From a management perspective, we have certainly received our share of requests for refunds or reductions to the monthly assessments. These were especially common at the beginning of the pandemic. We immediately gathered our leadership team to discuss the issue and help our clients deal with establishing a policy for communicating the best response to these requests and preparing our clients for a potential cash shortfall from reduced payments. In general, the association should not issue any refund or reduce its assessments in response to this pandemic or as a result of any unit owner's hardship. The following are a cursory review of just a few of the issues that should be considered:

1. The Board's fiduciary responsibility is to maintain the property to preserve valuations and protect the association's most important asset, which is the right to levy assessments. Any mitigation of this fiduciary responsibility could present serious legal challenges with unit owners on different sides of the issue. 

2. The association's cost structure, for the most part, has not and will not change. In other words, in our experience, most costs were not reduced during the pandemic. In some cases additional services were needed for enhanced cleaning, vigilance for safety compliance, registration systems for amenities uses, updates to websites for increased communications, legal fees to keep up with the multiple executive orders and guidance from federal, state, county, and city officials, improvements such as reception windows, signage, sanitizing stations, thermometers, staff safety equipment, additional cleaning supplies, etc. 

3. The association faces risks of potential legal challenges to its handling of the pandemic, which means increased legal costs and operational considerations. This is incredibly costly when most insurance carriers do not cover any liability related to virus and bacterial infections.

4. The operating budgets for an association are essentially set up to cover expenses that directly impact the community and, in most cases, are fixed in nature, which means that the expense will be incurred with or without the property being utilized. Most importantly, unlike private for-profit corporations, an association budget does not contemplate any profits, additional capital from bond or stock issues, or even a government bailout program. 

Our leadership team provided support to our clients in the form of disseminating information to board members and unit owners that helped educate all parties on the importance of maintaining financial stability for the association, the impact of reduced cash flow to the association, and the risks of reduced or interrupted services and maintenance. Additionally, impacted unit owners also received targeted information on seeking assistance from relevant government programs and non-profits organizations. Lastly, a unique process was created for any impacted unit owner claiming hardship and requesting the association's assistance. 

If we take another perspective on this matter, we can think about county property taxes or even our sales taxes. There was no reprieve or refund for these obligations that essentially make our local community function and allow for all essential services to fluidly operate to the benefit of each of us and our neighbors.