Search

Although there are mixed opinions about whether the CTA applies to condo and HOAs, FirstService Residential is proactively assisting board members serving condo and HOAs in understanding and navigating this act.

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 prevent conflict, avoid costly litigation and maintain a great resident experience in your community? Start by adopting these best practices for dispute resolution.

Great policies can help your association run smoothly, enhance the resident experience and improve your reputation. Here are five questions to ask before creating a new HOA policy.

If your main concern is to avoid increasing assessments, you may want to reconsider. As a board member, one of your primary fiduciary responsibilities is to protect property values, and assessments are an investment that helps do just that.

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:

Are you getting the best returns on your reserve funds? Most Arizona board members aren't sure. Find out six ways to improve your association's reserve fund returns, like creating an HOA investment policy.

Great capital improvements lead to better property values. Read on to see the three ways to pay for them and the pros and cons for each.

Considering synthetic turf for your community common areas? Understanding the facts on what it's made of, benefits and disadvantages, and how it will affect children or pets will make all the difference when determining if synthetic turf is the right choice for your community!

There are often valid reasons to raise assessments, but in some cases, you may want to take a different route. Here are three cost-saving strategies.

Safeguarding a strata corporation’s operating and reserve funds is one of the main fiduciary duties of all board members, not just the treasurer. This means strata councils must protect the financial interests of the strata corporation and its members.

Great policies can help your association run smoothly, enhance the resident experience and improve your reputation. Here are five questions to ask before creating a new HOA policy.

Are you getting the best returns on your reserve funds? Most California board members are not sure. Here are six ways to improve your reserve fund returns and create an HOA investment policy.

Strategic capital improvements lead to better property values. Read on to see the three ways to pay for them and their pros and cons.

There are often good reasons to raise assessments, but in some cases, you may be able to take a different route. Here are three strategies to help save your HOA money and keep assessments stable.

When you hire a contractor, it could either be the best decision you ever made, or the worst. The stakes are high; a good contractor will execute your vision on time and on budget, whereas a not-so-good one will be the source of bad workmanship, unexpected delays, inconvenience and a whole lot of headaches.

Picture this: your homeowners association has a big job that needs to be done, so you’ve got to find a qualified contractor to do it. How do you manage your vendor selection process to make sure you find the best one to fill your needs?

When you have a large-scale project slated for your community, it’s tempting to select a vendor based on price. After all, what’s more important than saving your association money?

Vendor management is a large part of serving on the board of a managed community. Every community has outside partners for services like landscaping, sanitation, cable and Internet provision, pool maintenance, valet services and more. Open and effective communication among the board, the management company and the vendors employed by the association is an important part of making the most of any community’s operating budget and improving the lifestyles of its residents.

Your Board of Directors oversees the many day-to-day tasks required to operate and maintain your community…but they can’t do it alone. Your property management team will be expected to hire a wide array of vendors, including painters, plumbers, electricians, landscapers, repairmen for equipment maintenance or emergencies, exterminators, and more.

More than 85% of officials in state legislatures are up for re-election this year. So what does that mean to you as a board member or resident in a condo or homeowners’ association (HOA)? And how does this affect HOA law? There are a variety of initiatives on the table across the nation that will significantly impact community associations. In this article, we’ll take a look at what those issues are – and most importantly, how you can impact HOA law.

Living in a residential community means around-the-clock routine maintenance to preserve the community and its assets. But there comes a time when one of your assets will reach the end of its useful life and require a replacement or significant repairs.

Maintaining your buildings’ assets is not a one-size-fits-all proposition. The common areas require a broad range of routine maintenance and repairs to keep them looking good and operating smoothly.

In our guide to capital improvements , reserve studies and their relationship to capital improvements and preventive maintenance were discussed at length.