March HOA Forum Reviewed

Around thirty staff members from a number of cities attended our recent March homeowner associations forum at South Jordan City. Here are a couple of questions discussed at the forum:

• Why is communication between the city and HOA important? There are a couple of reasons. First, improved communication can improve emergency response at a time of crisis. Some larger HOAs may have a emergency response plan that can be coordinated with the city.
• What is the best way to improve communication with HOAs in your city? This is a difficult task, especially since part of the challenge is just identifying the individual HOAs that exist. South Jordan City literally has gone door to door to identify HOAs and COAs. In addition, now they ask HOAs to record contact information with the city.
• What can cities do to help prevent HOA failure? Unfortunately there really isn’t a lot cities can do. However, one key maybe is to closely review the proposed financial plan of a new HOA. Often HOA failure is due to inadequate reserve funds for emergency situations, the city can help review and approve this plan prior to development.
• What does HOA failure mean? Really there are two kinds of failure. One kind is complete failure that results in absolving the HOA entirely, this failure is very rare. The other kind of failure relates to a specific private service (private road in the HOA , sewer or water, etc) this is more common. Often the frequency of service failure is directly related to the fiscal strength of the HOA.

Thanks to John Janson(West Valley City) and Chip Dawson (South Jordan City) for participating in the panel discussion and offering their experience/insight.

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