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We’ve highlighted four common board blunders and included some practical tips for avoiding them. It’s important to identify these potential blunders early to save yourself and your board time and frustration.

These days, you can do almost anything online—buy groceries, look for a job or even find love. But what about voting on issues that affect your community?

Enforcing HOA policies is nobody’s cup of tea, but having good policy enforcement in place helps improve the resident experience and elevates your reputation. Follow these 4 principles for healthy policy enforcement:

How do you manage collections and HOA funds after a crisis? Get 3 tips to help you plan for the future

Having a diverse group of opinions and perspectives on your HOA board can be a great thing, but it can also lead to challenges because of conflicting personalities. To set you and your association up for success, here are 6 tips to improve board meeting dynamics.

Humans are social creatures with a deep-seated yearning for connection and community. This is particularly evident in a strata corporation, where a strong sense of community can be the difference between long-standing residency and high turnover.

Undoubtedly, running meetings is one of the most ;challenging parts of being on your strata council. Members sometimes get off track. Disagreements sometimes turn into arguments. Short discussions sometimes become long-winded monologues. Is there anything you can do to make your council meetings more effective?

A maintenance plan is a great tool for organizing and discussing a Strata Corporation’s property repairs and maintenance.

As a council member for your strata corporation, you know that your community depends on volunteers to operate successfully. However, finding residents who are willing to be on your council, join a committee or help at an event can be challenging.

A depreciation report provides an inventory of your Strata Corporation’s common property and assets, their projected 30-year maintenance and replacement cost. It is a useful tool for Strata Councils when it comes to budgeting for capital projects and it also gives transparency for owners and buyers on the building.

To set you and your association up for success, we’ve pulled together a list of common board blunders and included some practical tips for avoiding them. If you can identify these early, you may save yourself (and your board) from a lot of frustration.

A great board meeting should have a balance of diverse opinions and discussions that are rooted in your community’s overall vision. Start with these 6 simple HOA board meeting rules.

While the start of the new year is typically heralded as the best time to change old habits and commit to new ones, the reality for community associations and their board members is that there’s no time like the present. These 10 changes will help you get your board and your community association on the right track for the rest of the year.

Many people want to live in a community that has a swimming pool, and if there’s one in yours, you know what kind of value it brings. While it’s great to think of all those hot days when you and your neighbors can enjoy an afternoon in the water, with it comes many responsibilities community association board members must adhere to that go beyond staying cool or keeping in shape.

So what’s the most important aspect of your community? Is it aesthetics? Sense of belonging? Neighbors knowing neighbors? Desirability to home buyers?

Do you escape to warmer weather down south once there’s a chill in the air and the leaves start to turn? If you’re a snowbird (or Winter Texan!), you need to know how to protect your home up north while basking in the southern sunshine

There’s a big difference between being a busybody and having a general awareness of your neighbors’ regular activities. Knowing their routines enables you to quickly realize when something is awry, especially for residents who live alone. And in a true emergency, that awareness could literally save a life.

Whether you’re a new or current board member, you can avoid major issues and make your term more fruitful, rewarding and, above all, effective by following these 9 tips for board members.

For a growing number of community associations across the United States and Canada, statute changes are making electronic voting a possibility for boards. If your state or province permits online voting – or will soon – does that mean that your board should make this option available to homeowners in your community?

Living in a high-rise, condominium or co-op certainly has its perks. You get the convenient location, the dramatic views, attentive concierge services and a range of amenities. However, vertical living also means added challenges when it comes to fire safety. Fortunately, there are measures that both your association board and residents can take to improve safety.

When a lot of people think about high-rise living, they don’t necessarily jump to the idea of families in high-rises. In many cities, high-rises are still considered the domain of the young and single, or couples without kids or active retirees. The New York Times even ran a piece, in 1987, decreeing that “A High-Rise Is Not a Home for Children.” But today, thanks to a Millennial generation that doesn’t want to commute from the ‘burbs, more and more high-rises are actively courting families as residents.

Good rules make good community members. The most important factors in association policy making, whether for a condo, co-op, townhome or master-planned community, are clarity and sensibility. The board must be clear – and united – on the policy being created and then must communicate that policy to all residents. Whether the policy is about overnight guest parking, designated smoking areas, amenity usage or approved flooring, the basic steps to creating good policy and enforcing it successfully are the same. It’s important that everyone involved, including board members, residents and the management team, understand who is responsible for the various roles that are part of policy creation, enforcement and compliance.

Preparing your association’s annual budget...it can be a source of stress, but more importantly, it’s a valuable opportunity to ensure the financial well-being of both your association and homeowners. Proper association management hinges on this financial tool for both short-term and long-term planning, so it’s important to follow some guidelines.