June 30, 2025 • 33 mins
What really happens when an HOA board is recalled? Hear Helen’s story and the lessons every board member should know.
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What happens when an HOA board is recalled? In this HOA Board Heroes episode, we hear Helen’s real story about a recall the price of doing the right thing. Helen, a former board member, shared her experience dealing with the 2020 balcony inspection law. The association faced significant repairs, with initial cost estimates reaching millions. Despite the board's efforts to secure financing and a loan, homeowners resisted, leading to a recall election.
Chapters From Today's Episode:
00:00 The HOA Problem That Grew and Grew…
00:52 Intro to Board Hero Helen
02:11 What law triggered the conflict in this HOA?
04:15 Why did the HOA face pushback over balcony inspections?
06:20 What is a Master Repair Plan and why was it controversial?
08:04 How did the recall campaign begin and gain traction?
10:25 What was Helen’s experience dealing with the opposition group?
12:30 How did communication (or lack of it) fuel the fire?
15:10 Why did board members start resigning?
17:00 How did the association handle financing and reserve planning?
19:15 What was the turning point in the board’s support and leadership?
22:08 What lessons did Helen learn from the recall experience?
24:52 How can other boards prepare for similar challenges?
27:35 What does it really mean to serve your community on an HOA board?
30:45 What advice does Helen offer to future board members?
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.
Helen (00:00):
You're just volunteering your time, you're responding to
(00:02):
emergency calls, and you'respent, you know, all of this,
all of this stuff, it was veryhard to and it just and it just
grew and grew and grew until thepoint where they realized that
as long as the majority of theboard would vote to continue the
master repair plan, there wasnot much they could do without
just recalling the board
Announcer (00:23):
a regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members. To us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(00:46):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:53):
Welcome back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode number 112 with anotherone of the board heroes, we're
proud to celebrate. Helen is aregular listener and a former
board member who submitted hercrazy story, and it was indeed
crazy and fantastic, and wefollowed up with her and wanted
(01:14):
to schedule her on the programso we could share her story with
you. Well, I hope you enjoyedlast week's episode. 112, excuse
me. 111, with regular co hostand insurance expert Kevin
Davis, learning more fascinatinginsights into his world of
insurance, and that's alwaysgood information to have at your
disposal with insurance being aregular hot topic, with pricing
(01:38):
and coverage and just a lot ofnews about what's going on
there. So if you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episodes, you can find them onour podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, on your favoritepodcast platform or on our
YouTube channel. But better yet,subscribe to the podcast in
order to get every episodedelivered right to your phone or
(01:58):
mobile device. Well, those ofyou watching on YouTube. Can see
my HOA insights mug here, one ofmy favorite cartoons that we
have, and it's something thatyou can get from our merch
store, which you can browsethrough from our Hoa
insights.org website, or fromthe show notes. And you'll find
(02:19):
we have plenty of free itemsthere, like board member assume
backgrounds and some specialtyitems, like that mug for sale,
but you can get one for free. Sojust go to our merch store, pick
out the mug you'd like and emailme at podcast@reservesay.com
mentioning episode 112, muggiveaway, and if you're the 10th
(02:39):
person, we'll ship it to youfree of charge. Well, as you
know, we enjoy hearing from you,and most episodes are in
response to a topic that you'verecommended. So do stay in
contact, letting us know whatquestions you have, topics that
you'd like to hear more about,or some of your crazy stories,
and so leave us a voicemail at80520331301, 33130, leave a
(03:03):
comment on the YouTube video orsend us an email at
podcast@reservestudy.com, butback to today's episode. I've
built it as a crazy story, butit's really not a crazy story.
It's a real story. And Helen,and I'll use just her first name
here because of the story you'reabout to hear she's been a board
member for 15 years at herlarge, over 200 unit Southern
(03:26):
California condo association.
Just the basics about herassociation, they have a five
member board, and they have onsite professional management.
They made it through COVID,okay, but their association had
an adverse reaction to thebalcony inspection requirement
here in California, that law foryour information went into
effect in 2020 it required anycondo association with three
(03:49):
units or more, with any exteriorstructural wood elements
supporting humans. So thinkbalconies and decks and stairs
and things like that more thansix feet above the ground.
Safety ideal to have aninspection at least every nine
years, with the first inspectionrequired prior to December 31
2024, so first inspection wassupposed to be done just a few
(04:12):
months ago. Now, from my pointof view, as a reserve study
provider, It all sounded like apretty reasonable law with a
five year implementation timeperiod. And we were aware of
that because that legislationpassed largely in response to a
2015 balcony collapse inBerkeley, California that killed
(04:33):
six people. So the law went toplace in 20/21 Inspection
required before the end of 2024and Helen, again, I said, it
sounds reasonable to me, butwhat started to happen at your
association because of thatbalcony inspection requirement?
Helen (04:50):
Yeah, we were notified about the new law by our
property management company. Begreat about letting us know what
was coming down. Down the pike.
We thought that we should reallyjump on these inspections. Yeah,
we were thinking, Okay, everyonehad to do this. It's a state
mandate. Every InspectionCompany in the state is about to
(05:11):
get very busy. So let's, let'sget on this very quickly. So we,
we scheduled our inspectionsfirst. We scheduled some
inspections of the load bearingelements, so the inside of the
balconies, the inside of thestairwells, and that required
drilling some holes. So itrequired some coordination. It
took, it took a lot longer thanwe realized. The company did a
(05:33):
third of our balconies, kind ofat random, and then extrapolated
those results to say, well, youknow, we've seen pretty much
everything looks the same thatwe've opened up. So we can kind
of say was with confidence thatprobably the rest of the of the
complex is going to look thesame. We had another company
come in and look at thewaterproofing. They said, yes,
(05:54):
your waterproofing is old, whichis no surprise, because your
building is old and the watchproofing hasn't been replaced
for you know, across the complexand individual balconies may
have been worked on for variousreasons, but big, complex and we
just didn't have all of thatdone. So basically, two
companies said, you know, whatwe recommend at this point is
that you come up with a masterrepair plan. At the time, I did
(06:16):
not know what that was, but nowI have learned that it's just a
coordinated plan where, if youhave a large complex, a lot of
different balconies and stairs,and they all need pretty much
the same types of repair, thenit's a way of coordinating those
repairs, making sure you haveall the plans and the permits in
(06:37):
place. So by the time you hirethe contractor. Then the
contractor can pull all thepermits that they need or that
they might need. So once theystart the work, maybe they open
up a balcony. It needs oneparticular kind of repair.
They're ready to go. They've gotthe permits. Another balcony
might have need a bit moresignificant repair. So they it's
kind of a way to coordinate, away to organize. So they walked
(06:59):
us through that process. Theysaid, Yeah, we'll do we'll get
the plans, we'll get thepermits, we will then you'll go
out to bid. We'll get acontractor. You'll choose a
contractor, and then thecontractor, by that time, will
have all the permits ready forthem to to do the work.
Robert Nordlund (07:17):
That sounds pretty much like a normal
process. Now, you said an olderbuilding.
Helen (07:21):
Tell me how old it was built in 1971
Robert Nordlund (07:24):
Okay, and I'm guessing this is probably 2021
or 2022 so we're talking in 50years and so not surprising,
that's a 50 year old buildingwith some wood structural
elements. This is SouthernCalifornia. So was it original
siding and a lot of originaltype things, yeah,
Helen (07:41):
mostly original siding.
Yeah, we've it was a mixture.
But for the balconies and thestairs that were being
inspected, most of it wasoriginal.
Robert Nordlund (07:51):
Okay, so you weren't really all that
surprised that they were findingthat. Yeah, this looks like a 50
year old building that's gotsome things to do. Okay? So then
you got the inspection done,then they went through the
permit process, you got somebids. And tell me what? What was
that kind of number?
Helen (08:10):
We didn't get to the bidding stage. What we did was
we got the the engineerrecommended that we also start
working on financing early,because he said it can take a
long time to get financing inplace. At the same time that
they're working on the plans andthe permits, we could also start
working on the financing so thatall the pieces would come
together kind of in the sametime frame, and we one thing
(08:32):
wouldn't be held up on anotherthing. But the what we did was
we got rough cost estimates justfor the purposes of informing
the financing. And so theengineer contacted a contract.
Contractor who just had a very,kind of, just took a sort of
overview of the project, gotsome very basic details, and
said, you're probably lookingat, you know, this. And he gave
(08:53):
us a number, and it was, youknow, a big, a big number. So
we're like, okay, yeah, millionsof dollars. So like, okay,
that's and so we then we movedon to start it, to work on how
we were going to raise thatamount of money, because it was
a lot more than we had in ourvisit,
Robert Nordlund (09:08):
because your reserves are for classically
painting and roofing and asphaltand things like that, and not
fixing siding and fixingbalconies and 50 year old
retrofit type things. Okay, soyou started thinking, you know,
there's going to be this muchmoney. Were you thinking special
assessment? Were you thinkingloan? What, what wheels were
(09:30):
moving?
Helen (09:30):
We thought special assessment was going to be
inevitable because we didn'thave the money in our reserves,
but because our reserves were infairly good shape. Could have
been better, could have beenworse. So the plan was to get
the loan to pay the work andthen we would special assess
(09:51):
people to pay back the loan. Thebenefit to the homeowners would
be that, in that case, theycould pay a. Over a much more
extended period of time than ifwe just special assessed them.
The special assessment wouldhave been just a would have been
in a much shorter time frame,have been much more burdensome,
but the loan, we could spreadout over five to 10 years, and
then, even though it's still alot of money, it would spread it
(10:14):
out and kind of make the best ofa bad situation kind of thing.
We were in good shape to get aloan. We were even pre approved
to get a loan because of thestrength of our financials and
our reserve funding. Yeah. Sothat's, and that's kind of where
we where we got to,
Robert Nordlund (10:32):
yeah. And then you're communicating this to the
homeowners, that there's thisnew law, and that's why people
are drilling into some places,and they're here legitimately,
we're looking at how we'redoing. I imagine you're keeping
the homeowners posted, and werealize it's going to be
expensive, so we'reinvestigating a loan. You're
you're communicating, right?
Yep. Okay, good. So then whatbegan to happen,
Helen (10:55):
there was a just a huge amount of, I think, probably
shock initially, and thenquestioning, and then organized
resistance to the plan.
Robert Nordlund (11:08):
When I see a building, I can tell a new
building versus an old building,and old buildings, like
everything in life, older thingsget tired, and older things need
more work than newer things. Arewe talking about people who
can't see the reality of thesituation? Or are they just so
(11:30):
tight, money focused that theyWell, yeah, talk to me about
that.
Helen (11:35):
Yeah. I think it just goes to people's expectations of
living in a condo, which I knowyou've you've addressed in other
podcasts. Their ideal is theyexpect to just pay the monthly
dues and everything else istaken care of magic and certain
magic, yes. And so any specialassessment just is a huge shock
(11:55):
to people, and comes across aswell the board failed, maybe
because we have to have thespecial assessment. The special
assessment would have beensignificant. The loan repayments
would have been significant. SoI don't want to discount, like
say it was trivial. It wasn'ttrivial, and it would have been
a huge stretch for for manyhomeowners. But Helen,
Robert Nordlund (12:16):
without giving away anything, and I got my
calculator here. I should haveasked you this beforehand, what
was the potential size of thespecial assessment compared to
home value?
Helen (12:29):
So I would say, home home value. Let's ballpark 500,000 a
very, very broad ballpark, andthe special assessment would
have been around 16,000 if itwas, yeah, lump sum.
Robert Nordlund (12:47):
Okay, so we're talking 3% okay, so it's not
like this is gonna kill theirhome value, but we're talking
1000s of dollars. Okay?
Homeowners were taken aback,even though you had fed them the
news. It's one of those thingswhere maybe they were Hear no
evil, see no evil, think noevil. They didn't want to hear
it until it started to becomereal, and then they started to
(13:09):
push back a
Helen (13:11):
bit. We've been talking about this for a long time,
probably since 2021 when westarted having these
inspections, I think mosthomeowners didn't really pay too
much attention until there weredollar amounts talked about. And
so, you know, most, mosthomeowners, don't come to board
meetings. So they didn't really,they weren't really part of the
conversation, or they didn'tlisten to the conversation that
the board members were having.
Maybe many don't read theminutes that get emailed out of
(13:34):
the open session. So it so, Ithink,
Robert Nordlund (13:39):
I think you could, I think you could even
say most don't read the meeting.
Helen (13:42):
Yeah. I mean, we can speak, we can speak the truth
here. Yeah, yeah. I'm givingthem the benefit of doubt. Yeah.
It came as, you know, it's sortof like, Oh my gosh. This is so
sudden and and from the board'spoint of view, of like, we've
been thinking about nothing elsefor two years now, but from the
home owners perspective, it waslike, this is absolutely
shocking, sudden, terrible, justbig reaction that led to a just
(14:09):
a ton of questioning about, howdo you know we need to do this?
What does this law actually sayyou're not interpreting the law
correctly? The law doesn'tactually say we need to do
repairs. It just says we need todo inspections, which is
interesting, because we have afiduciary duty as a board member
to do repairs that we're awareof, you know, but, but looking
(14:30):
at the letter of the law, they,you know, they were looking for
something and said that said youabsolutely must do the repairs
that the inspector tells you youshould do.
Robert Nordlund (14:38):
Okay, let me.
Let me stop you, right there.
You have an on site manager,probably have professional legal
counsel, okay? And is this apart time divorce lawyer, or is
this someone in the communityassociation law field?
Helen (14:53):
No, they're in the community association law field.
And they also recommend that wedo the, you know, the master
repair plan.
Robert Nordlund (14:59):
No. I. I get that, yeah, and I'm assuming the
homeowners are, and I'mstereotyping now Google
attorneys, where they'll Googlesomething and, oh yeah,
Helen (15:13):
yes, well, and some of them are even in the engineering
field. Some of them are in the,you know, the legal field. So,
you know, architectural field,so, you know, everyone can claim
to know better than anotherprofessional.
Robert Nordlund (15:28):
But you used a key word there. You appreciated
that you were a fiduciary. Yeah,you have a responsibility to act
in the best interest of theassociation, and that's what you
were doing. You were confrontedwith the facts, you were
confronted with the law, andyou're moving down that path
thinking that, gee, and you saidfor a couple years that's all we
can think of, because we seethis big tidal wave coming, and
(15:50):
it is going to dominateeverything we do. You know,
forget patio furniture, forgetrestriping the asphalt. This we
got, we got a big guy here.
Okay, so what did that begin tolook like, politically or
culture wise, at
Helen (16:07):
your association? Yeah, so a very large opposition group
formed. I'm sure they were theystarted small, but then they
grew very quickly. They werevery well organized. They would
meet frequently on Zoom. Theywould put out flyers all over
(16:27):
the complex, all over thecomplex with things that were
just patently untrue about theproject and the way that it has
materialized. And they weredisparaging the vendors that we
were working with, implying thatthey were corrupt. I mean, just
(16:52):
as time went on, this, this sortof got worse and worse and worse
where, you know, implying thatthe board members were corrupt,
implying that the propertymanagement company was corrupt,
even the HOA lawyer was, youknow, everyone was in commutes
with everybody, and it must besome mass conspiracy, and
everybody must be in the pocketsof everybody else. And we're all
getting kicked back. We just gottotally demonized. And the idea
(17:13):
that any of us were acting ingood faith was just not, not,
not even on in the realm ofpossibility, in their in their
mind. So that was very hard, butit but the message was very
strong, and it it was very hardto fight against, because it
was, if you join our group, wewill save you from a special
assessment. That's like magic.
That's, you know, so, socompelling to people. If you act
(17:37):
in a certain way, we will saveyou money. And nothing we could
say to try and dispel the mythsand the lies and everything else
that they were saying about theproject, and nothing seemed to
be able to offset that promisethat if you do what we say, we
will save you money and you willnot have a special assessment.
Robert Nordlund (18:01):
That's a compelling story, even if it's
untrue. And again, I come atthis from someone who looks at
buildings for a living, there isa reality to building
deterioration that you justcan't fight. Now, in the
meantime, I imagine you're wellright now, the hairs on the back
(18:25):
of my neck are sticking up. Andfor a lot of our listeners, it's
thinking, Gee, that can happenduring this time period. You're
keeping your cool. You arehaving regular board meetings.
Are they making life justhorrible there at the
association.
Helen (18:42):
Yes, as time went on, it just got worse and worse and
worse. And just with the verypublic, the public notices about
how, you know, certain boardmembers were not acting in the
best interests of theassociation, which is a board
member, is a terrible thing tosay. I mean, it actually was,
was more more pointed than that.
But even if it will, if itwasn't, I think, just as a board
(19:05):
member, to be told that you'renot doing what you know, acting
in the best interests of theassociations, just when you do
problem, you do so much, you'revolunteering. You're not getting
any money at all, let alonekickbacks. You know, you're just
volunteering your time you'reresponding to emergency calls,
and you're spent, you know, allof this, all of this stuff. So
it was, yeah, it was, it wasvery hard to and it just, and it
(19:27):
just grew and grew and grewuntil the point that, yeah,
until the point where theyrealized that as long as the
majority of the board would voteto continue the master repair
plan, there was not much theycould do without just recalling
the board. Okay, that was likethe nuclear option. They went
option.
Robert Nordlund (19:49):
Okay, well, that's a that's a great point to
make, and that's a great time totake a quick break to hear from
one of our generous sponsorsafter we'll hear the rest of the
story from Helen.
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(20:22):
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Robert Nordlund (20:31):
and we're back.
Okay. Helen, so tell me whathappened next.
Helen (20:36):
So what happened next is we had a, uh, election coming
up, and in that election, theopposition group, part of their
campaign was telling people howto vote in this upcoming
election, with the goal ofremoving one of the board
members who would vote for themaster repair plan, so basically
(20:58):
switching the majority of theboard to be against the master
repair plan. Long story short,they did that. They rallied
everyone to vote a certain way,and they did that. And then
shortly after that, theyinitiated a recall election.
They told everyone to voteagain, how to vote, vote this
(21:19):
way, to pull off these twopeople, the remaining people who
would vote for the master repairplan, and we're going to replace
them with people who are againstthe master repair plan. And so
basically, they succeeded inthat too. And so now we have a
new board who are taking us in adifferent direction, although,
(21:39):
yeah, I think they may slowlystart to drift back to the
original direction, but we cantalk about that.
Robert Nordlund (21:46):
Yeah, I want to get to that. But the very
tempting story that, and I likeyour words, if you act in this
way, we will save you money.
We're talking 2122 23 those kindof timeframes that this is going
on, and that's either in COVIDor post COVID, when people are
maybe a little more distrustfulof the people in authority. And
so that's really bad timing forthis board. You've taken good
(22:09):
care of the property for a longtime. You've had open board
meetings. I imagine you have anewsletter. You regular have
board meeting Well, yeah, hetold me they aren't reading the
board meeting minutes, and allthrough this, you're trying to
do the right thing, but now, nowthey're the board. But you, you
put a seed in this conversationwhere he said there's a may not
(22:31):
be able to follow through withtheir entire plan, and that's
because you still got a 50 yearold building exactly, and for
everyone, everyone not watching,Helen's nodding her head
Helen (22:47):
absolutely yes, reality is reality. Let's
Robert Nordlund (22:50):
talk about the reality, because we hear about
recalls where the opposingfaction thinks the board is
stealing the opposing factionthinks there's kickbacks or
whatever, or they're wastingmoney on this. And the new board
comes in and looks at the bankbalance and realizes that, oh
no, I guess they weren'tstealing so this new board has
(23:14):
made a lot of promises, and theystill have a 50 some year old
building with some licensedprofessionals that have said, Do
you need to do a lot of work tokeep it good and safe? So what?
What do you start to see here?
Helen (23:32):
Well, as expected, and as they, as they told us that they
would, this group said, theopposition group said, If we
when we recall abortion. Theseare the things that the new
board is going to do for us. Andthey laid it all out, you know,
we're going to, you know, firecertain vendors. We're going to
cancel the master repair plan.
We're going to in. They just,this is our kind of, you know,
(23:52):
this is a policy statement kindof thing. And they're basically
working their way through thatlist. They have canceled the
master repair plan. They'reworking on changing vendors,
yeah, but we still havebalconies to repair, and they've
also made a lot of promises thatare going to fix all kinds of
(24:13):
things in the building thathaven't been fixed. So yeah,
they now they know exactly howmuch money we have, and they
they know what needs to berepaired, and they've that now
they have to figure it out.
Robert Nordlund (24:26):
Okay, did they promise to lower the monthly
assessments?
Helen (24:31):
No, no, they, they, yeah, they, they would probably
suspect that they need to beraised, you know, every year,
but, but not in to cover thesebig projects. Okay,
Robert Nordlund (24:41):
so the big deal was avoiding the big special
assessment, the big loan, notnecessarily we're going to take
our assessments down from 425,to 375, back in the good old
days. No,
Helen (24:53):
thankfully, everyone is at least on board with the fact
that, you know, there'sinflation and operating costs
increase every year. So. Yeah,that part, at least, is
understood. But in terms offunding these large repair
projects, there isn't really aplan, but, but, yeah, it's it's
interesting, because they seem,in a short time they've been in
(25:14):
their role, they seem to beaccepting now that they do need
to do balcony repairs, it's notjust an inspection. So that's
good. So they did, they do needto do balcony repairs that
they've also accepted that theyas part of a cheaper plan. I
think they were wanting tocherry pick some inspections
(25:37):
versus others, because we had afew different contractors
inspect the balconies. And theywere like, Oh, well, we'll,
we'll pick the the lowest, youknow, the cheapest repairs, and
we'll do those, but we won't dothe expensive repairs. And I
think now they're starting totalk about, okay, maybe we do
need to factor in all theinformation that we have from
all the vendors that inspectedthe balconies, and that's the
information we can't, we can'tcherry pick the information. We
(26:01):
do need to do, you know, repairwhat we we've been a form needs
to be repaired.
Robert Nordlund (26:05):
Well, again, I'm thinking it's a 50 some year
old building. And yeah, maybethe west facing ones catch the
evening sun, and so maybethey're a little drier than the
East ones, but you've gotdeterioration all around. And so
maybe you can stage it a littlebit, but the building is 50
years old, so you're starting tosee indications that they are
(26:29):
addressing the reality of theirsituation, and they are. Can I
use the word stuck between theirplan to avoid this big cost, and
the reality that they have everyinspection report that you left
in the file for them says thatthere's work to do.
Helen (26:49):
Yeah, interesting. So, so the, you know, the big the gap
is really how to pay for thesethings, and you can't always,
you can always spread out theproject to pay, to to lessen the
burden of payment. You could doit over five years. Yeah, yeah.
But even with the master repairplan that we had in place, it
(27:10):
was going to be a multi yearproject. So without any
financing, or without a loan,without special assessment, I
yeah, there's no way we we canreplenish our reserves fast
enough to cover these costs. Andin addition to all the other
reserve expenses that younormally have, you know, the
roof will come up for renewal,for repair, the other
(27:32):
waterproofing projects come upother yeah, there's other
repairs that needs to be donethat will need reserve funding.
So even if this was inisolation, we would have a hard
time. Yeah, and you still livethere. I do, yeah, still live
and own and have you gone to aboard meeting since the new
board's been in position? I haveYes. Just tell me about that.
(27:55):
Tell me about that. Yeah. Well,the new board is, you know,
trying to change the culture.
They're trying to do more thingsin person. Because we'd kind of
shifted to to zoom during COVID,as you know, many people did,
and then we were slowly kind ofgoing back to more of a hybrid.
But now the new board is wantsto kind of create community, I
guess, or at least that's what,yeah, have to have people come
(28:22):
together and to actually see theboard members all about all the
board members were, were thereat the board meeting in the in
the clubhouse, yeah, that, youknow, there's food and drink,
and it's a bit more of a kind ofencouraging people to come to
board meetings, which is great,you know, because typically
attendance at board meetings isvery low. So anything you can do
(28:43):
to incentivize it, I think, is,is great. So yep, that's, that's
the culture. Now they're tryingto change the culture we've
we've come through a lot ofanger and fighting, and so I
think they would like to try and
Robert Nordlund (29:00):
do some healing. Okay, good for them.
Actually, there was a timeduring our conversation where,
like I said, the hair wassticking up on the back of my
neck, but now I'm actuallyfeeling a little bit of sympathy
for the new board, because theygot themselves in a jam. They've
made a lot of promises, and it'sgoing to be really hard to
(29:22):
deliver and not be the new bad
Helen (29:25):
guys. It's hard to make these decisions, and everyone
wants certain things done andcertain things repaired, and
things that are important tothem, different amenities are
important to different people,and it's hard as a board
sometimes to to have to say noto some things.
Robert Nordlund (29:42):
Well, looking at the time, it's about time to
wrap this up. I want to remindyou or tell them my audience,
about this one resource that wementioned, Helen, you and I
earlier. It's a case study bythat you can get from the
community, associations,Institute. Cai. It's called
capital projects, a case studyunderstanding the connection
(30:04):
between financing,communication, meetings, bids,
project team and more. And it'sabout a big special assessment
renovation project for a highrise in North Dakota, I believe.
But a fascinating story. And ifyou want to read more about this
and add double your case study,because we've got one here with
(30:25):
Helen, you can get the $20 casestudy from Cai, and that's
another resource if you guys arefacing something like this at
your association, Helen, I wantto thank you for taking the time
to join us on today's programand tell your story. Any final
thoughts to share on your boardmember experience to share with
our audience today.
Helen (30:44):
Well, it sounds like a sad story. It sounds like a
failure. I maybe don't soundlike a board hero, but I do hope
that the story has been helpful.
It's it's great to be a boardmember and to just is very
satisfying. So, but it is hard,and it does take courage to make
tough decisions. So I'm justsending, sending, sending
(31:06):
courage to fellow board membersor out there, yeah,
Robert Nordlund (31:14):
we talk about attributes, great attributes for
boards, being that you care,that you're curious, you have
courage and that youcommunicate, and you were
talking about a lot of thosethings, and I just want to press
those buttons hard. We want tothank Helen for performing a
thankless job well, a job thatdoesn't reward you, even in the
light of her Association'scurrent change of leadership.
(31:36):
Not every story has a happyending, but I don't think this
is the actual end of this story,when the allure of low monthly
assessments or absence of largefees turns out to be a mirage.
Mother Nature and Father Time,they tend to find a way of
always winning. I expect itwon't be too long until the new
board realizes the challengesthat they're facing are exactly
(31:58):
the same challenges that Helenand her board were facing. So I
look forward to Helen actuallybeing re elected to the board. I
think it's associations acrossthe country that benefit from
people like Helen being on theboard, and get a few other clear
thinking homeowners with her,and I hope to be the one to
share that next chapter of herstory with you. Well, we hope
(32:19):
you gain some HOA insights fromHelen's story, and that helps
you bring common sense to yourcommon areas. And remember, if
you match our definition of abored hero, or know someone who
does, please reach out to us. Welove having bored heroes on our
program. Our contact details areprovided in the show notes.
Thank you for joining us, and welook forward to another great
episode next week. You
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You're just volunteering your time, you're responding to
(00:02):
emergency calls, and you'respent, you know, all of this,
all of this stuff, it was veryhard to and it just and it just
grew and grew and grew until thepoint where they realized that
as long as the majority of theboard would vote to continue the
master repair plan, there wasnot much they could do without
just recalling the board
Announcer (00:23):
a regular highlight of the HOA insights podcast is
our board heroes feature, wherewe dedicate one episode each
month to celebrate theremarkable efforts of HOA board
members. To us a board hero isone of the 2 million elected
volunteers who deserverecognition for excelling in a
role that often goes unnoticed.
Today, we're excited tospotlight one of these
exceptional board heroes andshare their inspiring story. If
you match our definition of aboard hero, or know someone who
(00:46):
does, please reach out to us.
Our contact details and those ofour sponsors are provided in the
show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:53):
Welcome back to Hoa insights, common sense for
common areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode number 112 with anotherone of the board heroes, we're
proud to celebrate. Helen is aregular listener and a former
board member who submitted hercrazy story, and it was indeed
crazy and fantastic, and wefollowed up with her and wanted
(01:14):
to schedule her on the programso we could share her story with
you. Well, I hope you enjoyedlast week's episode. 112, excuse
me. 111, with regular co hostand insurance expert Kevin
Davis, learning more fascinatinginsights into his world of
insurance, and that's alwaysgood information to have at your
disposal with insurance being aregular hot topic, with pricing
(01:38):
and coverage and just a lot ofnews about what's going on
there. So if you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episodes, you can find them onour podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, on your favoritepodcast platform or on our
YouTube channel. But better yet,subscribe to the podcast in
order to get every episodedelivered right to your phone or
(01:58):
mobile device. Well, those ofyou watching on YouTube. Can see
my HOA insights mug here, one ofmy favorite cartoons that we
have, and it's something thatyou can get from our merch
store, which you can browsethrough from our Hoa
insights.org website, or fromthe show notes. And you'll find
(02:19):
we have plenty of free itemsthere, like board member assume
backgrounds and some specialtyitems, like that mug for sale,
but you can get one for free. Sojust go to our merch store, pick
out the mug you'd like and emailme at podcast@reservesay.com
mentioning episode 112, muggiveaway, and if you're the 10th
(02:39):
person, we'll ship it to youfree of charge. Well, as you
know, we enjoy hearing from you,and most episodes are in
response to a topic that you'verecommended. So do stay in
contact, letting us know whatquestions you have, topics that
you'd like to hear more about,or some of your crazy stories,
and so leave us a voicemail at80520331301, 33130, leave a
(03:03):
comment on the YouTube video orsend us an email at
podcast@reservestudy.com, butback to today's episode. I've
built it as a crazy story, butit's really not a crazy story.
It's a real story. And Helen,and I'll use just her first name
here because of the story you'reabout to hear she's been a board
member for 15 years at herlarge, over 200 unit Southern
(03:26):
California condo association.
Just the basics about herassociation, they have a five
member board, and they have onsite professional management.
They made it through COVID,okay, but their association had
an adverse reaction to thebalcony inspection requirement
here in California, that law foryour information went into
effect in 2020 it required anycondo association with three
(03:49):
units or more, with any exteriorstructural wood elements
supporting humans. So thinkbalconies and decks and stairs
and things like that more thansix feet above the ground.
Safety ideal to have aninspection at least every nine
years, with the first inspectionrequired prior to December 31
2024, so first inspection wassupposed to be done just a few
(04:12):
months ago. Now, from my pointof view, as a reserve study
provider, It all sounded like apretty reasonable law with a
five year implementation timeperiod. And we were aware of
that because that legislationpassed largely in response to a
2015 balcony collapse inBerkeley, California that killed
(04:33):
six people. So the law went toplace in 20/21 Inspection
required before the end of 2024and Helen, again, I said, it
sounds reasonable to me, butwhat started to happen at your
association because of thatbalcony inspection requirement?
Helen (04:50):
Yeah, we were notified about the new law by our
property management company. Begreat about letting us know what
was coming down. Down the pike.
We thought that we should reallyjump on these inspections. Yeah,
we were thinking, Okay, everyonehad to do this. It's a state
mandate. Every InspectionCompany in the state is about to
(05:11):
get very busy. So let's, let'sget on this very quickly. So we,
we scheduled our inspectionsfirst. We scheduled some
inspections of the load bearingelements, so the inside of the
balconies, the inside of thestairwells, and that required
drilling some holes. So itrequired some coordination. It
took, it took a lot longer thanwe realized. The company did a
(05:33):
third of our balconies, kind ofat random, and then extrapolated
those results to say, well, youknow, we've seen pretty much
everything looks the same thatwe've opened up. So we can kind
of say was with confidence thatprobably the rest of the of the
complex is going to look thesame. We had another company
come in and look at thewaterproofing. They said, yes,
(05:54):
your waterproofing is old, whichis no surprise, because your
building is old and the watchproofing hasn't been replaced
for you know, across the complexand individual balconies may
have been worked on for variousreasons, but big, complex and we
just didn't have all of thatdone. So basically, two
companies said, you know, whatwe recommend at this point is
that you come up with a masterrepair plan. At the time, I did
(06:16):
not know what that was, but nowI have learned that it's just a
coordinated plan where, if youhave a large complex, a lot of
different balconies and stairs,and they all need pretty much
the same types of repair, thenit's a way of coordinating those
repairs, making sure you haveall the plans and the permits in
(06:37):
place. So by the time you hirethe contractor. Then the
contractor can pull all thepermits that they need or that
they might need. So once theystart the work, maybe they open
up a balcony. It needs oneparticular kind of repair.
They're ready to go. They've gotthe permits. Another balcony
might have need a bit moresignificant repair. So they it's
kind of a way to coordinate, away to organize. So they walked
(06:59):
us through that process. Theysaid, Yeah, we'll do we'll get
the plans, we'll get thepermits, we will then you'll go
out to bid. We'll get acontractor. You'll choose a
contractor, and then thecontractor, by that time, will
have all the permits ready forthem to to do the work.
Robert Nordlund (07:17):
That sounds pretty much like a normal
process. Now, you said an olderbuilding.
Helen (07:21):
Tell me how old it was built in 1971
Robert Nordlund (07:24):
Okay, and I'm guessing this is probably 2021
or 2022 so we're talking in 50years and so not surprising,
that's a 50 year old buildingwith some wood structural
elements. This is SouthernCalifornia. So was it original
siding and a lot of originaltype things, yeah,
Helen (07:41):
mostly original siding.
Yeah, we've it was a mixture.
But for the balconies and thestairs that were being
inspected, most of it wasoriginal.
Robert Nordlund (07:51):
Okay, so you weren't really all that
surprised that they were findingthat. Yeah, this looks like a 50
year old building that's gotsome things to do. Okay? So then
you got the inspection done,then they went through the
permit process, you got somebids. And tell me what? What was
that kind of number?
Helen (08:10):
We didn't get to the bidding stage. What we did was
we got the the engineerrecommended that we also start
working on financing early,because he said it can take a
long time to get financing inplace. At the same time that
they're working on the plans andthe permits, we could also start
working on the financing so thatall the pieces would come
together kind of in the sametime frame, and we one thing
(08:32):
wouldn't be held up on anotherthing. But the what we did was
we got rough cost estimates justfor the purposes of informing
the financing. And so theengineer contacted a contract.
Contractor who just had a very,kind of, just took a sort of
overview of the project, gotsome very basic details, and
said, you're probably lookingat, you know, this. And he gave
(08:53):
us a number, and it was, youknow, a big, a big number. So
we're like, okay, yeah, millionsof dollars. So like, okay,
that's and so we then we movedon to start it, to work on how
we were going to raise thatamount of money, because it was
a lot more than we had in ourvisit,
Robert Nordlund (09:08):
because your reserves are for classically
painting and roofing and asphaltand things like that, and not
fixing siding and fixingbalconies and 50 year old
retrofit type things. Okay, soyou started thinking, you know,
there's going to be this muchmoney. Were you thinking special
assessment? Were you thinkingloan? What, what wheels were
(09:30):
moving?
Helen (09:30):
We thought special assessment was going to be
inevitable because we didn'thave the money in our reserves,
but because our reserves were infairly good shape. Could have
been better, could have beenworse. So the plan was to get
the loan to pay the work andthen we would special assess
(09:51):
people to pay back the loan. Thebenefit to the homeowners would
be that, in that case, theycould pay a. Over a much more
extended period of time than ifwe just special assessed them.
The special assessment wouldhave been just a would have been
in a much shorter time frame,have been much more burdensome,
but the loan, we could spreadout over five to 10 years, and
then, even though it's still alot of money, it would spread it
(10:14):
out and kind of make the best ofa bad situation kind of thing.
We were in good shape to get aloan. We were even pre approved
to get a loan because of thestrength of our financials and
our reserve funding. Yeah. Sothat's, and that's kind of where
we where we got to,
Robert Nordlund (10:32):
yeah. And then you're communicating this to the
homeowners, that there's thisnew law, and that's why people
are drilling into some places,and they're here legitimately,
we're looking at how we'redoing. I imagine you're keeping
the homeowners posted, and werealize it's going to be
expensive, so we'reinvestigating a loan. You're
you're communicating, right?
Yep. Okay, good. So then whatbegan to happen,
Helen (10:55):
there was a just a huge amount of, I think, probably
shock initially, and thenquestioning, and then organized
resistance to the plan.
Robert Nordlund (11:08):
When I see a building, I can tell a new
building versus an old building,and old buildings, like
everything in life, older thingsget tired, and older things need
more work than newer things. Arewe talking about people who
can't see the reality of thesituation? Or are they just so
(11:30):
tight, money focused that theyWell, yeah, talk to me about
that.
Helen (11:35):
Yeah. I think it just goes to people's expectations of
living in a condo, which I knowyou've you've addressed in other
podcasts. Their ideal is theyexpect to just pay the monthly
dues and everything else istaken care of magic and certain
magic, yes. And so any specialassessment just is a huge shock
(11:55):
to people, and comes across aswell the board failed, maybe
because we have to have thespecial assessment. The special
assessment would have beensignificant. The loan repayments
would have been significant. SoI don't want to discount, like
say it was trivial. It wasn'ttrivial, and it would have been
a huge stretch for for manyhomeowners. But Helen,
Robert Nordlund (12:16):
without giving away anything, and I got my
calculator here. I should haveasked you this beforehand, what
was the potential size of thespecial assessment compared to
home value?
Helen (12:29):
So I would say, home home value. Let's ballpark 500,000 a
very, very broad ballpark, andthe special assessment would
have been around 16,000 if itwas, yeah, lump sum.
Robert Nordlund (12:47):
Okay, so we're talking 3% okay, so it's not
like this is gonna kill theirhome value, but we're talking
1000s of dollars. Okay?
Homeowners were taken aback,even though you had fed them the
news. It's one of those thingswhere maybe they were Hear no
evil, see no evil, think noevil. They didn't want to hear
it until it started to becomereal, and then they started to
(13:09):
push back a
Helen (13:11):
bit. We've been talking about this for a long time,
probably since 2021 when westarted having these
inspections, I think mosthomeowners didn't really pay too
much attention until there weredollar amounts talked about. And
so, you know, most, mosthomeowners, don't come to board
meetings. So they didn't really,they weren't really part of the
conversation, or they didn'tlisten to the conversation that
the board members were having.
Maybe many don't read theminutes that get emailed out of
(13:34):
the open session. So it so, Ithink,
Robert Nordlund (13:39):
I think you could, I think you could even
say most don't read the meeting.
Helen (13:42):
Yeah. I mean, we can speak, we can speak the truth
here. Yeah, yeah. I'm givingthem the benefit of doubt. Yeah.
It came as, you know, it's sortof like, Oh my gosh. This is so
sudden and and from the board'spoint of view, of like, we've
been thinking about nothing elsefor two years now, but from the
home owners perspective, it waslike, this is absolutely
shocking, sudden, terrible, justbig reaction that led to a just
(14:09):
a ton of questioning about, howdo you know we need to do this?
What does this law actually sayyou're not interpreting the law
correctly? The law doesn'tactually say we need to do
repairs. It just says we need todo inspections, which is
interesting, because we have afiduciary duty as a board member
to do repairs that we're awareof, you know, but, but looking
(14:30):
at the letter of the law, they,you know, they were looking for
something and said that said youabsolutely must do the repairs
that the inspector tells you youshould do.
Robert Nordlund (14:38):
Okay, let me.
Let me stop you, right there.
You have an on site manager,probably have professional legal
counsel, okay? And is this apart time divorce lawyer, or is
this someone in the communityassociation law field?
Helen (14:53):
No, they're in the community association law field.
And they also recommend that wedo the, you know, the master
repair plan.
Robert Nordlund (14:59):
No. I. I get that, yeah, and I'm assuming the
homeowners are, and I'mstereotyping now Google
attorneys, where they'll Googlesomething and, oh yeah,
Helen (15:13):
yes, well, and some of them are even in the engineering
field. Some of them are in the,you know, the legal field. So,
you know, architectural field,so, you know, everyone can claim
to know better than anotherprofessional.
Robert Nordlund (15:28):
But you used a key word there. You appreciated
that you were a fiduciary. Yeah,you have a responsibility to act
in the best interest of theassociation, and that's what you
were doing. You were confrontedwith the facts, you were
confronted with the law, andyou're moving down that path
thinking that, gee, and you saidfor a couple years that's all we
can think of, because we seethis big tidal wave coming, and
(15:50):
it is going to dominateeverything we do. You know,
forget patio furniture, forgetrestriping the asphalt. This we
got, we got a big guy here.
Okay, so what did that begin tolook like, politically or
culture wise, at
Helen (16:07):
your association? Yeah, so a very large opposition group
formed. I'm sure they were theystarted small, but then they
grew very quickly. They werevery well organized. They would
meet frequently on Zoom. Theywould put out flyers all over
(16:27):
the complex, all over thecomplex with things that were
just patently untrue about theproject and the way that it has
materialized. And they weredisparaging the vendors that we
were working with, implying thatthey were corrupt. I mean, just
(16:52):
as time went on, this, this sortof got worse and worse and worse
where, you know, implying thatthe board members were corrupt,
implying that the propertymanagement company was corrupt,
even the HOA lawyer was, youknow, everyone was in commutes
with everybody, and it must besome mass conspiracy, and
everybody must be in the pocketsof everybody else. And we're all
getting kicked back. We just gottotally demonized. And the idea
(17:13):
that any of us were acting ingood faith was just not, not,
not even on in the realm ofpossibility, in their in their
mind. So that was very hard, butit but the message was very
strong, and it it was very hardto fight against, because it
was, if you join our group, wewill save you from a special
assessment. That's like magic.
That's, you know, so, socompelling to people. If you act
(17:37):
in a certain way, we will saveyou money. And nothing we could
say to try and dispel the mythsand the lies and everything else
that they were saying about theproject, and nothing seemed to
be able to offset that promisethat if you do what we say, we
will save you money and you willnot have a special assessment.
Robert Nordlund (18:01):
That's a compelling story, even if it's
untrue. And again, I come atthis from someone who looks at
buildings for a living, there isa reality to building
deterioration that you justcan't fight. Now, in the
meantime, I imagine you're wellright now, the hairs on the back
(18:25):
of my neck are sticking up. Andfor a lot of our listeners, it's
thinking, Gee, that can happenduring this time period. You're
keeping your cool. You arehaving regular board meetings.
Are they making life justhorrible there at the
association.
Helen (18:42):
Yes, as time went on, it just got worse and worse and
worse. And just with the verypublic, the public notices about
how, you know, certain boardmembers were not acting in the
best interests of theassociation, which is a board
member, is a terrible thing tosay. I mean, it actually was,
was more more pointed than that.
But even if it will, if itwasn't, I think, just as a board
(19:05):
member, to be told that you'renot doing what you know, acting
in the best interests of theassociations, just when you do
problem, you do so much, you'revolunteering. You're not getting
any money at all, let alonekickbacks. You know, you're just
volunteering your time you'reresponding to emergency calls,
and you're spent, you know, allof this, all of this stuff. So
it was, yeah, it was, it wasvery hard to and it just, and it
(19:27):
just grew and grew and grewuntil the point that, yeah,
until the point where theyrealized that as long as the
majority of the board would voteto continue the master repair
plan, there was not much theycould do without just recalling
the board. Okay, that was likethe nuclear option. They went
option.
Robert Nordlund (19:49):
Okay, well, that's a that's a great point to
make, and that's a great time totake a quick break to hear from
one of our generous sponsorsafter we'll hear the rest of the
story from Helen.
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(20:22):
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Robert Nordlund (20:31):
and we're back.
Okay. Helen, so tell me whathappened next.
Helen (20:36):
So what happened next is we had a, uh, election coming
up, and in that election, theopposition group, part of their
campaign was telling people howto vote in this upcoming
election, with the goal ofremoving one of the board
members who would vote for themaster repair plan, so basically
(20:58):
switching the majority of theboard to be against the master
repair plan. Long story short,they did that. They rallied
everyone to vote a certain way,and they did that. And then
shortly after that, theyinitiated a recall election.
They told everyone to voteagain, how to vote, vote this
(21:19):
way, to pull off these twopeople, the remaining people who
would vote for the master repairplan, and we're going to replace
them with people who are againstthe master repair plan. And so
basically, they succeeded inthat too. And so now we have a
new board who are taking us in adifferent direction, although,
(21:39):
yeah, I think they may slowlystart to drift back to the
original direction, but we cantalk about that.
Robert Nordlund (21:46):
Yeah, I want to get to that. But the very
tempting story that, and I likeyour words, if you act in this
way, we will save you money.
We're talking 2122 23 those kindof timeframes that this is going
on, and that's either in COVIDor post COVID, when people are
maybe a little more distrustfulof the people in authority. And
so that's really bad timing forthis board. You've taken good
(22:09):
care of the property for a longtime. You've had open board
meetings. I imagine you have anewsletter. You regular have
board meeting Well, yeah, hetold me they aren't reading the
board meeting minutes, and allthrough this, you're trying to
do the right thing, but now, nowthey're the board. But you, you
put a seed in this conversationwhere he said there's a may not
(22:31):
be able to follow through withtheir entire plan, and that's
because you still got a 50 yearold building exactly, and for
everyone, everyone not watching,Helen's nodding her head
Helen (22:47):
absolutely yes, reality is reality. Let's
Robert Nordlund (22:50):
talk about the reality, because we hear about
recalls where the opposingfaction thinks the board is
stealing the opposing factionthinks there's kickbacks or
whatever, or they're wastingmoney on this. And the new board
comes in and looks at the bankbalance and realizes that, oh
no, I guess they weren'tstealing so this new board has
(23:14):
made a lot of promises, and theystill have a 50 some year old
building with some licensedprofessionals that have said, Do
you need to do a lot of work tokeep it good and safe? So what?
What do you start to see here?
Helen (23:32):
Well, as expected, and as they, as they told us that they
would, this group said, theopposition group said, If we
when we recall abortion. Theseare the things that the new
board is going to do for us. Andthey laid it all out, you know,
we're going to, you know, firecertain vendors. We're going to
cancel the master repair plan.
We're going to in. They just,this is our kind of, you know,
(23:52):
this is a policy statement kindof thing. And they're basically
working their way through thatlist. They have canceled the
master repair plan. They'reworking on changing vendors,
yeah, but we still havebalconies to repair, and they've
also made a lot of promises thatare going to fix all kinds of
(24:13):
things in the building thathaven't been fixed. So yeah,
they now they know exactly howmuch money we have, and they
they know what needs to berepaired, and they've that now
they have to figure it out.
Robert Nordlund (24:26):
Okay, did they promise to lower the monthly
assessments?
Helen (24:31):
No, no, they, they, yeah, they, they would probably
suspect that they need to beraised, you know, every year,
but, but not in to cover thesebig projects. Okay,
Robert Nordlund (24:41):
so the big deal was avoiding the big special
assessment, the big loan, notnecessarily we're going to take
our assessments down from 425,to 375, back in the good old
days. No,
Helen (24:53):
thankfully, everyone is at least on board with the fact
that, you know, there'sinflation and operating costs
increase every year. So. Yeah,that part, at least, is
understood. But in terms offunding these large repair
projects, there isn't really aplan, but, but, yeah, it's it's
interesting, because they seem,in a short time they've been in
(25:14):
their role, they seem to beaccepting now that they do need
to do balcony repairs, it's notjust an inspection. So that's
good. So they did, they do needto do balcony repairs that
they've also accepted that theyas part of a cheaper plan. I
think they were wanting tocherry pick some inspections
(25:37):
versus others, because we had afew different contractors
inspect the balconies. And theywere like, Oh, well, we'll,
we'll pick the the lowest, youknow, the cheapest repairs, and
we'll do those, but we won't dothe expensive repairs. And I
think now they're starting totalk about, okay, maybe we do
need to factor in all theinformation that we have from
all the vendors that inspectedthe balconies, and that's the
information we can't, we can'tcherry pick the information. We
(26:01):
do need to do, you know, repairwhat we we've been a form needs
to be repaired.
Robert Nordlund (26:05):
Well, again, I'm thinking it's a 50 some year
old building. And yeah, maybethe west facing ones catch the
evening sun, and so maybethey're a little drier than the
East ones, but you've gotdeterioration all around. And so
maybe you can stage it a littlebit, but the building is 50
years old, so you're starting tosee indications that they are
(26:29):
addressing the reality of theirsituation, and they are. Can I
use the word stuck between theirplan to avoid this big cost, and
the reality that they have everyinspection report that you left
in the file for them says thatthere's work to do.
Helen (26:49):
Yeah, interesting. So, so the, you know, the big the gap
is really how to pay for thesethings, and you can't always,
you can always spread out theproject to pay, to to lessen the
burden of payment. You could doit over five years. Yeah, yeah.
But even with the master repairplan that we had in place, it
(27:10):
was going to be a multi yearproject. So without any
financing, or without a loan,without special assessment, I
yeah, there's no way we we canreplenish our reserves fast
enough to cover these costs. Andin addition to all the other
reserve expenses that younormally have, you know, the
roof will come up for renewal,for repair, the other
(27:32):
waterproofing projects come upother yeah, there's other
repairs that needs to be donethat will need reserve funding.
So even if this was inisolation, we would have a hard
time. Yeah, and you still livethere. I do, yeah, still live
and own and have you gone to aboard meeting since the new
board's been in position? I haveYes. Just tell me about that.
(27:55):
Tell me about that. Yeah. Well,the new board is, you know,
trying to change the culture.
They're trying to do more thingsin person. Because we'd kind of
shifted to to zoom during COVID,as you know, many people did,
and then we were slowly kind ofgoing back to more of a hybrid.
But now the new board is wantsto kind of create community, I
guess, or at least that's what,yeah, have to have people come
(28:22):
together and to actually see theboard members all about all the
board members were, were thereat the board meeting in the in
the clubhouse, yeah, that, youknow, there's food and drink,
and it's a bit more of a kind ofencouraging people to come to
board meetings, which is great,you know, because typically
attendance at board meetings isvery low. So anything you can do
(28:43):
to incentivize it, I think, is,is great. So yep, that's, that's
the culture. Now they're tryingto change the culture we've
we've come through a lot ofanger and fighting, and so I
think they would like to try and
Robert Nordlund (29:00):
do some healing. Okay, good for them.
Actually, there was a timeduring our conversation where,
like I said, the hair wassticking up on the back of my
neck, but now I'm actuallyfeeling a little bit of sympathy
for the new board, because theygot themselves in a jam. They've
made a lot of promises, and it'sgoing to be really hard to
(29:22):
deliver and not be the new bad
Helen (29:25):
guys. It's hard to make these decisions, and everyone
wants certain things done andcertain things repaired, and
things that are important tothem, different amenities are
important to different people,and it's hard as a board
sometimes to to have to say noto some things.
Robert Nordlund (29:42):
Well, looking at the time, it's about time to
wrap this up. I want to remindyou or tell them my audience,
about this one resource that wementioned, Helen, you and I
earlier. It's a case study bythat you can get from the
community, associations,Institute. Cai. It's called
capital projects, a case studyunderstanding the connection
(30:04):
between financing,communication, meetings, bids,
project team and more. And it'sabout a big special assessment
renovation project for a highrise in North Dakota, I believe.
But a fascinating story. And ifyou want to read more about this
and add double your case study,because we've got one here with
(30:25):
Helen, you can get the $20 casestudy from Cai, and that's
another resource if you guys arefacing something like this at
your association, Helen, I wantto thank you for taking the time
to join us on today's programand tell your story. Any final
thoughts to share on your boardmember experience to share with
our audience today.
Helen (30:44):
Well, it sounds like a sad story. It sounds like a
failure. I maybe don't soundlike a board hero, but I do hope
that the story has been helpful.
It's it's great to be a boardmember and to just is very
satisfying. So, but it is hard,and it does take courage to make
tough decisions. So I'm justsending, sending, sending
(31:06):
courage to fellow board membersor out there, yeah,
Robert Nordlund (31:14):
we talk about attributes, great attributes for
boards, being that you care,that you're curious, you have
courage and that youcommunicate, and you were
talking about a lot of thosethings, and I just want to press
those buttons hard. We want tothank Helen for performing a
thankless job well, a job thatdoesn't reward you, even in the
light of her Association'scurrent change of leadership.
(31:36):
Not every story has a happyending, but I don't think this
is the actual end of this story,when the allure of low monthly
assessments or absence of largefees turns out to be a mirage.
Mother Nature and Father Time,they tend to find a way of
always winning. I expect itwon't be too long until the new
board realizes the challengesthat they're facing are exactly
(31:58):
the same challenges that Helenand her board were facing. So I
look forward to Helen actuallybeing re elected to the board. I
think it's associations acrossthe country that benefit from
people like Helen being on theboard, and get a few other clear
thinking homeowners with her,and I hope to be the one to
share that next chapter of herstory with you. Well, we hope
(32:19):
you gain some HOA insights fromHelen's story, and that helps
you bring common sense to yourcommon areas. And remember, if
you match our definition of abored hero, or know someone who
does, please reach out to us. Welove having bored heroes on our
program. Our contact details areprovided in the show notes.
Thank you for joining us, and welook forward to another great
episode next week. You
Announcer (32:43):
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(33:06):
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the views and opinions expressedin this program are those of the
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(33:28):
about the community, associationindustry. You'll want to consult
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