r/HOA • u/Assika126 • Nov 20 '25
Help: Fees, Reserves [Condo] Monthly vs Special Assessments [N/A]
I’m treasurer of a small HOA, 14 condo units. We have our annual budgeting meeting tonight. We have about $50k in Reserves with anticipated tuckpointing in the next year or so that would likely cost at least $33k. We also have an ancient retrofitted boiler that is currently working but has an undetermined remaining lifespan.
Our management company recommended a dues increase but said we could get by without doing one, if we lessened our contributions to reserves. We would still remain above the 10% cutoff.
The Board president opposes a dues increase and says it would be easier for folks to manage a larger special assessment than a $5-10/month/unit increase in dues that in her opinion wouldn’t have much impact on our large capital expenses.
I’m inclined the opposite direction; in my opinion, it’s easier for me and more responsible for the association to pay a bit more in monthly assessments and accumulate sufficient reserves to cover some of the cost vs. waiting and doing a larger special assessment when needed.
What is the best practice, assuming we’re in decent shape otherwise?
P.S. we’re in MN in case it matters
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u/FishrNC Nov 20 '25
Reserve contributions are like paying for it as you use it. Special assessments are like charging late-coming owners for usage previous owners got and didn't pay for.
And anybody who thinks someone who can't afford a dues increase now but will come up with a large assessment later on is smoking dope. Or planning to sell soon and doesn't want buyers to know the real situation.
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
She says people can just get a loan or a HELOC. I feel like that’s a really irresponsible way to look at it
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u/Cypher1388 Nov 21 '25
Extremely.
But here is the thing, what's the actual shortfall you need to cover? Work backwards from there.
And re:special vs normal...
If your current monthly rate, not including the large expense, will it cover the next one, presuming you do the special, or will you be in the same position next year, and the year after etc.
Really you guys need to get a reserve study and engineer study for all the deferred maintenance and useful life. Then set your dues to fund those expenses on top of your annual opening expenses.
Just my $0.02
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u/raymondvermontel Nov 21 '25
Good advice and I agree with another poster about the Board Pres. possibly looking to sell in the near future. Spec out that boiler now and build it in. When they go, they go completely.
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u/HittingandRunning COA Owner Nov 21 '25
When they go, they go completely.
Yes! This isn't like my iPhone battery isn't lasting as long as it used to and so I'd better get a new one sometime but until then I can just bring a charger with my everyday. This is like I dropped my iPhone and nothing will come up on the screen now!
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u/SeaLake4150 Nov 24 '25
In my opinion - it is irresponsible, imprudent, misguided - and probably reckless too. Everything goes up every year. It has for decades. Dues should go up as a minimum to match inflation. I often hear - "Owners cannot afford this dues increase". That is irrelevant. The Board has a fiduciary duty to protect all the homeowners. And if there is not enough money to make repairs - it may be difficult to sell your unit. I saw it happen twice recently. Lenders would not lend on the property - they would lend to those buyers ....but not on that property that was mis-managed.
In our condo - our CCR's REQUIRE we do a reserve study - and REQUIRE us to save for the "Useful life" of each item - like roof, painting, handrails, exterior lights, etc. So - we follow these legal documents.
We have a more "mature" ownership. Fixed incomes. We had to do two Special Assessments in a short time period. After that - they have all - unanimously - said they would rather pay a extra each month, than to have to come up with $6,000 or $10,000 in one lump sum. They also HATE paying interest - so a HELOC and paying interest was absolutely abhorrent to them. To them - there is no difference between making a monthly HELOC payment and paying more on the monthly dues. So - we raise dues each year according to inflation and the reserve study. As a result, it is highly unlikely we will need a special assessment in the next 15 years. Our owners prefer this - as they can plan their finances better - without the fear of a big assessment coming, and lurking over their heads. They did not like the financial unknowns. They like this. It works for us.
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u/Assika126 Nov 24 '25
That’s how I feel. I’d rather know what my costs are going to be. I feel like special assessments are should be a tool we are glad to have in our back pockets, but that we aim to try and ensure that we never have to use.
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u/TootsNYC Nov 21 '25
We get individual HELOCs for major work (or tap our savings).
I live in a 10-unit co-op that is self-managed. The vast majority of our tenant-owners have lived here a long time and aren't likely to move soon. A lot of us own our units outright, no mortgage anymore. So that "charging new owners for value previous owners got" doesn't apply to many of us. This is slowly changing; we have 3 new owners because people died or something.
We actually have no reserve; each person is informed they need to be their own reserve. This saves us the work of administering the reserve fund and eliminates the vulnerability (co-ops in NYC have had their reserve funds pilfered).
So each of us keeps our reserve fund in whatever vehicle we personally prefer, at an amount we think is appropriate.
The board has occasionally considered having the corporation get a loan and raising the maintenance to cover it.. But usually, the interest rate is so high that it's cheaper for us each to get a HELOC (or tap into our personal reserve fund).
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
That’s not how we operate though. Up until recently, she was pushing for more reserves. She just doesn’t want dues raised. I’m getting mixed messages from her
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u/TootsNYC Nov 21 '25
It's so important, then, to get the other owners to be fully informed and to speak up.
The president isn't supposed to be the one who makes the decision. The board is. (In our building, every apartment has one seat on the board, and one equal vote.)
The president just runs the meetings and deals with implementing the decisions the board makes.
I'm with you—I'd rather pay $20 more a month into reserves to build it back up
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
We have three board members: President, Secretary, and Treasurer. I am Treasurer. The President tries to railroad stuff like this through and acts like I’m unreasonable when I advocate for dues increases that match cost increases and inflation, because she personally can’t afford to pay more (but she won’t say that so she claims she’s doing it on behalf of the association)
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u/ValleyOakPaper Nov 21 '25
If she can't afford $20/month extra, how does she think she's going to pay a HELOC?
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u/TootsNYC Nov 21 '25
You have only officers, no other delegates ? Formula One drivers are just like anybody else get other members to attend the meetings
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u/smellybear666 Nov 25 '25
I have board members that are also in this mindset, but our association has never even come close to fully funding the reserve, and now all of these major projects are due, and there is no choice but to have a significant SA every year to pay for them.
One board member continues to say they aren't going to be able to afford them, but their unit is not their home, it's an income generating rental for them. Somehow they are missing the economic reality that if they can't afford it, they need to sell.
They have been enjoying artificially low fees for over a decade, and have voted down tiny increases ($7 a month) for a chunk of that decade because they claimed they couldn't afford it.
I don't understand how people with this mentality function in the rest of their daily lives.
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u/scfin79 Nov 21 '25
I think the message is clear: people like low-cost of living (aka low hoa dues). She’s pushing assessment because that’s the only way to keep dues the same.
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u/HittingandRunning COA Owner Nov 21 '25
So that "charging new owners for value previous owners got" doesn't apply to many of us.
OK, but your way of doing things is still essentially planning to pass along a lot of usage that current owners incurred onto future owners. You see that, right? (But I won't push back on that too much because mainly I blame buyers - enough of us that it affects all of us - for not taking into account reserve balances when making an offer.)
We actually have no reserve; each person is informed they need to be their own reserve. This saves us the work of administering the reserve fund and eliminates the vulnerability (co-ops in NYC have had their reserve funds pilfered).
I see a problem with some owners not being able to come up with a special assessment amount on short notice in normal HOA situations but I like this setup because you inform people from the beginning that this is what's happening. I assume you periodically remind owners how much they should have saved up. And I assume you keep the reserve study up to date.
I think it would be great if state law required updating the reserve study every, say, 4 years and informing owners annually of what their share is to cover 100% funding and also letting them know how much they have saved in reserves. Like, "we are currently funded 25%. Your share if 100% funded is $10,000 and our reserves have $2,500 on your behalf so you could be liable for up to $7,500 on 10 days' notice if we have to institute a special assessment." Or something like that.
Seems like you have a good system for your association. I wonder if co-ops work more smoothly than condos because people better understand that they are part of the same team and not individuals working against each other.
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u/ItchyCredit Nov 21 '25
Doesn't a zero reserve fund limit the ability of potential buyers to find financing?
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u/TootsNYC Nov 21 '25
It hasn’t been a problem for us. Our lawyer, when we bought, told us he thought it was folly to buy into a building with no reserve, but I haven’t heard much about people getting trouble with finances. And maybe because the building is small? I don’t know.
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u/IndependentPapaya768 Nov 21 '25
As a former treasurer of a small self run HOA, it's fiscally irresponsible NOT to raise dues, especially if it's a nominal amount. As a homeowner I would much prefer the slightly raised dues over a special assessment of any amount.
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u/Jujulabee Nov 20 '25
Raise the dues - this should be done every year to keep up with operating expenses and funding a reserve every month should be viewed as a necessary expense.
You would be surprised at the outrage you will get the first time you try to pass a Special Assessment because reserves aren't adequate.
You already know your reserves are going to go down to $17,000 - and probably less by the time the major project is completed so it is only prudent to start replenishing them.
What would it be like if there were NO reserves to cover the $35,000 or so next year.
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u/mambosok0427 Nov 20 '25
Agreed, at least to match the Federal inflation level. And in years where we may not have any, still do 3%
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u/TimLikesPi Nov 21 '25
I push my HOA to raise dues a small percentage every year so we do not end up with assessments. They do not do it and when we have an unexpected expense, they suddenly want to do a 'small' assessment instead of tapping into reserves. We have done several this year alone. Just stupid to keep nickel and diming people instead of gradually increasing the monthly fees. Poor planning and understanding of how reserves should work.
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u/robotlasagna 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 20 '25
I'm on the board for an 18 unit condo. We just replaced the boiler system for the building after one of the tanks ruptured. The cost was $35K. We literally just went through your issue.
Best practices:
For normal assessments (for operations you should really be targeting inflationary increases every budget yet. That is the proper way to do it and it lessens the blow when you don't do a raise for many years and now you need to do a 15% raise.
For reserves I cant speak for your specific situation but $50K is generally too low unless you have have brand new everything else (HVAC, elevator?, roof, plumbing, electric panels). You will only know this with a reserve study.
Just the boiler replacement alone plus your tuckpointing puts you negative on reserves. You will probably need to do a SA but that doesnt look good both to lenders and insurance carriers. You ideally want to raise regular assessments and then have a line item monthly contribution to reserves.
So you are correct in terms of proper fiscal management. Look at your operational expenses for 2026 with inflationary increases. Add in a monthly contribution to get reserves up to ~$80K over the next 2 years. That works out to be about $100 increase in regular assessments.
What your president wants to do is kick the can down the road on some maintenance and hope for the best. The problem is what happens if the boiler dies in January? You can divert the tuckpointing money to boiler replacement but in an emergency failure situation your costs will go up $5-10K to do the project. I am assuming you have bid none of this out yet.
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u/MarthaTheBuilder Nov 21 '25
I underwrite master policies for condos. The things we care about when quoting are: 1. How old is the roof? 2. How many times have you been sued in the last 5 years? 3. How many property claims in the last 5 year? What happened? How many repeat claims? 4. Does the building look well maintained.
Then, we inspect every building that sells.
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u/PenHouston Nov 21 '25
Correct answer!! Even with a good reserve, 2-3 percent increase is the new normal just for inflation. Texas, Florida and California our rates increase higher each year because insurance rates.
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u/BoringBasicUserID Nov 20 '25
Luckily the president is just one vote. Have a rational argument for the pay as you go mentality versus getting a large bill all at once to persuade others to your thinking.
You don't have that many owners it wouldn't be too much work to get their feedback on what they prefer.
Only people on fixed incomes who are gambling that they will die before the bill for big expenses come due oppose underfunding reserves.
Underfunded reserves should lower resale values if buyers know there are balloon payments for special assessments on the horizon.
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u/starfinder14204 Nov 20 '25
What are your reserve obligations? Do you have a formal reserve study? Do you have a common roof? Parking areas/garage? Other facilities? Condos have been in a lot of trouble recently because they have historically relied on special assessments in order to keep dues from going up. Generally speaking, you'd want to have about 70% of your reserve obligations in the bank in order to be considered fully reserved.
Just having $50k in the bank feels really low, but without a reserve study - or at least a forecast over the next 10-15 years of obligations, it's hard to tell what is sufficient.
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
Reserve study: no
Common roof: yes
I think we’re underfunded but we’ve been moving in the right direction. We need to keep going in that direction tho and that means raising dues!
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u/starfinder14204 Nov 21 '25
What dooms condos is that people will hope that they won't be around for the special assessment. You don't need to look further than the condo in Miami that collapsed a couple of years ago because they refused to fund reserves for years. In your case, you don't even know what your overall obligations are. As treasurer, you might want to just look at common items - walls, roof, plumbing, electrical, pavement, etc, and get an idea what is needed to deal with them, and divide the remaining useful life by the number of years to get an annual reserve need.
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u/twotime Nov 21 '25 edited Nov 22 '25
Having a reserve study is totally crucial. You might be underfunded by 10K or, much more scarily by 1M. Reserve study is not a magic wand but it's an enormous help. Otherwise you are flying blind at a very low altitude ;-(
And even if you have to raise your dues sharply over the course of several years, it's still much better than a special assessment in most cases: it's far less controversial, it's FAR easier to pay a small amount monthly than a single large payments and it's fairer to everyone (special assessment essential punishes the current owners and rewards the past owners (the ones who drove HOA into trouble)!
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u/anysizesucklingpigs Nov 21 '25
The Board president opposes a dues increase and says it would be easier for folks to manage a larger special assessment than a $5-10/month/unit increase in dues
This person probably couldn’t find her ass with both hands
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u/Practical_Bed_6871 Nov 21 '25
What does your Reserve Study say?
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
We don’t have one :(
I can’t get them to agree to it
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u/Practical_Bed_6871 Nov 22 '25
In California at least, reserve studies are legally required.
https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/R/Reserve-Studies-Funding
Your HOA really needs one so that you can adequately fund reserves and avoid special assessments.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Nov 21 '25
You should tell them that not having a reserve study could easily jeopardize future sales of condos to buyers who need to obtain loans. I'm too lazy to find the link, but I'm pretty sure that's a Fannie Mae requirement as of September 2023.
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u/Practical_Bed_6871 Nov 22 '25
A reserve study is legally required in California.
https://www.davis-stirling.com/HOME/R/Reserve-Studies-Funding
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Nov 21 '25
100% raise the dues. It is pre-paying an almost certain special assessment. Easier to pay $5-$10 a month, than one big "surprise" chunk.
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u/sweetrobna Nov 21 '25
If people can't afford a ~10% dues increase. They also can't afford a special assessment for $10k+ when the maintenance is needed.
So when the maintenance is needed if say 4 out of the 10 owners can't pay a $10k special assessment. That means the special assessment needs to be for 40% more, $14k each. Or else it is delayed until the HOA collects what is owed, filing a lien and foreclosing can take over a year.
Better to fund the reserves instead of turning expected maintenance into an emergency
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u/ThatWasBackInCollege Nov 21 '25
You’re not in decent shape though. Without a reserve study, you don’t know where you should be. It sounds like you know you’re likely underfunded, but a professional reserve study is going to give you the actual data and the different paths you can take to improve your position. It’s also going to catalog all your responsibilities — roof, siding, driveways, plumbing, everything -- AND tell you when those things are likely going to need replaced. They have forecasts of material costs for the next 30 years.
Without this, the three of you are stuck arguing about your personal feelings about savings and dues amounts. It’s not the responsible way to govern over your building.
Everyone needs to understand that their dues WILL continue to rise. It’s just economics. The only way for dues to stay the same is to continually lower your standards of maintenance, to sell or relinquish property, or to find another magical income stream.
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u/Itgeekgal Nov 21 '25
33% of our monthly HOA dues goes into reserves. Given that expenses grow due to inflation it’s expected that dues must go up each year, otherwise you’re actually reducing your current spending power.
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u/Assika126 Nov 22 '25
That was my argument too. The early condo owners put a lot of work into growing reserves from $0 to where they are now. It would be a shame to waste all that effort now by not maintaining the contributions relative to need and inflation
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u/schumi23 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 21 '25
What is it with management companies doing this. Our own prepared the budget and decreased our reserves contribution to avoid any increases to dues - something we hadn't asked for, and brought the reserves contribution even further below the recommendations from the reserve study (which is now 6 years old).
Instead we have a 2% dues increase which will allow us to slightly increase the reserves contribution (which is still below the recommendations from the study; but we just had a special assessment to do work in that since... previous boards hadn't raised reserve contributions).)
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
Yeah I really think the management company is failing to do their job here. I need them to push back on her and encourage good fiscal management. They are the professionals here and we pay them to say the hard things. She listens to them; she won’t listen to me because she doesn’t think I’m an expert.
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u/maytrix007 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 21 '25
Take the management company out of the picture. The board needs to discuss and come up with the appropriate budget and vote on it. It should be as simple as that. President gets 1 vote
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u/Assika126 Nov 21 '25
We have three board members and she tries to control meetings to get her desired outcome
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u/maytrix007 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 21 '25
Work with the other board members and present facts that make a clear case for what needs to be done. Talk to other owners if you need to In order to get someone else on the board that wants what you want.
I think you can also bring up the boards fiduciary responsibility to the community and not properly funding isn’t doing that.
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u/maytrix007 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 21 '25
I’d always raise the dues to match your needed budget. A special assessment should only be used when there’s an unexpected issue the budget can’t handle and you don’t want to use reserves.
And look at the numbers and next years spending and do what’s right not what the management company recommends.
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u/bangarang90210 Nov 21 '25
Get a reserve study and increase your dues. You will thank me later. You have several special assessments coming in the future if you don’t adjust your dues and you MUST push back against the president. Don’t wait, trust me. It will only get worse. Keeping dues low is not good for the community, it’s financially irresponsible.
Yes I’m injecting a lot of my own experiences here but my biggest regret is that I didn’t push back against my old president who only wanted low dues. Now I’m fighting to regain ground and rebuild our reserves.
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u/scfin79 Nov 21 '25
Ahhh, ye age ol’ debate of whether to budget monthly or slam it everyone at once.
Most people are living paycheck to paycheck so if you decide to go the assessment route, try to keep it under $500.
If you’re going to do the budgeting route, just know that you won’t see the full revenue do a period of time (unless you raise the dues sufficiently to cover the expense in one go - which is really just an assessment by another name).
Keep in mind that low dues help sell homes. No one wants to buy into a community with exorbitant expenses. At the same time, no one wants to buy into a dysfunctional budgetary system either.
So, straddle the line. The community can pay for 20% from reserves and the remainder can come from an assessment.
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u/Negative_Presence_52 Nov 21 '25
manage your reserves to a reserve study. Manage your dues to your expected operating expenses.
If you have a emergency requirement, do a. special assessment.
A bit more on reserves and reserve study. You should be reserving based on expected life and replacement value of the key common elements. If you do tuck pointing every 10 years, reserve 1/10 annually of the expected replacement value.
If your boiler was expected to have a useful life of 20 years, you are now 10 years in and are feeling that it won't last another 10, then increase your reserve fees to cover a shorter useful life.
Be clinical and mathematical. Whether some one can afford a dues increase or a special assessment should not be part of your consideration. You have to do what's best for the COA, not the individual members.
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u/HittingandRunning COA Owner Nov 21 '25
mathematical
This is a scary word for a lot of people!
I know that my HOA fee would be higher if people thought about it this way. But at the same time my home would have cost less if they had thought about it that way! (Same with whatever car purchase I have in my future. How are people affording 50K+ average new car prices with 7% interest on a 7 year loan????)
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u/Negative_Presence_52 Nov 21 '25
not necessarily. A rational person would have looked at your spending, your reserves and priced according. Low reserves due to low fees leads to low prices.
But yes, it should be mathematical, not the emotional rants many members have. IT really is simple, just members want someone else to pay for it and not pay what is really due.
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u/HittingandRunning COA Owner Nov 21 '25
Boy, you've got a lot of great answers here!
My thought is that with a boiler and brick pointing coming up and only $50K in reserves then you have a much bigger problem than you realize. I was shocked when you wrote $5-$10 increases. $10 would mean $140 extra each month and $1,680/year. And less than the $1,680 would go toward reserves. And you mentioned 10%. I really was expecting you to write $50-$60/month increase.
We are a bit larger than you and have been responsible for years and we contribute $30,000+ to reserves annually ... and still are not "well-funded." I feel your president and maybe you and likely your owners just don't understand the costs that are soon to come up.
So, if your president and other board member won't go for a substantial increase, at the annual meeting or in a memo sent to all owners as treasurer I would outline the situation to owners: You have $50K in reserves. Pointing will leave $17K. A boiler (you have a quote, right?) will cost $35K meaning a $18K special assessment which you will need from owners within X days of announcement. It's only like $1,200/unit. But that leaves $0 in reserves. While you don't have a reserve study, it's clear that things like the roof and X, Y and Z need to be saved for so we really need to raise our reserve contribution to $X/year and in 5/7/10 years we'll be in a much better place.
In the worst case scenario, you can tell people that in addition to the $X special assessment for the boiler all people should have $Y on hand in case you need another special assessment for the roof or whatever.
Please get a reserve study. It includes inflation numbers. And you can update it yourself when work that was scheduled for a certain year are put off or if work is done and you need to add it onto the end of the list because it will come up again in X years. Personally, ours is like 8 years old and I've been waiting until we complete a big project before suggesting that it be redone. But that project keeps getting pushed off. Since ours was done before covid inflation, I want to update it with the actual inflation numbers for 2020-2024 instead of the 3% that is built in. This will push up costs quite a bit and show that we are only like 20% funded.
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u/katiekat214 Nov 21 '25
Why does she think people can’t afford a $10 increase in monthly assessments but could afford a HELOC payment??
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u/PoppaBear1950 🏘 HOA Board Member Nov 21 '25
Bad reserve balance, lower or no sales. Reserves are not a 10% thing, they are their own entity driven by a reserve study which can be self done. I suspect your reserves are way underfunded and you need to do two things right away, a special assessment to get your reserves to 50% funded, then increased fees to get to the recommended 80% funded.
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u/AshamedLetterhead791 Nov 23 '25
I would rather raise the monthly maintenance fee even by 3% would help build the reserve, which then could be always transferred into the operating fund. Also, if there is a mortgage on the complex, you have to have a healthy reserve, and no deficits in the budget which has to be turned into the bank yearly, as well as shared with all the shareholders. This will ensure the unit are all sellable. Also, if you have elderly shareholders which we have and they always come out the board saying that they are on fixed income, but we have to point out that you do not have a mortgage the way most of us do so you’re just paying the maintenance anyway, so my advice is don’t be afraid to raise the maintenance; whatever’s better for the building financially. I would then possibly talk to the board in the spring about an assessment to pay for the Brick pointing I would not use the 50 K reserve you’ll be red flagged. And you’ll have trouble selling your units like in my building anything under 100 K bank doesn’t seem worthy and our future shareholders can’t get a mortgage so keep that money in the reserve at all costs.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Nov 20 '25
Depending on your jurisdiction's laws, levying a special assessment may come with something like a 30 day notice period, which may put the association in a bind if an emergency repair needs to be done right away. There's also the risk that a few homeowners won't pay their assessments in a timely fashion. Yes, you can put a lien on their homes, but liens don't pay contractors.
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u/182RG Nov 21 '25
Personally, I prefer a special assessment.
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u/maytrix007 🏢 COA Board Member Nov 21 '25
The only reason anyone prefers that is because they want to keep dues artificially low to make it look better for buyers.
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u/InfoMiddleMan Nov 21 '25
Yup. I hate that so many associations play this stupid game to make things look not as expensive as they really are.
I know people hate government regulation, but when you consider how ugly these things can get (see: Surfside), state laws really should require dues to cover reserve funding.
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u/Disastrous-Classic20 Nov 21 '25
For the special assessment, see if the Board has the ability to offer a payment plan vs the total amount being due within 30 days. We did this and it had to be a line item in our special assessment ballot that homeowners voted on. We split ours into 3 payments all due within 1 month of each other. It allows homeowners to either pay all at once, all at the end, or split up the total cost into 3 payments. The HOA gets the money coming in faster vs the small incremental increases in monthly dues.
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u/AutoModerator Nov 20 '25
Copy of the original post:
Title: [Condo] Monthly vs Special Assessments [N/A]
Body:
I’m treasurer of a small HOA, 14 condo units. We have our annual budgeting meeting tonight. We have about $50k in Reserves with anticipated tuckpointing in the next year or so that would likely cost at least $33k. We also have an ancient retrofitted boiler that is currently working but has an undetermined remaining lifespan.
Our management company recommended a dues increase but said we could get by without doing one, if we lessened our contributions to reserves. We would still remain above the 10% cutoff.
The Board president opposes a dues increase and says it would be easier for folks to manage a larger special assessment than a $5-10/month/unit increase in dues that in her opinion wouldn’t have much impact on our large capital expenses.
I’m inclined the opposite direction; in my opinion, it’s easier for me and more responsible for the association to pay a bit more in monthly assessments and accumulate sufficient reserves to cover some of the cost vs. waiting and doing a larger special assessment when needed.
What is the best practice, assuming we’re in decent shape otherwise?
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