Month: September 2017

No matter how large or small the community association you manage is, you’ll need to employ at least a few staff members. While they should receive training that’s specific to their job, there’s one type of training that’s necessary for everyone: how to abide by the Fair Housing Act (FHA). It’s easy to forget that maintenance workers, who fulfill many of their job duties without coming into contact with the community’s members, will sooner or later have interactions with home or condo owners.

A pair of state senators expressed their support for residents of a Florida homeowners association at a recent town hall meeting primarily concerned with gaining control of their community. Association homeowners from a community that includes about 27,000 homes are fighting legal battles with the association and with the community’s developer over the number of votes the developer would be able to cast in elections. Meanwhile, the developer sued the association in Circuit Court to get the maximum number of votes for undeveloped tracts.

Q: I manage a condominium building that was previously owned before the current association took it over. A handicapped unit owner claims that some elements of the building—namely, some doors—are difficult, but not impossible, for him to use as a result of his disability. He is suing the association under the Fair Housing Act (FHA) and asking that the association spend what would be a considerable amount of time and money redoing the design and construction of the building to accommodate him.

No matter how large or small the community association you manage is, you’ll need to employ at least a few staff members. While they should receive training that’s specific to their job, there’s one type of training that’s necessary for everyone: how to abide by the Fair Housing Act (FHA). It’s easy to forget that maintenance workers, who fulfill many of their job duties without coming into contact with the community’s members, will sooner or later have interactions with home or condo owners.

Privacy issues have always been taken into consideration when it comes to issues like medical information, but it might not occur to community members that seemingly more casual items are protected from general knowledge. So community members who want to inspect the records of their association—for a variety of reasons, some legitimate and some improper—might not realize that these records aren’t automatically free game.

A pair of state senators expressed their support for residents of a Florida homeowners association at a recent town hall meeting primarily concerned with gaining control of their community.

Homeowners in an Alabama community claim they've been paying hundreds of dollars every year but have no idea where the money is going because there are no meetings, no detailed budgets, and no communication from their association. They are blaming the developer.

The head executive of the developer and his daughter sit on the board of directors, which comports with laws governing associations in that area; however, homeowners haven’t spoken with him in a decade. Meanwhile, the board collects about $60,000 in dues annually.