No one likes to have to pay a bill, especially one they don't understand.
Okay, so what are HOA Dues and why do we have them?!
Each year, each homeowner is required to pay an annual fee. This fee is used for a wide variety of potential community beautifications as well as to pay other bills incurred by the community. Some of these bills include our lawn maintenance, pond maintenance, water bill, and electricity bill to name a few.
The remaining money is used towards purchasing items to increase the property value for each and everyone of your homes, by adding to the community. As an HOA, we have smaller projects that have a short turnaround time and larger projects that we hope to complete within a year. An example of a smaller project was the community message board, garbage cans throughout the neighborhood, and benches at the parks and ponds. Some of the larger projects include playgrounds and the new palm trees within the neighborhood.
“Why don't we have a community center or a pool or a workout facility? That would bring value to our community!”
This question is probably the most asked question the HOA board receives, almost every time we meet for our quarterly or annual meeting by homeowners. The quick answer is: WE TRIED!
Almost 3 years ago, our HOA President did a MASSIVE amount of work and negotiated a beautiful contract with a local financial institution and builder, to have a large community center building placed in the back area of the neighborhood. But these items don't come for free, and with our dues being as low as they were, there was no way to acquire such an item, without increasing our HOA dues to cover the cost of the build and still pay for our expenses.
When it got to the annual meeting, in which you, the community, had the opportunity to vote in the community center, it was voted NOT to move forward with the build. The reason was, because the dues would have had to be increased by $200 per home, per year, for 10 years. Then, after the 10 years, it could be discussed adjusting the dues. The community did not want to pay $600 a year for this build. And that was for a building we could rent out for special events, acquire additional funding to pay off the debt sooner, and every property would have the opportunity to use the center, free of charge, once per year.
Ironically, if we would've voted it in, we would almost be done paying it off.
Now, if the community wasn't willing to pay an additional $200 for a building, there was no way that they would pay for a pool and/or work out facility, as the cost would have been even more. You would have to include the cost of insurance/liability, staffing of a facility manager, cost of water [to fill the pool], maintenance of either facility, cost of supplies [weights, weight benches, pool chairs/tables, etc.).
Can We Revisit or Vote Again to have a Community Center?
Technically, yes, we can always vote to have this - but only at our annual meeting if we have at least 75% of the homeowners AT the meeting or through a proxy. Needless to say, we've only had this happen twice in the past 10 years.
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