I have a lot of sympathy
for associations that have a hard time maintaining a functioning board of
directors and keeping out owners and renters who feel no obligation to pay
their dues or are generally disruptive in condo living. Condo owners often
don't realize that the cooperative enterprise that runs the condo association
isn't a separate professional organization they pay dues to every month. To
paraphrase 'Lil Abner, "We have met the enemy and he is us!"—only we
hope we don't really mean "enemy." The point is WE, the owners, must actively
run our associations.
It is not always
easy—indeed, it is sometimes nigh to impossible—to find willing, responsible and
able condo board members, especially a president. It's that much harder for us
in the West Palm Beach CV, because most of our associations are so small in number.
You can find a half-dozen board members more easily when you have 50 units to
draw from than when you have only 24.
Two severe problems,
requiring almost opposite solutions, have arisen in the past several years. The
first is the problem of unit owners who stop paying, some of whom simply walk
away from their obligations with no sense of responsibility and little regard
for their fellow owners, who must take up the slack by paying increased dues.
A partial remedy for
this first problem is for owners to be able to rent their properties. In
difficult economic times, a hard-pressed owner (perhaps a snowbird) who IS
responsible and wants to unload his condo has a larger market. He can sell his
unit to someone who wants to rent it, or maybe he himself can rent it.
But the overload of this
soon leads into the other problem, already alluded to above: lack of board
members, especially in the case of our smaller condo associations. Without an
adequately functioning board, things can go to pieces as we have seen and heard
about with the attempted takeover by an individual of one of our condo
associations. For as more and more owners rent their units, the pool of
available association board members shrinks proportionately. This does neither
the owners who live here NOR those who rent their properties any good. You need
"boots on the ground." Now, in order to save the association, bylaw
amendments CUTTING BACK on rentals need to be passed.
It is a balancing act.
On the other hand - Our renters are younger, smart and helpful. Over 55 of course. They can be advisory on the Board but not vote.
ReplyDeleteYou are right, Elaine, and at our Sheffield condo association, we are fortunate to have a few active, helpful renters. I could name you two who have been a godsend to us, one of whom has now become an owner himself. I am not against renters, and I don't like calling them "second class citizens of CV." They pay their way to live here and are entitled to most benefits. But because most of our associations are so small in number, and because such a large percentage of owners who do live here are snowbirds, who are here only part of the year, the pool from which to get capable board members (who must be owners) is small.
DeleteLet's say you have a 26-unit condo association and 12 units are snowbirds. Now maybe 2 of those snowbirds could be board members and not be here year-round. But at least 3 should be here year-round, and preferably 4 in my opinion, for you can't depend on the year-rounders to be here every minute. We do take vacations and we do get sick and land in the hospital. So we have 14 units from which to get 4 here-all-the-time board members. But now let us assume 7 of these 14 units are occupied by renters. That leaves only 7 units from which to get your 4 here-all-the-time board members. That's going to be hard enough when you consider that some of our owners are too old or infirm to serve on a board, and that there are always one or two who simply won't do the work. And it's going to be downright impossible if MORE than 7 are renters.
That's what we're up against, and it's not the fault of anyone, really, unless you want to blame those who set up this first of the Century Villages, which isn't my interest, because it was no doubt set up the best way they knew how at the time. We live and learn, don't we?