Year in Review by HOA Information Office and Resource Center

The January issue of the DORA HOA Info Office Complaints Report, contains a review of what exactly the HOA Information Office and Resource Center has done, seen and heard in the past year. Here is what stands out to me:

The largest area of complaint (17% of the 477 complaints) relates to records and transparency issues;

Most complaints come from low income mid-rise condominium associations;

Colorado Springs/El Paso county had the highest number of complaints (21% of the 477 complaints).

What can we, in the industry, take away from this data?First, non-profit corporations are following in the steps of for-profit corporations where shareholders/members are demanding more transparency and more disclosure through records. Think Enron, Sarbanes-Oxley Act, etc.. If we do not continue to provide increased access to information and transparency, legislators will force it through law which may only apply to community associations. Second, it is likely that the high number of complaints coming from low income, mid-rise condominiums are a result of volunteer board members taking on duties beyond their scope of knowledge due to the lack of funds to hire professionals (association managers, attorneys, accountants, engineers, etc.). Lastly, with only 477 complaints, I wonder if this will at all impact the sunrise process currently underway with respect to credentialing or licensure and regulation of community association managers. 477 complaints from over an estimated 20,000 associations represents only 2.3% which may indicate that there really aren’t widespread problems in need of legislative fixes but rather a few abuses.

2 responses to “Year in Review by HOA Information Office and Resource Center”

Holdren says:

January 17, 2012 at 4:33 pm

Thanks for the quick insight! Great job as always!
Joe Felice says:

January 17, 2012 at 6:48 pm

I’m not sure how much-more regulated the record-review provisions of CCIOA could possibly be, but I’m sure the Legislature would find a way. The law seems pretty clear to me, and not open to a lot of interpretation (or mis-interpretation). Do we know if the people who filed the complaints are persisting in their requests, or do they just make the requests, and then go directly to a “complaint?” It seems to me that all they would need to do is copy the applicable section from CCIOA, and ask their manager to confer with the owner of the management company or with the association’s attorney, or, at least, to reconsider. The records should be forthcoming. That’s what I did when my HOA attempted to raise the amount of the assessments without first having gone through the budgeting process mandated by CCIOA. The response was “We stand (or sit) corrected.”

Does Aaron ask the complainants if they have taken any further action to pursue their claim? Does he offer an opinion on the validity of “complaints?” We all know that the vast majority of them are groundless or friviolus. And yet, the 2.3% complaint rate would indicate that problems are not as widespread as the complainants would like to have the Legislature believe. But then, we knew that, didn’t we? So all we’ve accomplished is spent money on a process that produced the exact results which we had said it would. What a country!

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Year in Review by HOA Information Office and Resource Center

2 responses to “Year in Review by HOA Information Office and Resource Center”

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