Your First 90 Days as an HOA Board Member: What Actually Deserves Your Attention

This is a paid post contributed by a Patch Community Partner. The views expressed in this post are the author's own, and the information presented has not been verified by Patch.

Joining your HOA or condominium board can be exciting right up until someone sends you a folder full of heavy legalese governing documents, lengthy financial statements, contracts, meeting minutes and maintenance reports.

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Then it can get overwhelming quickly.

Most board members are volunteers, meaning no compensation, and the working hours are often evenings and weekends. You probably have a job, a family and plenty of other things competing for your time. You do not need to become an expert in every aspect of community association management during your first month.

But there are a handful of things you should understand early.

Your first 90 days are less about fixing everything and more about getting a clear picture of the community you have agreed to help govern.

Here is where to focus first.

1. Start with the governing documents — but don't try to memorize them.

Your declaration, bylaws, and rules and regulations are essentially the operating instructions for your association and outline your job description as a board member.

They outline things like:

• What the association is responsible for maintaining
• What homeowners are responsible for
• How assessments are determined
• Board powers and limitations
• Voting and election requirements
• Meeting procedures
• Architectural restrictions
• Enforcement authority

You do not need to sit down and read every page in one night.

Instead, start by understanding the areas that affect the decisions currently in front of the board.

If the community is discussing a major repair, find out who is responsible for that component. If there is a rules dispute, understand what the documents actually say before forming an opinion.

Your management company should also be helping the board navigate these documents rather than expecting volunteer directors to interpret everything on their own.

And when something involves a legal interpretation rather than day-to-day administration, that is often when association counsel should be involved.

2. Understand the financial picture before debating individual expenses.

One of the most important things a new board member can do is learn how financially healthy the association actually is.

Start with a few basic questions:

• What is the annual operating budget?
• How much cash does the association have?
• How much of that cash is operating money versus reserve money, and what is the difference between the two?
• Are expenses currently tracking to budget?
• Does the association have outstanding debt?
• Are assessments sufficient to cover current operations?
• Are there any major unexpected expenses already developing?

Do not assume a large bank balance automatically means the association is financially strong.

A community might have $500,000 in the bank but also have a $700,000 roof project approaching.

Likewise, a community with relatively modest cash balances may be financially healthy if it has a well-funded reserve plan and predictable expenses.

Your manager and accounting team should be able to explain the financial statements in plain language and you should be receiving these monthly. You should not have to be an accountant to understand whether the community is operating within budget and preparing appropriately for future expenses.

At RowCal, our in-house, CPA-led HOA Accounting team puts out monthly reconciled financials by the 15th each month, so you're not looking at numbers that are 30+ days past. Making sure the number you're reviewing are current is important.

Visit our blog to learn more about what to expect and analyze in your first 90 days as a new HOA Board Member.

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