It is far easier to find published articles about HOAs that are nightmares for members than it is to find those that are managed well. This is especially true for self-managed HOAs. The reason should be obvious if the Board’s directors are volunteers because the accounting responsibilities alone could easily cost $5,000 per month for an HOA’s membership of less than 400. Therefore, based on the amount of volunteer time a member has to serve on a Board of Directors, quality of the management can be poor depending on the Board’s management style. However, a number of steps can be taken to improve the management style which improves members’ satisfaction with their HOAs.
Clarifying Responsibilities - The Board cannot understand its responsibilities until the Directors have carefully read the HOA’s governing documents or those sections of these documents that cover their responsibilities. In some cases, this will require extra reading because the Board’s activities cannot conflict with state laws and city or county ordinances which can be amended or repealed over time.
Resetting Responsibilities - A Board must elect officers, and the other directors on the Board will usually
be assigned other responsibilities that they handle independently. However, some responsibilities can, and probably should, be assigned to more than one director in order to share the workload. An even better solution would be to activate committees of 3-5 members who are not serving on the Board because they can assist directors with handling certain aspects of the directors’ assigned responsibilities.