Basics for the Beginners By Carin Rosengren, CMCA, Keller Property Management
To Boldly Buy
You bought a home that is part of a community association. Now what? Well, you’re a propertyowning, dues-paying member, bound to a real estate organization with a set of governing documents that require you to adhere to the rules. Sounds like a barrel of fun, doesn’t it? Hopefully, you read the documents before you signed on the dotted line for your home and you had a good idea of what you were getting into. If you didn’t read them or know what an association is, you may be in for a bright surprise.
to, as they move into an association, is this: If the association is strong, it’s because it doesn’t care about what you want as an individual. That’s a harsh way to say it, and a further truth is that it simply can’t care. Maybe it is better phrased another way if you allow the use of a Star Trek reference as illustration. Eloquently put to Capt. James T. Kirk by a radiation-stricken Mr. Spock, dying in a locked chamber so the lives of the Enterprise crew will be spared, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”
That’s because things are different around here. A good association is run like a tight ship, with clear structure and rules to which all must adhere, creating an attractive, valuable, maintenance-free and downright livable home environment for every member. This makes for content homeowners and residents who are self-governed and secure in their investments. Happy homeowners, that is, as long as they don’t want to have it their own way.
What am I into now?
Purchase of your home came with mandatory membership in a community association. Whether or not you want to be part of this club, you are in it, and everyone is in it together. And like most clubs, membership doesn’t come without a price. All community associations have fees, or assessments, that are paid to the association monthly, quarterly or annually. These are going toward future replacements of roofs, siding, sidewalks, driveways and other common elements; insurance; seasonal services like lawn care and snow removal; street lighting; and sometimes trash collection, water and sewer. Forward-looking association boards will raise the dues on a regular basis, in increments that aren’t too drastic, to keep up with the rising costs of everything and to fulfill their legal responsibility as stewards of the association. Unless there’s a specific or special need for fund-raising you can expect the dues to creep up without cease. Makes a person wonder what they’ve bought into. As a whole, your new condo or townhome community provides a communal basis for preserving, maintaining and enhancing homes and property. What can be difficult for some to ascribe 22
Minnesota Communit y Living
Of course, this is from “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. Good picture. A perfect example of the “uncaring association” will be found throughout the winter. As a homeowner, you may have shoveled your driveway after a half-inch of snow, or after every couple of inches during a continuous snowfall. You certainly would not have waited for three hours after the snow stopped to begin clearing the snow! As an association member now this is no longer your responsibility. Just sit back, relax and watch the association’s snow-removal company do the work for you … If you can wait that long. Some folks can’t abide waiting for the plows and shovels to show up, even if the response time is spectacular. They will take shovels into their own hands time and again, eventually making a complaint to management that they “had to shovel their own driveway all winter.” In fact, they don’t have to, they choose to. There is a big difference, and homeowner education about contractual obligations related to the snowfall cease-time may only help so much. It can only be reiterated that the association cannot operate if it caters to individual desires.