DON’T ASSUME, ALWAYS CONFIRM
By
Rafael Aquino
Published February 12, 2020
Whenever a new client partners up with us, we take the transition of
the property very seriously. Part of transitioning a community is
confirming that all the percentage shares are correctly entered into
our system. Why is that important? Well, if it isn’t, you could be
charged incorrectly for your share of the expenses. Unfortunately,
we've had several experiences, both in condos and HOA's, where the
previous management company was charging the members improperly
because no one took the time to review the documents.
The only thing to do in these kinds of situations is to make things
right. The change will cause confusion and frustrations amongst
owners; however, I believe it is essential to do things per the
documents. If you want to avoid these kinds of situations, whenever
you are presented with a budget, you want to make sure you receive a
sheet that delineates how management or the accounting firm
calculated the monthly payments. That way, your Treasurer can do a
couple of spot checks with the docs to make sure the percentages are
correct. While this may seem silly, it must be presented this way.
As changes with Boards and management occur, there is no real way of
knowing what happened before unless you dig in and confirm.
There's another common error we see when we transition in new
associations; however, I'll touch on that next week.
I'm curious to hear from our readers... when was the last time you
confirmed your percentage share? Does your budget get presented with
the percentage share per unit type?
