right? Unless
you change, unless,yeah, unless you
change the documents.
So, but, yeah, there'sbeen a situation
where, since since thepandemic, things have
really shifted. It'simpacted boards. It's
impacted managers, andit's just it's not I
(07:03):
don't think it'sgetting better. I
think the civility isactually getting
worse. One examplewould be a rise in
director and Officerliability claims
across the board. Youcould speak to almost
any, any specialist inthe industry that we
all, we all know thesame people who who do
this on a nationallevel, and they,
(07:25):
they'll tell you thesame thing, that
there's a massivechange in the amount
of DNO claims. And DNOused to be, if you
remember back in theday, it used to be
literally related tothe claims would be
related to the boardbreached its fiduciary
duty, meaning theyshouldn't have spent
the money they made adecision that impacted
(07:47):
the finances of theassociation. Now, a
lot of Do you knowclaims are being
brought alleged thatthe board breached its
fiduciary duty, andthen insert, insert
the allegation. Sobecause they are not
trimming the bushesthe same for my
neighbors as they arefor me or or trash can
violations, I don'tbelieve that everyone
(08:11):
else is getting everyone else isgetting fined for
trash can violations,but I am so now I'm
suing the board ofdirectors and the
association. You knowin the background, you
can we know that theassociation had 150
trash can violationsto 150 people over the
last couple years.
It's not just the oneowner, right? But the
(08:32):
allegations have shifted in theplaintiffs lawyers.
They're, they'rerepresenting them, if
they're, if they're inat the court level, are throwing
everything into thewind because it's a
fee shifting statute,right? So the Fair
Housing acts a feeshifting statute, and
if they they prevailon one allegation,
they get all theirattorneys fees. It's
been very interestingfrom a litigation
(08:52):
standpoint, and from afrom a General, General Counsel
standpoint, meaningseeing what's happening with the
elections and justgovernance in general,
and then thedifficulties that that
have occurred since,since pandemic.
Robert Nordlund (09:07):
Well, I've got a few follow
up questions. I'mimagining you've seen
a real change in howyour law practice has
changed, the differenttypes of things that
you deal with on anongoing basis. Yeah, I
Ed Hoffman (09:18):
wouldn't necessarily,
necessarily say thatlaw practice has
changed too much. Westill, we ultimately
still do the same kindof work. But what
we're seeing is thethe the frequency of
certain things has increasedsubstantially. So DNO
claims have obviouslyrisen, like, like I
previously stated,also hostility and
just negativitydirected harassment,
(09:41):
directed directedtowards the board or
individual boardmembers. Can even
committee members,depending on what
committee they are andthe manager. I mean,
the managers, they'rekind of taking the
brunt of of most of itbecause they. There,
oftentimes the theface, you know, that's
(10:02):
there, that's themanaging agent for the
association, andthey're the people
that deal with theowners the most So,
and I'm seeing managea good managers leaving, either
leaving that locationand asking to be
reassigned, if theywere the larger
management company, ifit's feasible or, or,
um, quitting that,that management
(10:24):
company and going toanother one, hoping
that there's a bettergig for them, right,
greener pasture, yeah.
Or, I've seen this.
I've seen this nowmore over the last few
years, leaving themanagement industry
entirely, just leavingand going and doing
something else. Theirmanager is actually
staying in thecommunity association
industry and butthey're going with
other vendors andpicking up other
(10:45):
positions with them,because they're not
getting the day to dayabuse that they were
facing at times as a manager.
Robert Nordlund (10:54):
That's interesting. We are
getting some managers,nicely credentialed
managers, reaching outto us saying, Hey, I'm
good with numbers. Ilike budgets. Seems
like life might benice preparing reserve
studies. And now I'munderstanding why that
might be the case.
They've, they've beensitting on a fire and Robert
Ed Hoffman (11:15):
not all the time. I mean, not
every time, yeah, butI'm See, I'm yeah, I'm
seeing it. Some peoplejust want a career
shift, but, but I'mseeing, you're right,
though, but I'mseeing, I'm seeing the
fire is, is theproblem more often
than than it used to be? Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (11:29):
well, before we started
recording as we werejust catching up on
what's been going onlately. You also
talked about how hardit is on the managers
for a couple ofreasons. One of the
reasons that you saidthe board not supporting the
manager. What doesthat look like? What I mean by
Ed Hoffman (11:43):
that is, if the manager comes
to the board and themanager is actually so
the manager has twoboss ultimately, two
bosses at an association,typically, the first
is the board ofdirectors, and the
second is if it's athird party management
company, not a directrelationship, where
the management companyor the association is
employing the managerdirectly as an
(12:04):
employee, they would also have arelationship. Their
actual employer wouldbe the management company,
Robert Nordlund (12:10):
right?
The boss of themanagement company or
director of property managers,
Ed Hoffman (12:13):
yeah, whoever it is, yeah,
you know. So it'd belike the office, the
assistant to theregional director, or
something like that.
So at the end of theday, whoever the
manager, goes andreports the trouble to
meaning, I'm gettingharassed. I'm getting
abused people. Thisperson is scaring me.
There's too muchaggression going on by
(12:36):
owners coming into theoffice, the board has
to listen to that, andthe board has to
escalate that, right?
And what I mean bythat is the board has
to Shut, shut down thethe owner who's coming
in and doing that. Andthen, if they were for
a management company,a management company
can't sit on its hands, and themanagement company
should support its ownemployee, and the
(12:57):
management companyshould take actual
steps to to help themanager. And I've seen
again, this isprobably in the last
year or two, managersgetting reassigned,
more often than not,to different
properties. And it'snot a fault of the
management company.
(13:17):
It's not a fault ofthe board. It's the
fault of the peoplewho are causing those
problems, and at leastthe management company
is willing to movethem somewhere, right?
But that that doesn'tsolve the problem,
because if someoneelse comes in, you
know, it's like afaucet keeps dripping
unless you put a newwasher in, yeah? So if
you don't fix thefaucet, it's going to
(13:37):
keep dripping, andthat's what happens
with with this kind ofthing, and the other
side of the coin isboard members leave
good board membersleave good committee
members leave thesevolunteer positions.
By the way, they'renot getting paid.
Basically, they say, Idon't have time for
this. And it's a fourletter word. It begins
with S, I don't I'mnot doing this for
free for this type ofabuse, right, or this
(14:00):
type of harassment,and I'm not sleeping
at night. I've heard,I've heard all of this
from people, andthat's, again, I
think, since, sincethe pandemic, I've I'm
hearing more of this Iever heard in my career. Folks,
Robert Nordlund (14:12):
you're hearing it. Hear from
an attorney who's onthe front lines dealing with
associations and Edyou've been doing this
for decades.
Ed Hoffman (14:19):
Yeah, yeah. I started off. I
kind of had theopposite upbringing,
as they as they say inthe industry, as most
HOA lawyers, Ishouldn't say most,
but many of them weredeveloper lawyers.
They were real estatelawyers, rep that
represented developersand were drafting
documents and and Iwas, I had the
opposite background. Iwas never really a
(14:41):
traditional realestate lawyer. I was
in the trenches getting hired torepresent associations, even I
wasn't their generalcounsel. I was getting
hired, typically byinsurance companies,
to come in andlitigate cases and defend the
associations andlawsuits. So I kind of
have the back that thereverse and then
moving forward as Idefended so. Many of
them, they for, asthey say, some, for
(15:02):
some odd reason,started to like me and
hire me, and the restis the the rest is
history. But, um, youknow, one led to the
other. It's alwayssomething right? I want
Robert Nordlund (15:12):
to talk about fixing the
problem, but I'mlooking at the time.
Let's take a quickbreak to hear from one
of our generoussponsors, after which
we'll be back with Edto talk about more
common sense forcommon areas and how
we can address theactual problem. Tired
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Robert Nordlund (16:04):
Now we're back Ed right
before the commercialbreak. We're talking
about how there's alot of problems out
there that arepotentially forcing
board members out,committee members out,
managers out, makinglife difficult for
them, and that's goingto continue unless you
solve the problem, theunderlying irritation.
(16:24):
So how does a boardbegin to touch that
irritation? And inKevin Davis's words,
lower the temperaturein the room, make
things a littlesimpler and easier there at the
association, so thetensions don't run so high.
Ed Hoffman (16:39):
So I guess the first thing we
should, we shouldbring up, is that the
reason why this is aproblem, and consistently is a
problem, is associations weren'tare not set up. We're
not set up, and stillare not set up to deal
with mental healthissues, right? And
mental health isdriving the bus on a
(16:59):
lot of what's, what'shappening these days
with this type of behavior. Soassociations are meant
to manage the propertyand manage the
finances, right? Thatthat's their, literally, their
entire function.
They're not socialservices agencies.
They're not they'renot there to to
manage, typically manage people,especially other
(17:19):
owners, you knowadults. The premise is
adults should beadults. So that's the
starting point. Andthen where you where
you go moving forwardis, as far as lowering
temperature, there's,in my opinion, at
least what I've seentime and time again,
and whether it's incourt or outside the
court or just meetingwith owners at an
(17:43):
annual meeting, ormeeting one on one
with owners in theboard, is there's a
clear lack of communication manytimes between the board and or
management and theowner or owners. And
what I mean by thatis, I don't know how
many times I've, I'veheard I just, I just
(18:05):
wanted someone to listen
Robert Nordlund (18:07):
to me, to be heard, to
feel that person, tofeel like someone cares. Yeah,
Ed Hoffman (18:11):
and there are two sides. Listen.
There are two sides toevery story. And a lot
of those three, yeah,yeah. A lot of those
people did, did havethe opportunity to be
heard. In fact, ourstatutes, most of the
statutes in mostjurisdictions, require
an opportunity to beheard if there is a
like a violationissue, and you're
going to find themsome states, I'm also
(18:33):
licensed in NewJersey, they have mandatory ADR
provisions in there.
Pennsylvania, we don'thave mandatory we have
voluntary ADR in ourstatute that was put
in however many yearsago, but it's not
mandatory. Somedocuments, and I say
probably 5% of the ofthe communities I
represent have somesort of mandatory, mandatory ADR
provision in theirdocuments. What I say
(18:54):
is, don't, don'toverthink this. If
there's no ADRrequirement, don't
overthink it. And thisis also assuming, by
the way, it's not ahostile, aggressive
situation. Yes, ifit's dangerous, call
the police. Don't,don't get in the same
room with people. Andthis is, this is not
what I'm recommending.
(19:15):
Doesn't deal withthat, nor do you ever
want it to be in thatsituation. Not your
job, but, yeah, butlet's offer to meet
with them. Let's offerto meet with them and
try to hash this outand and a lot of
times, boards say, Iwe don't want to meet
with them, because allthey do is harass us.
And I'm like, I getit, but maybe they'll
stop harassing you ifwe're able to talk to
(19:37):
them. Could be a pipedream, but guess what?
It's worked sometimes.
Let's talk about personality.
Robert Nordlund (19:44):
The every board has a
personality made up ofa bunch of different
people, differentcharacters. And we've
all seen the television dramaswhere there's good
cop, bad cop, thatkind of thing. Is
there perhaps a roleon the board for.
Someone to be thepeacemaker. So if this
person in unit number13, I was like to use
(20:05):
unit number 13 if theydon't like the board
president, maybe youdon't have unit number
13 owner meet with theboard president, maybe
you have the Member atLarge, who's the
smiling guy or thesmiling lady? And they
say, oh, you know,yeah, sometimes he or
she chooses the wrongwords, and maybe that
(20:27):
person can that kindof defuse some of the
issues. Sure,
Ed Hoffman (20:32):
if we already know that
there's a personalityconflict between a
board, a board memberor multiple board
members, and the ownerthat's that's
complaining. We're notgoing to try and sit
them down with theowner. We're going to
have different boardmembers. And I usually
want the manager inthere as well, because
they're, again,they're the ones that
(20:53):
are bearing most ofit. And then I offer,
I, you know, I offerthe board, I'll make
myself available ifyou want me there. And
most of them do, bythe way, interesting,
yeah, because they, Iguess, because I'm,
even though I represent theassociation, I am the
only one there withoutskin in the game with
respect to being anowner, right? So I'm
(21:13):
more of a neutralparty that way. I'm
not neutral when itcomes to asserting the
association's rightsand remedies, but I'm
trying to actually getsome sort of
conciliation to occur.
That's my function atthat meeting. And if
it's feasible, great.
If not, then we'reGuess what. We're back
to where we
Robert Nordlund (21:33):
already were. And I don't know
what your hourly rateis, but I'm thinking
that if a board has areal problem with the
person in unit number13, it may be worth a
couple hours of yourtime to sit down. And
I'm not gonna sayarbitrate, but allow
just the air to clearand make the problem
go away. Is that maybesome of the best money
(21:54):
they can spend? Maybe,
Ed Hoffman (21:56):
yeah, depending on the
situation and theother side of the coin
is, and I'll spend,like, you know, 45
seconds on this,neighbor to neighbor
disputes betweenowners, you know the,
you know, the fenceline and owners, when
owners, when they hateeach other, yeah, and
I've had really,really crazy things
(22:16):
happen in that, inthat area, But the
regulations under theFair Housing Act have
changed in a mannerwhere there, if
there's some sort ofdiscrimination alleged, then the
association likely hasa duty to at least
offer to step in andtry and help resolve
the dispute, ratherthan just letting it
(22:37):
go as alleged I've hadin the last two years.
And I'm not kiddingyou when I say this,
I've had three or foursituations where both
parties are accusingthe other of discrimination. So
it's like crossdiscrimination, and
you don't even andcoming in cold, you
don't know what'shappening. You don't
know who to believe.
Yeah, a lot of boardsdon't want to deal
with that, becausethey say, Well, if
(22:58):
that's not our business, it'sneighbor to neighbor
disputes. And I say,right, but when it
rises to the level ofalleged discriminatory
conduct, the FederalFair Housing Act now places some
responsibility on on the on theassociation. In fact,
I had a a HUD persontell me on a on a
(23:23):
conciliatory call,once your client is
able to send theviolations to people,
because the guy said,I read your documents,
and you could sendviolations to people
for for a trash canviolation, at the same
time, you're notwilling to keep the
piece there. And iteven says in there, if
things become anuisance or annoyance
(23:44):
for an owner, in thedocument, the
association shall XYZ.
And you know, the hubHUD understands it. So
here's the otherthing, though, that
takes to the tango aswell. Both owners
would have to show up.
And usually when weoffer this one says
yes, the other onedoesn't. And probably
(24:05):
60% of the time, maybe70, the other 20% of
the time, to 30, bothsay no, and then 10%
of the time they say yes. So
Robert Nordlund (24:15):
it is hard to get them in
the same room to eventalk it through.
There's a visceral
Ed Hoffman (24:19):
hatred of by the owners, and
that's never a goodsituation to have, right? Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (24:26):
okay, well, let's get back
to what we can do forour audience. Here.
You talked aboutcommunication, and I
think that, I believethat nature abhors a
vacuum, and so ifthere's absence of
communication, peopleare going to make up
their own narrative.
And so you've got totry to get ahead of
that. And maybe that'sthe standard things,
the newsletter, theboard meetings. Maybe
(24:46):
it may be the boardmembers intentionally
check the mail twice aday just to get out
and walking throughthe halls smiling. Can
you work those? Littlethings over and over
and over again, sothat you're starting
to bridge that gapbetween the board and
(25:06):
homeowners and makethe board members more
human, make them moreaccessible, get some
communication out inthe open. Because if
you who is it thatsaid, the only problem
with or the biggest problem withcommunication is
thinking that it hashappened something like that.
Ed Hoffman (25:23):
Yeah, and I get an association
realm in Pennsylvania.
By the way, we have noSunshine Law, for lack
of a better word, asit applies to Association, board
meetings. So we don'tboard meetings. Don't
have to be open to members inPennsylvania. We have
to, generally therequirement is under
our nonprofit Act andother other things,
(25:44):
like bylaws, you haveto have an annual
meeting once a year.
And some communities,that's the only time
that the board is seenor heard from
directly. Is at theannual meeting. We don't have a
requirement. And thisis the issue, if
people are, if the alot of the P A lot of
the people, they'renot happy or alleging
(26:05):
there's a lack oftransparency. Oh,
they're operating insecret. Yeah, right,
there's a lack oftransparency. However,
the law doesn'trequire them to have
open meetings.
Sometimes I nudge theboard, depending on
how many people aresaying it, while you
open up, 25% of them,four times a year open
up if they're meetingmonthly or and that's
(26:26):
up to the board todecide how it wants to
do that. I have boardsthat don't have a
requirement, and theyhave every meeting is
open everyone. I likethat. And I have well,
and I have other boards in somecommunities, it's hard
to get things done,though, when that
happens, right? And Ihave other boards that
decide two times ayear or three, but at
least they're openingthem up, and the transparency is
(26:47):
something that triggers a lot ofpeople, or lack thereof?
Robert Nordlund (26:50):
I was gonna say lack
thereof. Yeah, if youcan, the more you can
do to have it be ourcommunity and not the
board versus thehomeowners. I think
that's gonna go a longway to settling problems down,
releasing tension and real
Ed Hoffman (27:03):
quick story. I've had
multiple communitieswhere a person was the
squeaky wheel, complaining,complaining,
complaining. There'sno transparency. The
board's acting insecret. They're doing
everything wrong. Ithink there's illegal
things going on.
They're stealingmoney, whatever it
would be. That personthen runs for the
board. That persongets on the board.
That person then getson the board and
(27:25):
starts working withthe board and realizes
none of that is true.
And then I say to theboard and to that
person, wouldn't ithave been nice if you
were able to conveyall of this in a way
that everyone alreadyknew that there was
nothing nefarious oror, you know, going
on. If there was moretransparency, then
it's kind of like thelight bulb goes off.
Robert Nordlund (27:46):
Yeah, no, I think that may
be the gem of thisprogram right there, getting the
information out. Theboard, being
transparent. Say, looklike a magician does.
Look I got nothing upmy sleeves. We are
just volunteers tryingto run this place. The
bills are going up, sowe need the
assessments to go up.
I still remember, I'mdating myself. There
(28:06):
was a Seinfeldepisode. Where was it?
Do you rememberJerry's dad was down
in a condo in Florida?
Yeah? Del Bo gotelected. Yeah, there
we go. Got elected tothe board, and Jerry
Cadillac, Cadillac,Cadillac. Yeah, right.
The time was just sounfortunate. Kind of
last question I wantto try to bring this
to a close here on thepodcast, we talk about
the four C's. Theboards need to care.
(28:28):
They need to becurious. They need to
be courageous, and they need tocommunicate. Well,
does that capture itfor you? Or how? What?
What kind of words do you use tocharacterize, you
know, this board overhere, they're doing a
great job, because they are X. I
Ed Hoffman (28:47):
think all those attributes that
you, you brought upare indicative of a
well functioningboard, right? And, and
whether it's thosespecific attributes or
others, I think, Ithink the what makes
boards successful, ina general sense, is
(29:07):
due diligence,communication with the
owners to tell themwhat's going on, and
also foresight, havingforesight to understand what's
coming up and how Tocommunicate that with
owners what moneymight be spent big
projects. You don'twant to drop something
on them that a milliondollar project is
coming up just out ofthe blue. You want to
(29:29):
start a year ago ifyou knew about it,
not, not if a bridgecollapses in your
community from atropical storm or
something, which I'veseen. So that's a
different situation.
But that being said,you never want to be
in a situation wheresomeone, especially a
judge, is looking atthe board and saying,
What did you know andwhen did you know it
(29:51):
right when you'redealing with spending
other people's money,
Robert Nordlund (29:54):
good records, good meeting
minutes, all that kindof stuff, and having
that available forpeople to review. You.
Thank you, Ed, It'sgreat talking with
you. I'm so gladyou're able to join us
on the program heretoday. Any closing
thoughts to add at this time?
Ed Hoffman (30:06):
Ah, no, I thank you for for
having me out. Iwould, I would submit
that, you know, boardsand this, I guess the
closing thought, Iactually do have one
boards and managersshouldn't get
discouraged over this.
And I think, I thinkwhat, what they need
to understand is,there they can't be
(30:26):
called upon. They have a lot ofperfectionists that
serve on boards. Can'tbe called upon to be
perfect, but youshould be you should
be doing your duediligence as a board
member and fulfillingyour duty. And board
members should always,always understand that
there's help aroundthe corner, meaning
(30:46):
professionals, thestatutes and the
documents alwaysprovide that part of
the process is callyou know, if it's a
financial issue, callyour CPA. If it's an
engineering issue,call your engineer. If
it's a reserve issue,call your Rs. Do I get
the reserve studydone. Call your
attorney, rely on theprofessionals to help
you. Don't make alldecisions, and you
mentioned the vacuum.
Don't make all decisions in thevacuum, because that's
(31:10):
actually how you stayout of trouble.
Robert Nordlund (31:12):
I like that. Well, if
you'd like to get intouch with Ed, you can
visit his law firm's website athoffmanhoalaw.com
that's H O, F, F, M, an, H O, A, law.com and
Ed you said you practice inPennsylvania and New Jersey? I'm
Ed Hoffman (31:28):
licensed in New Jersey. I just
primarily practice inPennsylvania though.
Robert Nordlund (31:32):
Well, we hope you learned
some HOA insights fromour discussion today
that helps bring you,helps you bring common
sense to your commonareas. You think I
could get that right?
Well, we look forwardto having you join us
for another greatepisode next week.
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