Quick HOA Self-Assessment Exercise

This exercise is heavily borrowed from an excellent OMAG presentation I saw last night, and the principles work well within a community association setting. Ask yourself the following questions and rate your responses on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being low/poor, 5 being fair/average, and 10 being high/excellent. It is a simple exercise to help guide your association to excellence:

1. How well is the HOA prepared financially?
2. How well does the HOA handle conflict?
3. How well does the HOA manage the collection of assessments?
4. How well does the board communicate with one another and the membership?
5. How well are the board and annual meetings attended, and are they productive?
6. Are the governing documents up to date and adequate to address current issues?
7. Overall, how would you rate the annual board elections process?
8. Overall, how satisfied are you with the goods and services provided by your HOA?

Of course, no HOA will score perfectly, but this short exercise may help to identity what your HOA does well and what it might improve upon.

Winton Law collections memo

At the recent Neighborhood Alliance HOA Legal Issues workshop, a request was made for the Winton Law assessment collections memo. You may Download Winton Law Collections Memorandum 2016 by clicking on the link. You may contact the office to discuss the particulars of your association's collections issues.

I also want to thank Mutual of Omaha for sponsoring the Legal Issues workshop. Check the Neighborhood Alliance webpage for upcoming Legal Issues workshops - we put on approximately four sets per year, the first being a basics course and then a companion advanced course.

Matthew L. Winton

Oklahoma condominium and homeowner association lawyer