July 14, 2025 • 34 mins
Is your HOA board facing homeowner backlash? Learn proven ways to rebuild trust & manage conflicts effectively during a crisis!
✅ Is a Reserve Study right for you? 👉 https://www.reservestudy.com/
Are you currently dealing with potential unrest in your HOA community? Julie and Robert share critical insights into what HOA boards must do when facing homeowner frustration. Learn how proactive communication, transparency, and direct engagement with residents can ease tensions, rebuild trust, and resolve conflicts before they escalate.
Chapters From This Episode:
00:00 How Do HOA Boards End Up in Crisis Situations?
03:15 Why Do HOA Communities Experience Cycles of Conflict?
05:08 What Happens When Good Board Members Leave?
07:29 How Did COVID-19 Amplify HOA Board Challenges?
10:15 What Changes When a Dissident Joins the HOA Board?
14:26 How Does Poor Communication Create HOA Issues?
16:12 Why Do Emotional Appeals Cause HOA Conflicts to Escalate?
19:31 Ad Break - HOA Invest
20:09 How Should HOA Boards Address Community Dissatisfaction?
21:35 What’s the Best Way to Handle Dissident HOA Groups?
24:52 How Can Transparency Resolve HOA Misunderstandings?
27:08 Can Proactive Communication Prevent HOA Conflicts?
28:53 Why Should HOAs Involve Trusted Community Members?
30:07 How Does Creating a Volunteer Pipeline Help HOAs?
32:14 What Encouragement Do HOA Board Members Need?
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.
Julie Adamen (00:00):
to come in and they're going to do things when
(00:04):
that agenda evaporates. All youboard members that are out there
who are the other board memberswho knew that couldn't happen,
you need to take that personliterally, rush in and give them
some other projects, because ifyou don't that agenda, vacuum
will just suck in there, whetherit's I want to get rid of the
rest of this board, or let's getrid of management, or fire the
(00:25):
landscape company. And that canall create you all those things
could create a lot of turmoil.
Announcer (00:29):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies
that car (00:32):
Association Insights & Marketplace, Association
Reserves, Community Financials,HOA Invest and Kevin Davis
Insurance Services. You'll findlinks to their websites and
social media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:45):
Hi. I'm Robert Nordlund of Association
Reserves,
Julie Adamen (00:47):
and I'm Julie adamen With Adamen Inc, and this
is HOA Insights, where wepromote common sense
Robert Nordlund (00:53):
for common areas. Welcome to Episode 114
where we're again speaking withmanagement consultant and
regular co host, Julie ademan.
Today we'll be talking aboutwhat we heard in Episode 112 two
weeks ago, in a board heroepisode titled An unfortunate
story. The truth is thatsometimes bad things happen at
your association. Now, from ourperspective, we've seen the
(01:14):
cycles that some associations gothrough, some troubled years
followed by some recovery orturnaround years. So neither the
good years or the bad years arepermanent. So if you missed that
episode number 112, or any otherprior episode, take a moment
after today's program to listenfrom our podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, or watch on ourYouTube channel. But better yet,
(01:39):
subscribe from any of the majorpodcast platforms so you don't
miss any future episodes. Andthose of you watching on YouTube
can see the HOA insights mugsthat Julie and I have merch, our
merch, our merch, yes, that wegot from the merch store. And
you can browse through thatmerch store from our Hoa
insights.org website or the linkin the show notes, and you'll
(02:00):
find we have some great freestuff there, like board member
zoom backgrounds and somespecialty items for sale, like
the mugs that we showed so go tothe merch store, download a free
zoom background, take a moment,look around, find the mug that
you'd like and email me atpodcast, at reserves, a.com with
Your name, shipping address andmug choice, mentioning episode
(02:20):
114 mug giveaway. And if you'rethe 10th person to email me,
Julie, I look forward to the daythat where we say the 50th
person, yeah, or the 100thperson. We're getting there.
We're getting there. That'sgonna be hard on the admin
staff. But if you're the 10thperson to email me, I'll ship
that mug to you free of charge.
We enjoy hearing from youresponding to the issues you're
(02:43):
facing at your association. Soif you have a hot topic, a crazy
story or a question you'd likeus to address, you can always
contact us at 805-203-3130, oremail us at
podcast@reservestudy.com buttoday's episode is what we felt
a necessary follow up to episode112 sometimes bad things do
(03:06):
happen at an association, and wedidn't want to leave you
hanging. So Julie, how doassociations get off track?
Julie Adamen (03:15):
Let me count the ways. Ah, good answer. There's,
there's so many ways they canget off track, but get off
track, they do. And just as youhad said earlier, is that it is
a cycle. It's always a cycle.
The association is always in acycle. There some really
terrific people come in, andthey manage the place very well.
They're engaged. They know howto deal with their homeowners
(03:38):
and the problems that come up,they communicate. Well, they
might have to do somethingunpopular, like raise
assessments, which, of course,puts the antenna up of all the
people out there who don't wantto raise assessments. And no,
we're spending too much money,and it kind of feeds on itself,
and for one way or another,whether the good people get sick
of it or it's just their time toget off. Then the people who
(04:01):
come in and want to do whateverthey want to do, whether it's
assessments or anything theagenda that they have, and then
the association kind of takesthat little down dive, and it
stays on the bottom for justabout as long as the rest of the
homeowners can take. It could betwo years, could be five years,
could be a year, don't know. Andthen they vote them out, and
newer people come on, and itjust makes the cycle.
Robert Nordlund (04:24):
Yeah, that's the election process. So again,
I've been thinking about this inadvance of our conversation, but
just some of the words thatyou've been saying, there is
maybe a happy medium wherethere's not too much trouble and
not too much success, becauseonce it gets down below a level
of tolerance, then you're goingto get more people that want to
(04:47):
run for the board and say, Hey,this is not good. Is it also a
little bit like the good boardmembers and the good years that
you were describing people doinga good job, they're lifting the
association up. And. That is aunstable situation where it
requires so much effort to keepit going. Or what's your
thoughts on that?
Julie Adamen (05:08):
Well, it can Yes.
I mean, that is onecircumstance. There's, like I
said, for the ups and downs,there's usually several
different reasons, or acombination of weird reasons, or
weird and not weird reasons. Butyes, so if you have a great
board, and I have, in fact, thelast time I actually managed low
these many years ago, okay, Ihad fantastic board, I mean, and
I was very blessed. I had afantastic board for four out of
(05:31):
my five years at that particularcommunity. I was on site Jim,
and they were just amazing. Andthen a couple of those people
kind of segue off the boardbecause they know they've been
on the board for five years orfour years, and they've got
other things to do, very normal.
And then the dissident group, atleast one or two members got on.
(05:51):
And you know, the fortuneschange, especially if you're in
the in the management end of it.
But actually this applies toboard members as well. You know,
if you're a good board member,and you come in and do a
fantastic job for two years,three years, four years, people
have a tendency to take that forgranted. They're, oh, man, this
is so great. And then after awhile, it's like, wait a minute,
how come they're not doing this,or they're not doing that? And
they must be doing somethingwrong. Or, if you're paid staff,
(06:13):
it's, well, why are we payingthat person so much money? And
all of a sudden, all thoselittle naysayers, kind of, it
kind of gathers up like agathering storm, and depending
on how the board reacts andmanages that gathering storm,
the board that's there can oftendetermine where the association
goes. And what seems to behappening now is, I talk to lots
(06:35):
of people in the managementworld, is that the board members
who are doing a good job, andthey're always getting, you
know, if you're standing upfront, you always have a
tendency to get shot in therear. The ones who are getting
shot in the rear are at thepoint where there's like, I
don't even want to finish out myterm. So it's become difficult
to find good board members,because the good board members
feel like they're not beingappreciated, and they probably
(06:56):
aren't. And I would say, as youknow, Robert, since COVID,
people have lost their marbles.
As far as getting they feelcompletely okay with getting up
in your face and yelling at youor cursing at you in public,
just doing crazy things. Even inour larger society, there's a
lot of it still is going on allthe time. And in HOA world,
(07:19):
who's going to come get you thecondo cops? Well, there is no
such thing, so there aren't alot of repercussions for that
bad behavior, so that that isexacerbating the cycle.
Robert Nordlund (07:29):
Well, another thing I was thinking about was I
also use the word COVID. Itseems like during COVID, we
started, started to have moredistrust in what the truth was
and who's telling the truth, andyou add that to social media,
(07:50):
and all of a sudden thecredibility of your honorable
people is more readily attackedbecause, oh, who knows a juicy
rumor, and rumor has no basis infact, but someone can say it, it
can get across, and all of asudden that person is now in a
(08:11):
place that they have to defend
Julie Adamen (08:12):
themselves. Yeah, those rumors have legs, and they
run right towards, you know, thetarget, the intended target. So
yeah, it is. You're absolutelyright. That was during the COVID
period. But then I thinkAmericans have lost so much
trust in their institutions forgood reason, in my opinion. But
(08:33):
that kind of distrust spillsover into the personal your HOA,
or the airline you're going tofly or or any kind of thing that
we normally would have trustedto do the right thing. And
unfortunately, boards get caughtup in that. The funny part is,
is that most board members, nomatter if they got elected on a
specific agenda, you know,whatever, so Well, I want all
(08:54):
the flowers to be white,whatever somebody's agenda. I
actually, I actually had someonewho ran on that, but she had to
walk it back. She was actually agreat board member. She ended up
being a great board member, butshe wanted everyone, this is in
Palm Desert, California, just agreat board member. But when she
first was there, she was alsothe head of the architectural
committee, and she wantedeveryone to plant only white
(09:15):
petunias on the golf courseside. Now that's 12 175 74 units
or so, so that kind of went bythe wayside. But boy, she had
it. But no matter what it is,it's, you know, you could be
doing most board members getelected because they really want
to do the right thing. It maynot be the right thing, really,
as far as professionals go. Andwe think, well, that's not
smart. But they really want todo the right thing, and they
(09:38):
feel they have a sense of duty.
Most of them do. I would saywhether they know how to execute
that duty. I you know, is up fordebate, but they they're trying
to do the right thing, most ofthem. Most of them,
Robert Nordlund (09:49):
well, I want to follow up on that, because the
lady, just like you said, thelady who had this idea for white
flowers, and you said that lateron, she became a good board
member. And. So what changeswhen you have someone saying, I
want to or I'd like this, andthey run for the board, and then
they get on the board, what thenhappens is it a matter of seeing
(10:12):
the facts, where they're finallyconfronted, really with the
facts?
Julie Adamen (10:15):
Yes, it absolutely. And I call that a
seat at the table of knowledge.
I like that because, because ofthe folks who, let's just take
the people who want to lowerdues. I mean, that's always a
big thing in Hoa, is where it istoo much money, blah, blah,
blah, and it can be or typicallyit's not, but they just because,
in this world, what we do is weare dealing with people's living
arrangements, their money, theirfinances and their home. So it's
(10:36):
very personal to them. And, boy,they sure don't see why we have
to spend all this money onwhatever. But they get elected
on a very narrow agenda, suchas, I'm going to lower dues by
20% or whatever it is. But oncethey have that seat at the
table, they often realize, oh, Ican't do that. And that you'll
see that happens in citycouncils and people who run for
(10:58):
any kind of office, we're goingto do this, we're going to do
this, we're going to do that.
And then they get in there, andeither they were lying number
one or number two, they realize,oh, I can't do that. And they
have to walk that back. Youknow, I like to give them a
little grace on that, becausethe you know, if a board member,
or if someone is running for theboard, and they are the lower
(11:19):
dues by 20% I would hope thatthe current board would bring
them in and sit down and talkwith them about the financials
and where we're at and why weneed to do, why they need to
stay where they are. I find thatI've seen that actually happen,
and I find that people who arerunning pretty much don't want
to know that information,because they've got their
(11:40):
they've got their platform andthey've got their supporters,
and they want to run on it, andthey'd rather deal with it
later, or they just won'tbelieve what's in front of their
eyes until they are sitting atthat board and they are a
fiduciary or trustee of theassociation, and all of a sudden
they realize, oh, we can't dothis. There's a problem there
for other board members andmanagement. What happens is the
(12:01):
person who had this big agenda,and they're going to come in and
they're going to do things whenthat agenda evaporates, all you
board members that are out therewho are the other board members
who knew that couldn't happen,you need to take that person
literally rush in and give themsome other projects, because
they will have a tendency tohave A lot of pent up emotion
(12:22):
and pent up energy about thatparticular issue. Now that that
has gone away, you got to focusthat energy to something else.
And I'm sure you have somethingin your community that needs
close looking at, or, you know,put them on the head of the road
committee, or whatever is comingup that's meaningful, but you
can channel that energy, becauseif you don't that agenda, vacuum
(12:43):
will just suck in something inthere, whether it's I want to
get rid of the rest of thisboard, or let's get rid of
management, or fire thelandscape company, you and that
can all create you. All thosethings could create a lot of
turmoil. So other board membersneed to be aware of that.
Robert Nordlund (12:56):
I really like that idea because I don't want
that to get slide on by someonecoming in, and they have great
ideas, and they know, andeveryone knows that they're the
new voice, the one out of fiveor the two out of five on the
board. And they're going torattle the cages. And if they
start to see the first month'sworth of bills and realize that,
(13:17):
oh, the landscaper really is$2,500 a month, the pool service
really is x $100 a month,whatever it is. And they're
like, Oh, gee, yeah, I guess wedo need to do this. The solution
is not to hope that they resign.
The solution is get them on likelandscape productive, yeah.
Productive, yeah, landscapecommittee or the reserve
(13:39):
committee. Get them preparingfor the roof project next year,
that is going to be $500,000start developing a list of or
the specs, all that kind ofstuff, yeah, but get them
productive. I love that. Andthen I want to follow up on this
idea of a vacuum. And we've allheard the phrase nature abhors a
(13:59):
vacuum, and you alluded to itearlier, that there will be some
good years, and I wonder if thatcauses some apathy among the
homeowners, that maybe slowsdown communication, because
everything's fine, and then thatallows an opportunity For an
opposing worldview to come in.
(14:22):
And the same with vacuum ofcommunication. Vacuum is a bad
thing.
Julie Adamen (14:26):
That's very true.
That actually happens if there'sif, if everything's running
smoothly, you know, people don'treally pay much attention to the
association because there'sanother or, you know, the dues
haven't gone up, or everythinglooks great out in the
landscaping and or whatever thattype of thing is. I packed I did
a I did a keynote. I was akeynote speaker for board member
retreat for a big managementcompany down in in the Coachella
(14:49):
Valley in Southern California.
And I had about 300 boardmembers in this room, and we
were talking about thecommunication vacuum, and then
we were all talking about how.
All the homeowners have becomeapathetic. And of course, board
members, that's always a problemfor board members at one time or
another. That's part of thecycle. Apathy is part of that
cycle. And when some guy raiseshis hand in the back, he said,
(15:09):
Well, we cured that at ourassociation, and I'm like, how?
And he says, Well, we sent outan email to everyone, tell them
we were going to raise the duesby 45% and they came running
into the annual meeting, andthey all said, Psych, No, we
just wanted you to attend themeeting we have. I don't know
that I'd recommend that toeverybody, but it was quite
creative, and it worked. Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (15:31):
that's certainly a way to get people to
a meeting, but I'm not sure ifyou want to. Was it? Cry wolf,
the sky is falling, one of thosethings. But let's talk about mob
action. I think we all have aselfish gene in our body. Was
it? Dale Carnegie said that thesweetest word is always your own
name. We care about ourselves.
We care about our self interest,and if someone is going to tempt
(15:54):
us with lower assessments orsomething that is personally
agreeable, personally favorable.
I think that's a human tendencyto be open. You know, let me,
let me hear a little bit more.
Let me hear your story. What'sthe human dynamic and that
getting traction?
Julie Adamen (16:12):
Well, I mean, it's, you're absolutely right
about the human nature. I mean,it's we are always looking out
for ourselves. I mean, that's nomatter what, we're always
looking out for ourselves asmuch as you try not to. When we
try to think of others and lookout for others, a lot of the
times, we're looking out for usand helping someone else helps
us. We're good with that as muchas we maybe should do it, even
if it doesn't help us, right?
But so that's just human naturefor the most part. And so when
(16:34):
someone says, I'm going to geton this board and I'm going to
make sure that we fire thislandscape company because, bah,
bah, bah, bah, bah, whatever thereason is.
Robert Nordlund (16:45):
I see their employees sitting on the yard
having lunch, and they'rewasting time, and we're paying
them
Julie Adamen (16:52):
that. We're paying them exactly that. Whatever it
is, it doesn't whether it's itdoesn't matter what it is, it's
how the pool didn't look good,or the snow didn't get removed
on time. Blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, all the same stuff. But if
you're appealing to somebody'semotion on that issue, it's very
effective if you say, well, thesnow didn't get removed for
eight hours. And what if therehad been an emergency and, you
(17:15):
know, your child was choking,and we could get the ambulance
in there. I mean, they can justgo on and on it, people will buy
right into that. It's anemotional appeal. It's, it's
very, what I want to say thatis, it's very cynical. It's a
very cynical way to operate, butthey do it all the time. It's
again, it's all human beings,and everything is politics. I
don't necessarily mean that in abad way, but it always is in
(17:37):
this world, in our world. Sothat emotional appeal, and then
you get people all riled up intheir emotions. Then they're at
the next meeting with theirtorches and pitchforks about
something. And that literally ismob. That's a mob coming after
you. And it does happen all youboard members out there, I would
venture to say all of you haveexperienced that at least once.
Usually it's a baloney thing,completely baloney. But
(17:58):
everybody's all upset about it.
In they walk.
Robert Nordlund (18:00):
I'm writing down notes here, and that you
add the emotional appeal to adistrust in institutions, and
the general raised anxiety fromCOVID. And it's a combustible
mixture. It is that fair thingto say? It is. It's a toxic
brew. It certainly can be okay,which is what Helen got herself
(18:24):
into. And it wasn't that,arguably, she really did
anything wrong. It was just shehad a toxic situation, or toxic
brew, and the opposing viewpointgot a majority on the board, and
she is in the audience, ratherthan being at the board table,
and it's very interesting. Ireally like your phrase now that
(18:46):
the board has a seat at thetable of knowledge and realize
it's a lot harder to work magic.
And I finally, I don't know if Itold you, I finally bought a
magic wand. I have it on myhead. I bought a bookcase. It's
on my bookcase. And so that'sfor people who say, Oh, we're
going to be able to take goodcare of our property and we're
going to lower our reservefunding by 20% and I say, Hold
on, just a minute. I go get mymagic
Julie Adamen (19:09):
wand. It's always a pen, not a wand, okay? Well,
yeah, I
Robert Nordlund (19:13):
asked them if they want to borrow it, because
that's what it's going to take.
Hey, we are at the midpointhere, and want to make sure that
we have time, because I want toturn the corner here. But let's
take a break here and hear fromone of our generous sponsors,
after which we'll be back withmore common sense for common
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Robert Nordlund (20:09):
and we're back.
Okay, there's a lot of thingsthat can go wrong, and they're
real and they happen. It's partof the cycles. But Julie, how do
you mitigate, how do youminimize, bad things going on if
you start to see them happeningat your association Number
Julie Adamen (20:28):
one, don't ignore it. If you see it, it's
happening because, and if yousee it, it's probably been going
on a little bit, you know longerthan you think, because they've
been having whoever that is, whohas that they've got that going
on in their head. And I wouldsay that I think a lot of board
members, you're a volunteer inthis job typically takes more
time than you were ever toldwhen you volunteer to be on the
(20:49):
board. So you're like, oh, godno, I think it'll be okay. Or I
just don't want to see it, youknow, I just want to have my
blinders on and I want to seeit. I would say, once you've
seen it, you truly see it. Youcan't ignore it, and you have to
create some sort of strategy totry to you may not be able to
stop the person or stop thecycle from kind of going
downhill a little bit, but youcan certainly mitigate a lot of
(21:11):
it. I was gonna say, treat itlike an iceberg. Treat it like
an iceberg, absolutely, becauseif there's one guy complaining,
there's 50 down below, or 10down below, you know, something
like that, way more than youthink. So you cannot treat it
like it's not there. It's it isthere. So what are we going to
do about that? Well, let's justsay, are they, well, Robert, are
they on the board or off theboard?
Robert Nordlund (21:30):
Let's say they're off the board. They're
the mob outside that'scriticizing the board. They're
Julie Adamen (21:35):
the dissident group. Okay, the first thing I
would do is, depending on thekind of group they are, but
overall, I think the first thingI would do is actually meet with
that person personally, or twoor three of them, and have them
sit down with a couple of boardmembers and have them, have them
actually commit to paper whattheir grievances are, or what
they think is going on, and thento the best of your ability, I
(21:59):
would share with them what youcan. Obviously can't share
proprietary information, but Iwould definitely give them, I
mean, if they Well, you know,this is costing too much, and
that's costing too much, and andthen you can say, well, here
were the bids we got for thelast landscape contract. Here
they are. They're not a secret.
In fact, the people are entitledto them anyway. And and give
them the reasons you did this.
Now, they may disagree with yourreasons, but you had reasons.
(22:22):
This also goes to the fact thathopefully, if you're bored, if
you have a professionalmanagement company or on site
manager, there, you have thesekind of records, if you are self
managing, you need to ensurethat you are keeping those types
of records for just this type ofsituation. Because if you
thought, well, I don't need toreally keep this bid from three
(22:43):
years ago. No, contrary, I wouldkeep that stuff for probably up
to 10 years, just depending onon your association and what
goes on there. So that's thefirst thing I would do, is face
to face. You know, people have atendency back back when I was a
manager that the property, I wastelling about the gala, wonder
do the flowers all white. Shewas a great board member,
though. But anyway, when I wasthere, we had people who would
(23:06):
try to, you know, they want todo that kind of thing. They want
to tell you, this is happeningor that's not happening. You
know, how you deal with that is,you just paper them to death.
You're like, well, here's whatwe did, and here's what stuff
was. Because we, I was reallygood about it. The company I
worked for at the time was verygood about keeping records, and
it was, you know, that you onceyou've papered them to death,
oftentimes they don't want to beinundated with it anymore, and
(23:27):
they'll just go, okay, orthey'll back off. But if not,
you know, you just have to keepcontinually trying to keep that
line of communication open withthose people. Personally,
Robert Nordlund (23:36):
what I'm hearing is the same things we
think about with reserves isthat people come to us and they
say, We're underfunded. It'sgoing to be hard for us to have
enough money for the roof or theasphalt or whatever. What do we
do? We say, Well, you need toincrease your reserve funding.
(23:57):
And they don't necessarily likethat, but that's the truth. If
they would have done that, thatwould have prevented the problem
that they're into. And hereyou're talking about meeting
with the person or the group,sharing information, sharing the
truth, showing them theinvoices, showing them the
proposals, showing them thegoverning documents. It means we
can't do this, showing theletter from the attorney that
(24:19):
says you must do this, thingslike that, where if you're
you're sharing the truth, and ifyou're being and this, what I
wrote down, being proactive asas much you can be proactive and
transparent. That's going tohelp, and it'll help in advance,
rather than always in a reactivemode. But I, I like saying, Hey,
(24:40):
we get it. We understand you'redisappointed. Can you meet with
us next Wednesday? When? Whencan we meet with you? And we'll
show you some of the reasoningbehind what we did. Just put it
on the table
Julie Adamen (24:53):
Absolutely, because there none of this is
particularly secret. The onlything secret in associations or
delinquencies, typically. Youknow you can't share with who's
delinquent and that type ofthing on their on their dues or
assessments and then other legalmatters, such as if you're in a
lawsuit or something like that.
A lot of that cannot be sharedand but some can. And if the if
that's what their worry is,well, it might be worth it to
(25:13):
have your attorney look overwhat's going on and say, What
can we share? If he says,Nothing. You can't share any of
this. Well, you know, that'swhat you tell them. And he puts
that in writing, and that's whatyou tell them, however, we'll
share what we can when we knowit, you know. So you do as much
as you can. And I think thetruth, Robert, I think you put
it in here, the true says itshall set you free. You know, no
(25:34):
wiser words were ever spoken. Imean, I think those are words of
Jesus, right? And so,
Robert Nordlund (25:42):
but it's amazing. You look that up.
Julie Adamen (25:45):
I bet you know already. I know I do, but, but
it's true. I mean that thatapplies to everything. Very
seldom does sub subterfuge onthe part of board members
because they just don't want todeal with it, or they think, oh,
man, this guy's going to gocrazy if we tell him this.
That's a short term thinkingit's better to be truthful about
it, and then tell them thereasons why be truthful. This is
what we had to do, and here iswhy that's better. Now, if
(26:08):
you're going to be proactiveabout this to keep those people
from, you know, coming at youwith the torches and pitchforks,
or the dissident group, orwhatever it is, it comes back to
my favorite word, Robert, whichis communication, you would be
communication. That's right,it's communication. It's
proactive. Communication,continually, continually. If you
(26:28):
think they don't need it, youthink they don't read it, that
means you still need to do it.
And once again, I'm going totell you, there's really no
excuse for not putting out yourown e newsletter or something
like that. If you're selfmanaged, there's really no
excuse, because you can just putup five or six bullet points,
put it into chat, GPT or grok,or any one of the AI platforms,
and it'll put out an article foryou, if that's what you want.
(26:50):
You know, a 200 word article,300 word, boom, it's there. It's
done. Make sure and proofreadit. Yeah, yeah. You gotta proof
it, but still, it's done foryou. So there's no excuse not to
do that. The tools are there,and they've made your life a lot
easier if you are composing thatkind of missive to the owners.
Robert Nordlund (27:08):
Yeah. Well in advance, I thought, what are the
issues that cause problems? Andit was lack of communication or
communication mix ups, financesand rules, and maybe you just,
if you sense, I don't know if isit, sense what we'll get to
this. If you sense trouble inthis, if you see the iceberg
(27:30):
coming at you, maybe you dial upthe communication. Maybe you
have a quarterly budget andinvoice review that's open to
people. And you have a semiannual rules review committee
open open to the membership,where you just say, hey, is
closing the pool at 10 o'clockthe right time? You know, we
(27:54):
don't care. It just needs to beat a reasonable time. And so
let's talk about it
Julie Adamen (27:58):
exactly. I think that, yeah, and I do. I
understand from board membersaspect, they're like, I already
spending all these hours. I haveto do that too well.
Unfortunately, sometimes you dothat. Last association I was
telling you about, that was thelast time I actually was a
physical manager, right thattime, and, oh, there was some
big bro going on. I don'tremember what for, but this is
(28:18):
before, this is in California,and this is before you had to
have a third party do yourelections. So we, we did them
right the and I worked for amanagement company. Then I was
on site, so we did all of that.
But there was this group islike, well, how are we going to
know that's accurate? You wouldhave a Ba, ba, ba, you know,
doing their whole thing saying,well, we wouldn't be accurate
because you don't want newpeople on the board. So what did
we do? What did the board decideto do? But it kind of was a
(28:39):
collective thing is that we gotthe most trusted, neutral person
in the community that everybodyknew and they did and to be the
she was. What do you call that?
She was the
Unknown (28:53):
observer of elections, elections. She actually counted
the ballots. This is a big
Robert Nordlund (28:58):
lake Johnson.
Everyone sees her. Everyoneknows her. I
Julie Adamen (29:01):
can picture her to this day. She was nice, she was
smart, but just a neutral partythat the dissident people liked
her, the people who weren'tdissidents liked her, and they
all trusted her. So when shecounted the ballots, everybody
just shut up about it. And soyeah, that's it's a good way to
go, you know, when you can goout to members of the community
(29:22):
that you know are supporters ofthe community, and I'm not
necessarily talking there, rah,rah, we love everybody on the
board, but they want the bestfor the community, the
supporters who may kind of seesome of the dissident points, if
you can get those people in as apart of your process as a board
member, and make them like partof the rules committee or the
rules review committee, whateveris the hot button going on at
(29:44):
your you know, or the financecommittee, or whatever it is, or
the reserve committee, whateverthat is that is the hot button
in your community. Bring somemore people in, because the more
advocates you have out there,the better are, the better off
you are as a board you want.
Acolytes going out. You wantdisciples going out and with
truth, not with not with yourboard spin, with truth of how
(30:05):
things are.
Robert Nordlund (30:07):
That's right, not necessarily supporters, but
people who are sitting at thetable of knowledge, people who
know that. Oh no, that can't bethe case because I've seen the
invoices. I was there lastmonth, the pipeline and that
pipeline of people at theassociation, it's a pipeline of
(30:30):
volunteers, it's a pipeline ofcommittee members. It's a
pipeline towards board members.
So it's not like who's Pro andwho's con, it's just building a
healthy pipeline of supportersin the community. It may be a
building captain, it may be afloor captain, it may be
whatever, but people who youshare this information with, and
that's maybe like a vaccine, itprevents trouble by having
(30:52):
people who know know the truthand have knowledge.
Julie Adamen (30:58):
Yes, it's their knowledge, yes. And the more
people that know that, andthey're out of the community,
you're exactly right. It's like,No, I'm not even on the board.
And I am the review invoicecommittee, and there's two of
us, and we review the invoices.
We see how they got paid andwhen they got paid, and how much
it was, and what was it for, ifthere were extras, we review
that and paying themselves. No,the margin. It's not a Seinfeld.
(31:20):
It's not a Seinfeld episode.
Robert Nordlund (31:25):
Yeah. Well, Julie, this is fantastic. This
brought a lot of peace to myheart, because we wanted to tell
the truth of Helen's story inEpisode 112 we also wanted to be
able to share our voice ofexperience that we see good
times, we see bad times. We hearcomplaints. And we just wanted
to share best practices. Wewanted to share to let you know
(31:48):
that I think I'm I can say this,okay, you haven't screwed up.
It's part of human nature, andwe live in a more toxic
environment than we have in thepast. And Kevin has said that
the temperatures are higher andwe need to lower the
temperature. So you're hearingit from different people, and we
hope we're giving you some somegood tools here. So thank you,
(32:09):
Julie, as always, it's greattalking with you. Any closing
thoughts to add to wrap up thisconversation,
Julie Adamen (32:14):
actually, I just want to thank all of you who are
board members, who have steppedup to do that, because we just
don't have enough people whowant to do it, and my hat's off
to you. I've been a board memberseveral times. I'm a board
member on another or not an HOA,but a part of an HOA, like a
subcommittee. And so it's I likebeing involved, but I know how
much time it takes, and Iappreciate the work that you do,
(32:36):
and I know Robert does. We talkabout this all the time. That's
why you're the board memberheroes.
Robert Nordlund (32:39):
Yep, absolutely. Well, we hope you
learned some HOA insights fromour discussion today that helps
you bring common sense to yourcommon areas. Thank you for
joining us today. We lookforward to bringing many more
episodes to you, week after weekafter week. We'll be here. It'll
be great to have you, and it'llbe great to have you join us and
share this with other people.
Spread the word. Thanks so much.
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(33:50):
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to come in and they're going to do things when
(00:04):
that agenda evaporates. All youboard members that are out there
who are the other board memberswho knew that couldn't happen,
you need to take that personliterally, rush in and give them
some other projects, because ifyou don't that agenda, vacuum
will just suck in there, whetherit's I want to get rid of the
rest of this board, or let's getrid of management, or fire the
(00:25):
landscape company. And that canall create you all those things
could create a lot of turmoil.
Announcer (00:29):
HOA Insights is brought to you by five companies
that car (00:32):
Association Insights & Marketplace, Association
Reserves, Community Financials,HOA Invest and Kevin Davis
Insurance Services. You'll findlinks to their websites and
social media in the show notes.
Robert Nordlund (00:45):
Hi. I'm Robert Nordlund of Association
Reserves,
Julie Adamen (00:47):
and I'm Julie adamen With Adamen Inc, and this
is HOA Insights, where wepromote common sense
Robert Nordlund (00:53):
for common areas. Welcome to Episode 114
where we're again speaking withmanagement consultant and
regular co host, Julie ademan.
Today we'll be talking aboutwhat we heard in Episode 112 two
weeks ago, in a board heroepisode titled An unfortunate
story. The truth is thatsometimes bad things happen at
your association. Now, from ourperspective, we've seen the
(01:14):
cycles that some associations gothrough, some troubled years
followed by some recovery orturnaround years. So neither the
good years or the bad years arepermanent. So if you missed that
episode number 112, or any otherprior episode, take a moment
after today's program to listenfrom our podcast website, Hoa
insights.org, or watch on ourYouTube channel. But better yet,
(01:39):
subscribe from any of the majorpodcast platforms so you don't
miss any future episodes. Andthose of you watching on YouTube
can see the HOA insights mugsthat Julie and I have merch, our
merch, our merch, yes, that wegot from the merch store. And
you can browse through thatmerch store from our Hoa
insights.org website or the linkin the show notes, and you'll
(02:00):
find we have some great freestuff there, like board member
zoom backgrounds and somespecialty items for sale, like
the mugs that we showed so go tothe merch store, download a free
zoom background, take a moment,look around, find the mug that
you'd like and email me atpodcast, at reserves, a.com with
Your name, shipping address andmug choice, mentioning episode
(02:20):
114 mug giveaway. And if you'rethe 10th person to email me,
Julie, I look forward to the daythat where we say the 50th
person, yeah, or the 100thperson. We're getting there.
We're getting there. That'sgonna be hard on the admin
staff. But if you're the 10thperson to email me, I'll ship
that mug to you free of charge.
We enjoy hearing from youresponding to the issues you're
(02:43):
facing at your association. Soif you have a hot topic, a crazy
story or a question you'd likeus to address, you can always
contact us at 805-203-3130, oremail us at
podcast@reservestudy.com buttoday's episode is what we felt
a necessary follow up to episode112 sometimes bad things do
(03:06):
happen at an association, and wedidn't want to leave you
hanging. So Julie, how doassociations get off track?
Julie Adamen (03:15):
Let me count the ways. Ah, good answer. There's,
there's so many ways they canget off track, but get off
track, they do. And just as youhad said earlier, is that it is
a cycle. It's always a cycle.
The association is always in acycle. There some really
terrific people come in, andthey manage the place very well.
They're engaged. They know howto deal with their homeowners
(03:38):
and the problems that come up,they communicate. Well, they
might have to do somethingunpopular, like raise
assessments, which, of course,puts the antenna up of all the
people out there who don't wantto raise assessments. And no,
we're spending too much money,and it kind of feeds on itself,
and for one way or another,whether the good people get sick
of it or it's just their time toget off. Then the people who
(04:01):
come in and want to do whateverthey want to do, whether it's
assessments or anything theagenda that they have, and then
the association kind of takesthat little down dive, and it
stays on the bottom for justabout as long as the rest of the
homeowners can take. It could betwo years, could be five years,
could be a year, don't know. Andthen they vote them out, and
newer people come on, and itjust makes the cycle.
Robert Nordlund (04:24):
Yeah, that's the election process. So again,
I've been thinking about this inadvance of our conversation, but
just some of the words thatyou've been saying, there is
maybe a happy medium wherethere's not too much trouble and
not too much success, becauseonce it gets down below a level
of tolerance, then you're goingto get more people that want to
(04:47):
run for the board and say, Hey,this is not good. Is it also a
little bit like the good boardmembers and the good years that
you were describing people doinga good job, they're lifting the
association up. And. That is aunstable situation where it
requires so much effort to keepit going. Or what's your
thoughts on that?
Julie Adamen (05:08):
Well, it can Yes.
I mean, that is onecircumstance. There's, like I
said, for the ups and downs,there's usually several
different reasons, or acombination of weird reasons, or
weird and not weird reasons. Butyes, so if you have a great
board, and I have, in fact, thelast time I actually managed low
these many years ago, okay, Ihad fantastic board, I mean, and
I was very blessed. I had afantastic board for four out of
(05:31):
my five years at that particularcommunity. I was on site Jim,
and they were just amazing. Andthen a couple of those people
kind of segue off the boardbecause they know they've been
on the board for five years orfour years, and they've got
other things to do, very normal.
And then the dissident group, atleast one or two members got on.
(05:51):
And you know, the fortuneschange, especially if you're in
the in the management end of it.
But actually this applies toboard members as well. You know,
if you're a good board member,and you come in and do a
fantastic job for two years,three years, four years, people
have a tendency to take that forgranted. They're, oh, man, this
is so great. And then after awhile, it's like, wait a minute,
how come they're not doing this,or they're not doing that? And
they must be doing somethingwrong. Or, if you're paid staff,
(06:13):
it's, well, why are we payingthat person so much money? And
all of a sudden, all thoselittle naysayers, kind of, it
kind of gathers up like agathering storm, and depending
on how the board reacts andmanages that gathering storm,
the board that's there can oftendetermine where the association
goes. And what seems to behappening now is, I talk to lots
(06:35):
of people in the managementworld, is that the board members
who are doing a good job, andthey're always getting, you
know, if you're standing upfront, you always have a
tendency to get shot in therear. The ones who are getting
shot in the rear are at thepoint where there's like, I
don't even want to finish out myterm. So it's become difficult
to find good board members,because the good board members
feel like they're not beingappreciated, and they probably
(06:56):
aren't. And I would say, as youknow, Robert, since COVID,
people have lost their marbles.
As far as getting they feelcompletely okay with getting up
in your face and yelling at youor cursing at you in public,
just doing crazy things. Even inour larger society, there's a
lot of it still is going on allthe time. And in HOA world,
(07:19):
who's going to come get you thecondo cops? Well, there is no
such thing, so there aren't alot of repercussions for that
bad behavior, so that that isexacerbating the cycle.
Robert Nordlund (07:29):
Well, another thing I was thinking about was I
also use the word COVID. Itseems like during COVID, we
started, started to have moredistrust in what the truth was
and who's telling the truth, andyou add that to social media,
(07:50):
and all of a sudden thecredibility of your honorable
people is more readily attackedbecause, oh, who knows a juicy
rumor, and rumor has no basis infact, but someone can say it, it
can get across, and all of asudden that person is now in a
(08:11):
place that they have to defend
Julie Adamen (08:12):
themselves. Yeah, those rumors have legs, and they
run right towards, you know, thetarget, the intended target. So
yeah, it is. You're absolutelyright. That was during the COVID
period. But then I thinkAmericans have lost so much
trust in their institutions forgood reason, in my opinion. But
(08:33):
that kind of distrust spillsover into the personal your HOA,
or the airline you're going tofly or or any kind of thing that
we normally would have trustedto do the right thing. And
unfortunately, boards get caughtup in that. The funny part is,
is that most board members, nomatter if they got elected on a
specific agenda, you know,whatever, so Well, I want all
(08:54):
the flowers to be white,whatever somebody's agenda. I
actually, I actually had someonewho ran on that, but she had to
walk it back. She was actually agreat board member. She ended up
being a great board member, butshe wanted everyone, this is in
Palm Desert, California, just agreat board member. But when she
first was there, she was alsothe head of the architectural
committee, and she wantedeveryone to plant only white
(09:15):
petunias on the golf courseside. Now that's 12 175 74 units
or so, so that kind of went bythe wayside. But boy, she had
it. But no matter what it is,it's, you know, you could be
doing most board members getelected because they really want
to do the right thing. It maynot be the right thing, really,
as far as professionals go. Andwe think, well, that's not
smart. But they really want todo the right thing, and they
(09:38):
feel they have a sense of duty.
Most of them do. I would saywhether they know how to execute
that duty. I you know, is up fordebate, but they they're trying
to do the right thing, most ofthem. Most of them,
Robert Nordlund (09:49):
well, I want to follow up on that, because the
lady, just like you said, thelady who had this idea for white
flowers, and you said that lateron, she became a good board
member. And. So what changeswhen you have someone saying, I
want to or I'd like this, andthey run for the board, and then
they get on the board, what thenhappens is it a matter of seeing
(10:12):
the facts, where they're finallyconfronted, really with the
facts?
Julie Adamen (10:15):
Yes, it absolutely. And I call that a
seat at the table of knowledge.
I like that because, because ofthe folks who, let's just take
the people who want to lowerdues. I mean, that's always a
big thing in Hoa, is where it istoo much money, blah, blah,
blah, and it can be or typicallyit's not, but they just because,
in this world, what we do is weare dealing with people's living
arrangements, their money, theirfinances and their home. So it's
(10:36):
very personal to them. And, boy,they sure don't see why we have
to spend all this money onwhatever. But they get elected
on a very narrow agenda, suchas, I'm going to lower dues by
20% or whatever it is. But oncethey have that seat at the
table, they often realize, oh, Ican't do that. And that you'll
see that happens in citycouncils and people who run for
(10:58):
any kind of office, we're goingto do this, we're going to do
this, we're going to do that.
And then they get in there, andeither they were lying number
one or number two, they realize,oh, I can't do that. And they
have to walk that back. Youknow, I like to give them a
little grace on that, becausethe you know, if a board member,
or if someone is running for theboard, and they are the lower
(11:19):
dues by 20% I would hope thatthe current board would bring
them in and sit down and talkwith them about the financials
and where we're at and why weneed to do, why they need to
stay where they are. I find thatI've seen that actually happen,
and I find that people who arerunning pretty much don't want
to know that information,because they've got their
(11:40):
they've got their platform andthey've got their supporters,
and they want to run on it, andthey'd rather deal with it
later, or they just won'tbelieve what's in front of their
eyes until they are sitting atthat board and they are a
fiduciary or trustee of theassociation, and all of a sudden
they realize, oh, we can't dothis. There's a problem there
for other board members andmanagement. What happens is the
(12:01):
person who had this big agenda,and they're going to come in and
they're going to do things whenthat agenda evaporates, all you
board members that are out therewho are the other board members
who knew that couldn't happen,you need to take that person
literally rush in and give themsome other projects, because
they will have a tendency tohave A lot of pent up emotion
(12:22):
and pent up energy about thatparticular issue. Now that that
has gone away, you got to focusthat energy to something else.
And I'm sure you have somethingin your community that needs
close looking at, or, you know,put them on the head of the road
committee, or whatever is comingup that's meaningful, but you
can channel that energy, becauseif you don't that agenda, vacuum
(12:43):
will just suck in something inthere, whether it's I want to
get rid of the rest of thisboard, or let's get rid of
management, or fire thelandscape company, you and that
can all create you. All thosethings could create a lot of
turmoil. So other board membersneed to be aware of that.
Robert Nordlund (12:56):
I really like that idea because I don't want
that to get slide on by someonecoming in, and they have great
ideas, and they know, andeveryone knows that they're the
new voice, the one out of fiveor the two out of five on the
board. And they're going torattle the cages. And if they
start to see the first month'sworth of bills and realize that,
(13:17):
oh, the landscaper really is$2,500 a month, the pool service
really is x $100 a month,whatever it is. And they're
like, Oh, gee, yeah, I guess wedo need to do this. The solution
is not to hope that they resign.
The solution is get them on likelandscape productive, yeah.
Productive, yeah, landscapecommittee or the reserve
(13:39):
committee. Get them preparingfor the roof project next year,
that is going to be $500,000start developing a list of or
the specs, all that kind ofstuff, yeah, but get them
productive. I love that. Andthen I want to follow up on this
idea of a vacuum. And we've allheard the phrase nature abhors a
(13:59):
vacuum, and you alluded to itearlier, that there will be some
good years, and I wonder if thatcauses some apathy among the
homeowners, that maybe slowsdown communication, because
everything's fine, and then thatallows an opportunity For an
opposing worldview to come in.
(14:22):
And the same with vacuum ofcommunication. Vacuum is a bad
thing.
Julie Adamen (14:26):
That's very true.
That actually happens if there'sif, if everything's running
smoothly, you know, people don'treally pay much attention to the
association because there'sanother or, you know, the dues
haven't gone up, or everythinglooks great out in the
landscaping and or whatever thattype of thing is. I packed I did
a I did a keynote. I was akeynote speaker for board member
retreat for a big managementcompany down in in the Coachella
(14:49):
Valley in Southern California.
And I had about 300 boardmembers in this room, and we
were talking about thecommunication vacuum, and then
we were all talking about how.
All the homeowners have becomeapathetic. And of course, board
members, that's always a problemfor board members at one time or
another. That's part of thecycle. Apathy is part of that
cycle. And when some guy raiseshis hand in the back, he said,
(15:09):
Well, we cured that at ourassociation, and I'm like, how?
And he says, Well, we sent outan email to everyone, tell them
we were going to raise the duesby 45% and they came running
into the annual meeting, andthey all said, Psych, No, we
just wanted you to attend themeeting we have. I don't know
that I'd recommend that toeverybody, but it was quite
creative, and it worked. Yeah,
Robert Nordlund (15:31):
that's certainly a way to get people to
a meeting, but I'm not sure ifyou want to. Was it? Cry wolf,
the sky is falling, one of thosethings. But let's talk about mob
action. I think we all have aselfish gene in our body. Was
it? Dale Carnegie said that thesweetest word is always your own
name. We care about ourselves.
We care about our self interest,and if someone is going to tempt
(15:54):
us with lower assessments orsomething that is personally
agreeable, personally favorable.
I think that's a human tendencyto be open. You know, let me,
let me hear a little bit more.
Let me hear your story. What'sthe human dynamic and that
getting traction?
Julie Adamen (16:12):
Well, I mean, it's, you're absolutely right
about the human nature. I mean,it's we are always looking out
for ourselves. I mean, that's nomatter what, we're always
looking out for ourselves asmuch as you try not to. When we
try to think of others and lookout for others, a lot of the
times, we're looking out for usand helping someone else helps
us. We're good with that as muchas we maybe should do it, even
if it doesn't help us, right?
But so that's just human naturefor the most part. And so when
(16:34):
someone says, I'm going to geton this board and I'm going to
make sure that we fire thislandscape company because, bah,
bah, bah, bah, bah, whatever thereason is.
Robert Nordlund (16:45):
I see their employees sitting on the yard
having lunch, and they'rewasting time, and we're paying
them
Julie Adamen (16:52):
that. We're paying them exactly that. Whatever it
is, it doesn't whether it's itdoesn't matter what it is, it's
how the pool didn't look good,or the snow didn't get removed
on time. Blah, blah, blah, blah,blah, all the same stuff. But if
you're appealing to somebody'semotion on that issue, it's very
effective if you say, well, thesnow didn't get removed for
eight hours. And what if therehad been an emergency and, you
(17:15):
know, your child was choking,and we could get the ambulance
in there. I mean, they can justgo on and on it, people will buy
right into that. It's anemotional appeal. It's, it's
very, what I want to say thatis, it's very cynical. It's a
very cynical way to operate, butthey do it all the time. It's
again, it's all human beings,and everything is politics. I
don't necessarily mean that in abad way, but it always is in
(17:37):
this world, in our world. Sothat emotional appeal, and then
you get people all riled up intheir emotions. Then they're at
the next meeting with theirtorches and pitchforks about
something. And that literally ismob. That's a mob coming after
you. And it does happen all youboard members out there, I would
venture to say all of you haveexperienced that at least once.
Usually it's a baloney thing,completely baloney. But
(17:58):
everybody's all upset about it.
In they walk.
Robert Nordlund (18:00):
I'm writing down notes here, and that you
add the emotional appeal to adistrust in institutions, and
the general raised anxiety fromCOVID. And it's a combustible
mixture. It is that fair thingto say? It is. It's a toxic
brew. It certainly can be okay,which is what Helen got herself
(18:24):
into. And it wasn't that,arguably, she really did
anything wrong. It was just shehad a toxic situation, or toxic
brew, and the opposing viewpointgot a majority on the board, and
she is in the audience, ratherthan being at the board table,
and it's very interesting. Ireally like your phrase now that
(18:46):
the board has a seat at thetable of knowledge and realize
it's a lot harder to work magic.
And I finally, I don't know if Itold you, I finally bought a
magic wand. I have it on myhead. I bought a bookcase. It's
on my bookcase. And so that'sfor people who say, Oh, we're
going to be able to take goodcare of our property and we're
going to lower our reservefunding by 20% and I say, Hold
on, just a minute. I go get mymagic
Julie Adamen (19:09):
wand. It's always a pen, not a wand, okay? Well,
yeah, I
Robert Nordlund (19:13):
asked them if they want to borrow it, because
that's what it's going to take.
Hey, we are at the midpointhere, and want to make sure that
we have time, because I want toturn the corner here. But let's
take a break here and hear fromone of our generous sponsors,
after which we'll be back withmore common sense for common
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Robert Nordlund (20:09):
and we're back.
Okay, there's a lot of thingsthat can go wrong, and they're
real and they happen. It's partof the cycles. But Julie, how do
you mitigate, how do youminimize, bad things going on if
you start to see them happeningat your association Number
Julie Adamen (20:28):
one, don't ignore it. If you see it, it's
happening because, and if yousee it, it's probably been going
on a little bit, you know longerthan you think, because they've
been having whoever that is, whohas that they've got that going
on in their head. And I wouldsay that I think a lot of board
members, you're a volunteer inthis job typically takes more
time than you were ever toldwhen you volunteer to be on the
(20:49):
board. So you're like, oh, godno, I think it'll be okay. Or I
just don't want to see it, youknow, I just want to have my
blinders on and I want to seeit. I would say, once you've
seen it, you truly see it. Youcan't ignore it, and you have to
create some sort of strategy totry to you may not be able to
stop the person or stop thecycle from kind of going
downhill a little bit, but youcan certainly mitigate a lot of
(21:11):
it. I was gonna say, treat itlike an iceberg. Treat it like
an iceberg, absolutely, becauseif there's one guy complaining,
there's 50 down below, or 10down below, you know, something
like that, way more than youthink. So you cannot treat it
like it's not there. It's it isthere. So what are we going to
do about that? Well, let's justsay, are they, well, Robert, are
they on the board or off theboard?
Robert Nordlund (21:30):
Let's say they're off the board. They're
the mob outside that'scriticizing the board. They're
Julie Adamen (21:35):
the dissident group. Okay, the first thing I
would do is, depending on thekind of group they are, but
overall, I think the first thingI would do is actually meet with
that person personally, or twoor three of them, and have them
sit down with a couple of boardmembers and have them, have them
actually commit to paper whattheir grievances are, or what
they think is going on, and thento the best of your ability, I
(21:59):
would share with them what youcan. Obviously can't share
proprietary information, but Iwould definitely give them, I
mean, if they Well, you know,this is costing too much, and
that's costing too much, and andthen you can say, well, here
were the bids we got for thelast landscape contract. Here
they are. They're not a secret.
In fact, the people are entitledto them anyway. And and give
them the reasons you did this.
Now, they may disagree with yourreasons, but you had reasons.
(22:22):
This also goes to the fact thathopefully, if you're bored, if
you have a professionalmanagement company or on site
manager, there, you have thesekind of records, if you are self
managing, you need to ensurethat you are keeping those types
of records for just this type ofsituation. Because if you
thought, well, I don't need toreally keep this bid from three
(22:43):
years ago. No, contrary, I wouldkeep that stuff for probably up
to 10 years, just depending onon your association and what
goes on there. So that's thefirst thing I would do, is face
to face. You know, people have atendency back back when I was a
manager that the property, I wastelling about the gala, wonder
do the flowers all white. Shewas a great board member,
though. But anyway, when I wasthere, we had people who would
(23:06):
try to, you know, they want todo that kind of thing. They want
to tell you, this is happeningor that's not happening. You
know, how you deal with that is,you just paper them to death.
You're like, well, here's whatwe did, and here's what stuff
was. Because we, I was reallygood about it. The company I
worked for at the time was verygood about keeping records, and
it was, you know, that you onceyou've papered them to death,
oftentimes they don't want to beinundated with it anymore, and
(23:27):
they'll just go, okay, orthey'll back off. But if not,
you know, you just have to keepcontinually trying to keep that
line of communication open withthose people. Personally,
Robert Nordlund (23:36):
what I'm hearing is the same things we
think about with reserves isthat people come to us and they
say, We're underfunded. It'sgoing to be hard for us to have
enough money for the roof or theasphalt or whatever. What do we
do? We say, Well, you need toincrease your reserve funding.
(23:57):
And they don't necessarily likethat, but that's the truth. If
they would have done that, thatwould have prevented the problem
that they're into. And hereyou're talking about meeting
with the person or the group,sharing information, sharing the
truth, showing them theinvoices, showing them the
proposals, showing them thegoverning documents. It means we
can't do this, showing theletter from the attorney that
(24:19):
says you must do this, thingslike that, where if you're
you're sharing the truth, and ifyou're being and this, what I
wrote down, being proactive asas much you can be proactive and
transparent. That's going tohelp, and it'll help in advance,
rather than always in a reactivemode. But I, I like saying, Hey,
(24:40):
we get it. We understand you'redisappointed. Can you meet with
us next Wednesday? When? Whencan we meet with you? And we'll
show you some of the reasoningbehind what we did. Just put it
on the table
Julie Adamen (24:53):
Absolutely, because there none of this is
particularly secret. The onlything secret in associations or
delinquencies, typically. Youknow you can't share with who's
delinquent and that type ofthing on their on their dues or
assessments and then other legalmatters, such as if you're in a
lawsuit or something like that.
A lot of that cannot be sharedand but some can. And if the if
that's what their worry is,well, it might be worth it to
(25:13):
have your attorney look overwhat's going on and say, What
can we share? If he says,Nothing. You can't share any of
this. Well, you know, that'swhat you tell them. And he puts
that in writing, and that's whatyou tell them, however, we'll
share what we can when we knowit, you know. So you do as much
as you can. And I think thetruth, Robert, I think you put
it in here, the true says itshall set you free. You know, no
(25:34):
wiser words were ever spoken. Imean, I think those are words of
Jesus, right? And so,
Robert Nordlund (25:42):
but it's amazing. You look that up.
Julie Adamen (25:45):
I bet you know already. I know I do, but, but
it's true. I mean that thatapplies to everything. Very
seldom does sub subterfuge onthe part of board members
because they just don't want todeal with it, or they think, oh,
man, this guy's going to gocrazy if we tell him this.
That's a short term thinkingit's better to be truthful about
it, and then tell them thereasons why be truthful. This is
what we had to do, and here iswhy that's better. Now, if
(26:08):
you're going to be proactiveabout this to keep those people
from, you know, coming at youwith the torches and pitchforks,
or the dissident group, orwhatever it is, it comes back to
my favorite word, Robert, whichis communication, you would be
communication. That's right,it's communication. It's
proactive. Communication,continually, continually. If you
(26:28):
think they don't need it, youthink they don't read it, that
means you still need to do it.
And once again, I'm going totell you, there's really no
excuse for not putting out yourown e newsletter or something
like that. If you're selfmanaged, there's really no
excuse, because you can just putup five or six bullet points,
put it into chat, GPT or grok,or any one of the AI platforms,
and it'll put out an article foryou, if that's what you want.
(26:50):
You know, a 200 word article,300 word, boom, it's there. It's
done. Make sure and proofreadit. Yeah, yeah. You gotta proof
it, but still, it's done foryou. So there's no excuse not to
do that. The tools are there,and they've made your life a lot
easier if you are composing thatkind of missive to the owners.
Robert Nordlund (27:08):
Yeah. Well in advance, I thought, what are the
issues that cause problems? Andit was lack of communication or
communication mix ups, financesand rules, and maybe you just,
if you sense, I don't know if isit, sense what we'll get to
this. If you sense trouble inthis, if you see the iceberg
(27:30):
coming at you, maybe you dial upthe communication. Maybe you
have a quarterly budget andinvoice review that's open to
people. And you have a semiannual rules review committee
open open to the membership,where you just say, hey, is
closing the pool at 10 o'clockthe right time? You know, we
(27:54):
don't care. It just needs to beat a reasonable time. And so
let's talk about it
Julie Adamen (27:58):
exactly. I think that, yeah, and I do. I
understand from board membersaspect, they're like, I already
spending all these hours. I haveto do that too well.
Unfortunately, sometimes you dothat. Last association I was
telling you about, that was thelast time I actually was a
physical manager, right thattime, and, oh, there was some
big bro going on. I don'tremember what for, but this is
(28:18):
before, this is in California,and this is before you had to
have a third party do yourelections. So we, we did them
right the and I worked for amanagement company. Then I was
on site, so we did all of that.
But there was this group islike, well, how are we going to
know that's accurate? You wouldhave a Ba, ba, ba, you know,
doing their whole thing saying,well, we wouldn't be accurate
because you don't want newpeople on the board. So what did
we do? What did the board decideto do? But it kind of was a
(28:39):
collective thing is that we gotthe most trusted, neutral person
in the community that everybodyknew and they did and to be the
she was. What do you call that?
She was the
Unknown (28:53):
observer of elections, elections. She actually counted
the ballots. This is a big
Robert Nordlund (28:58):
lake Johnson.
Everyone sees her. Everyoneknows her. I
Julie Adamen (29:01):
can picture her to this day. She was nice, she was
smart, but just a neutral partythat the dissident people liked
her, the people who weren'tdissidents liked her, and they
all trusted her. So when shecounted the ballots, everybody
just shut up about it. And soyeah, that's it's a good way to
go, you know, when you can goout to members of the community
(29:22):
that you know are supporters ofthe community, and I'm not
necessarily talking there, rah,rah, we love everybody on the
board, but they want the bestfor the community, the
supporters who may kind of seesome of the dissident points, if
you can get those people in as apart of your process as a board
member, and make them like partof the rules committee or the
rules review committee, whateveris the hot button going on at
(29:44):
your you know, or the financecommittee, or whatever it is, or
the reserve committee, whateverthat is that is the hot button
in your community. Bring somemore people in, because the more
advocates you have out there,the better are, the better off
you are as a board you want.
Acolytes going out. You wantdisciples going out and with
truth, not with not with yourboard spin, with truth of how
(30:05):
things are.
Robert Nordlund (30:07):
That's right, not necessarily supporters, but
people who are sitting at thetable of knowledge, people who
know that. Oh no, that can't bethe case because I've seen the
invoices. I was there lastmonth, the pipeline and that
pipeline of people at theassociation, it's a pipeline of
(30:30):
volunteers, it's a pipeline ofcommittee members. It's a
pipeline towards board members.
So it's not like who's Pro andwho's con, it's just building a
healthy pipeline of supportersin the community. It may be a
building captain, it may be afloor captain, it may be
whatever, but people who youshare this information with, and
that's maybe like a vaccine, itprevents trouble by having
(30:52):
people who know know the truthand have knowledge.
Julie Adamen (30:58):
Yes, it's their knowledge, yes. And the more
people that know that, andthey're out of the community,
you're exactly right. It's like,No, I'm not even on the board.
And I am the review invoicecommittee, and there's two of
us, and we review the invoices.
We see how they got paid andwhen they got paid, and how much
it was, and what was it for, ifthere were extras, we review
that and paying themselves. No,the margin. It's not a Seinfeld.
(31:20):
It's not a Seinfeld episode.
Robert Nordlund (31:25):
Yeah. Well, Julie, this is fantastic. This
brought a lot of peace to myheart, because we wanted to tell
the truth of Helen's story inEpisode 112 we also wanted to be
able to share our voice ofexperience that we see good
times, we see bad times. We hearcomplaints. And we just wanted
to share best practices. Wewanted to share to let you know
(31:48):
that I think I'm I can say this,okay, you haven't screwed up.
It's part of human nature, andwe live in a more toxic
environment than we have in thepast. And Kevin has said that
the temperatures are higher andwe need to lower the
temperature. So you're hearingit from different people, and we
hope we're giving you some somegood tools here. So thank you,
(32:09):
Julie, as always, it's greattalking with you. Any closing
thoughts to add to wrap up thisconversation,
Julie Adamen (32:14):
actually, I just want to thank all of you who are
board members, who have steppedup to do that, because we just
don't have enough people whowant to do it, and my hat's off
to you. I've been a board memberseveral times. I'm a board
member on another or not an HOA,but a part of an HOA, like a
subcommittee. And so it's I likebeing involved, but I know how
much time it takes, and Iappreciate the work that you do,
(32:36):
and I know Robert does. We talkabout this all the time. That's
why you're the board memberheroes.
Robert Nordlund (32:39):
Yep, absolutely. Well, we hope you
learned some HOA insights fromour discussion today that helps
you bring common sense to yourcommon areas. Thank you for
joining us today. We lookforward to bringing many more
episodes to you, week after weekafter week. We'll be here. It'll
be great to have you, and it'llbe great to have you join us and
share this with other people.
Spread the word. Thanks so much.
Announcer (33:05):
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