Barony Place I/Barony Place II

As you must be aware by now, the HOA's Board of Directors has refused to post the 2022 Annual Audit on the HOA's website.  The annual Audits from 2001-2021 have all been posted. Why not the 2022 Annual Audit? Members might be curious about this line in the 2021 Annual Audit (Page 6), under Income Taxes. "In 2020 and 2019 the Association's income from nonexempt income was subject to tax. There was no tax liability for 2021. Tax years 2019, 2020 and 2021 remain open with major tax jurisdictions. " [ emphasis added. ] Are those tax years still open? How much tax was owed? Paid? Any penalties? What about the 2022 Tax Year? This withholding of the 2022 Annual Audit should be ringing all sorts of alarm bells for Members (homeowners) of the Association. Why wouldn't the Board post it? I was offered a copy of it for a price - up to $265.00! The HOA wanted to charge me $125.00/hour for up to two hours to find it and redact "sensitive" information. Plus a $15

Did you see the Tax Sale Notices posted on three parcels of common property owned by the HOA? I didn't get there in time for photos, but I was contacted about them. The signs were removed quickly. Why wouldn't the HOA have paid the property taxes when they were first due? The HOA must receive a bill annually for each parcel, and it should expect the bill and have the property taxes set aside for prompt payment. And, even if the HOA doesn't receive a bill, it knows (or should know) that taxes are due every year by a certain date on every real estate parcel owned by the HOA, and it should make the payment by the due date, whether it received a notice or not. Are late fees, fines, and/or penalties associated with late payment? Who pays that? The HOA or the party responsible for making the payment? That would be CAMS. [Edited 9/29/2023] Justin Martin wrote to Gus, in part:  " The public notice was necessary because the properties in question were not transferred correctly

When will the Board decide on the management contract for 2024? A Request for Proposals (RFP) should have been sent to major HOA management companies earlier in the summer. And bids should have started to come in. Have they? At the August 8th board meeting a Voting Member asked a question in the public comment period near the end of the meeting. He asked about the integrity of the bidding process, and he asked specifically whether the bids were kept sealed. The Minutes of the August 8th meeting are incorrect. They read, in part, "Homeowner stated that the Finance Committee should receive vendor bids in a sealed envelope." The Minutes should state "Voting Member inquired about the integrity of the bidding process and asked if bids were kept in sealed envelopes." In other words, all the bids should be opened at a meeting called for the purpose of opening the bids. No one (President, Treasurer, CAMS or anyone else) should see the bids before they are opened in a contro

Here's a question for homeowners in Barony Place. And maybe for homeowners in every one of other 27 neighborhoods in The Summit's HOA. Should you have a Voting Member (VM)? What does VM do for you? Or, rather, what would the ideal VM do for you? 1. Represent you. Since you, the homeowner, don't get to vote for Directors of the HOA, the VM is your voice at the ballot box every November. 2. When the Nominating Committee comes up with its slate of nominees for Directors, the VM should inform you, let you know who the nominees are, and ask your opinion. 3. The VM should carefully review the qualifications of the nominees. If incumbents are running for re-election, they should not be shoe-ins. Did they do a good job during their past two-year term? Do they deserve re-election? 4. The VM should be available for your questions and be responsive to you. The VM is between you and the board; between you and the management office. 5. If you contact the office and are not satisfied wit

What did it cost the HOA to fill the Myrtle Pool this week? You can see City of Columbia Water rates here . County rates are higher than City rates. The City of Columbia tracks water usage in Units of 100 cubic feet. 1 Unit = 100 cubic feet 100 cubic feet = 748.052 gallons All customers are charged a  flat fee for up to the first 3 Units  (2244 gallons) of water use. This fee is based on meter connection size and location (see below). Customers are then charged for  each additional Unit  of water they use (see below for details). Rates became effective on July 1, 2023. Out-of-City Water Base Charges by Meter Size (inches) 5/8 : $15.23 1 : $25.42 1 1/2 : $38.08 2 : $60.92 3 : $121.84 4 : $190.38 6 : $381.21 8 : $609.20 10 : $1209.57 For out-of-City customers (us) the rates are Next 97 Units (4-100 Units): $5.20 Next 900 Units (101-1,000 Units): $4.90 Volume Over 1,000 Units: $4.61 What in the world could "meter size" have to do with rates per gallon (unit)? Wouldn't meter

It's amazing what you can find the Governing Documents, if you just wait for it to bubble up to the surface. Read this in the By-Laws: Art. III, C, Section 19 Accounts and Reports "The following management standards of performance will be followed unless the Board by resolution specifically determines otherwise:          [(a) - (f) not shown]  "(g) an annual report consisting of at least the following shall be distributed to all Members within one hundred twenty (120) days after the close of the fiscal year: (1) a balance sheet; (2) an operating (income) statement; and (3) a statement of changes in financial position for the fiscal year. The annual report referred to above shall be prepared on an audited or reviewed basis, as determined by the Board, by an independent public accountant; provided, upon written request of any holder, guarantor or insurer of any first Mortgage on a Unit, the Association shall provide an audited financial statement. During the Class “B” Contr

Get rid of that hard-to-get-rid-of stuff.

From the July 31, 2023 Financial Report, prepared by CAMS, and attached to the Minutes of the September 5, 2023 Board of Directors meetings: "Overall The Summit's Financials are very strong and currently are operating under budget." Page 3/3. And so the Board is considering a 10% increase in your dues. Hello? Are we dealing with rocket scientists here? The August 31, 2023 Financials have not yet been released. They will be available at the October 3rd board meeting and on the website then. Of course, that board meeting may be in private on Zoom. Whether homeowners will be able to view it is, in the words of the board's minutes, still up in the air. But don't run away yet. Let's take a second look at "currently operating under budget". How is the HOA doing on the purchase of water? As of 7/31/2023 (7 months into the fiscal year), 92.9% of the water budget has been spent. $    85.00 Jan. $3757.05 Feb. * $1902.26 Mar. $  149.16 Apr. $  227.47 May $  994

In how many of the past elections of Directors of the Board has there been Voter Fraud? If a homeowner assumes the role of Voting Member, but he has not been selected by his Neighborhood Committee, then he is not a legitimate Voting Member. What is the legal risk to that person? Is he a usurper? An imposter? Every year each Neighborhood is required by the By-Laws to hold an Annual Neighborhood Meeting and elect a Neighborhood Committee of three homeowners. One of them becomes the Voting Member. When was your last Neighborhood Meeting? Barony Place has not had a Neighborhood Meeting for at least five years. The President of the HOA officiates at the Annual Meeting of the Voting Members. That's his only role. He does not participate. The Secretary writes the record. There should be Minutes of every Annual Meeting of Voting Members. The Minutes should reflect who was there, whether each was a legitimate Voting Member or Alternate (and thus entitled to vote), and whether a quorum was p

As you probably know, the Myrtle Pool was closed after broken glass was found in the pool. The pool had to be drained and cleaned. And re-filled, of course, At the private September 5th Board meeting, held on Zoom and closed to homeowners, the Safety Committee's report read, in part, "The pool will have to be drained and vacuumed per DHEC regulations and it is currently closed and the estimated time to reopen is 9/18/23. A suggestion was made to not open [ sic ] the pool back up since Magnolia will be open to finish the season. It was not voted on." The HOA's office sent out an email on September 22 that the Myrtle poll will re-open on September 23. When do the pools close? The September Scoop informs homeowners and residents that both pools close on September 30. Did the HOA fill the Myrtle Pool for only one week of use? How much did the water and pool chemicals cost to fill the Myrtle Pool? Did the HOA buy water from the City of Columbia? Or pump water from one of t

The Board of Directors decided in its secret, private, pre-board meeting at the end of August to cancel the Special Duty Agreement with the Richland County Sheriff's Department.  If that meeting was one week before the September 5th regular monthly Open board meeting, then the pre-board meeting was on August 29. There should be Minutes of that (and of every) pre-board meeting, but they have never been published. Are they even written? If they are, they should be in a Minute book at the HOA office that any Member can walk in and examine. Also, the Minutes of the Special Board Meeting on August 22nd were never published. As part of the Minutes of the September 5th "closed" board meeting, the Safety Committee reported, in part, "A motion was made to not renew the Signal 30 contract [ sic ] when it expired on August 30, 2023." (The  Minutes were re-written after initial publication. Fortunately, I saved a copy of the original Minutes.) According to the Agreement wit

According to the monthly financial statement for 7/31/2023, the Accounts Receivables of the HOA are $570,056.02. Over half a million dollars is owed to the HOA for unpaid dues.  If you were president of a business and its bad debts were increasing every month, what changes would you make? Every month this statement appears in the Financial Overview Report: "Collection Activity is being conducted in accordance with Association policy". With bad debts steadily rising, there is something wrong with either the Collection Activity or the Association policy. Or both! Members (that's you, the homeowners) and the Voting Members should demand that the Treasurer and the Board issue an in-depth Report on the exact financial state of the HOA. The whitewash at monthly meetings is inadequate. The Report should include - Exactly what the Association policy is; - Exactly what the Collection Activity consists of; - What steps, in any, that the office (CAMS employees at 305 Ridge Trail Dr

"The results of the 2022 audit is [ sic ]  available to review at Summit Association Office by homeowners upon request." This message still appears on the HOA's website, as of today (September 21, 2023). On the homepage, scroll down and click on Neighborhood News. Then scroll down to that message. Then contact the office and request to review it (the 2022 Annual Audit). To create a paper trail, email trigon@camsmgt.com Let me know if they tell you it will cost you up to $265 (up to two hours' labor at $125/hour plus a $15.00 charge to print it). Tell them you don't want a copy of it; you just want to review it.

Be glad ... and be warned! Be glad you don't live in the CAMS-managed Summer Pines HOA. The  office for the Summer Pines HOA is at  1200-1236 Marthan Rd, Blythewood, SC 29016. Be warned of the Summer Pines HOA Board's tactic of hitting residents' checking accounts for an emergency $100 Special Assessment on October 1, 2023. Summer Pines HOA is managed by CAMS - the same CAMS that manages the Summit's HOA. How did the finances in the Summer Pines HOA get so bad? How did the Summer Pines Board of Directors come up with the idea to process an additional check for the $100 Special Assessment through homeowners' checking accounts? Is $100 just a band-aid? Was it the Board's idea and they asked CAMS if it would make the special deduction? Or did CAMS suggest to the Summer Pines Board that a special check could just be run through? It seems to me that it is a very unusual and "iffy" arrangement that could backfire on CAMS and on the Summer Pines HOA. Many p

Check out the Minutes of the September 2023 HOA board meeting. This was their first secret Zoom meeting without homeowners. There must be a protégé of e e cummings who is writing the Minutes now. You'll recognize the style when you see the Minutes. Go to www.summithomeowners.com Hover over RESIDENTS (yes, that's the word); Click on DOCUMENTS; Click on Board of Director's Minutes; Click on September 2023 Notice that the meeting date hasn't been fixed yet. For months it has read in this style:  September 5th ,2023, 6:30 pm The person filling in the blanks in the date format doesn't know it's wrong. That person's supervisor doesn't know it's wrong. Three errors in a four-word line. I'm reminded of Miss Eleanor Gould (1917-2005), who was the "Grammarian" at The New Yorker for many years. She was reputed to have found four grammatical errors in a three-word sentence.

Will the Barony Place Neighborhood be able to cast votes for four directors at the November 14, 2023 HOA election? Homeowners don't vote. Votes on behalf of homeowners are cast by the Voting Member (a/k/a Neighborhood Representative). At this time, the 78 homeowners of Barony Place are not represented by a legitimate Voting Member. This is because Barony Place (I & II) has not held an Annual Neighborhood Meeting for more than five years. The HOA's lawyer has told me (9/7/2023) that " The Board recognizes Billie Jones as the current Voting Member for Barony Place. " The attorney's words are correct. Note that she is not saying that Billie Jones is a legitimate Voting Member. She is saying only that the Board recognizes Billie as the current VM. The Board must know that Barony Place has not had an Annual Neighborhood Meeting for more than five years. The Board must know the By-Laws. The Board is improperly recognizing Billie as the current VM.  Has the attorney

The following email has been sent to the board and the property manager. Board Members, I urge you to read the September 2023 Minutes carefully and to correct them at the October 7th board meeting before the Minutes are approved. Read the report of the Safety Committee carefully. Does it make sense to you?  What is "cause an affect" mean?  What does "Crime has gone done" mean?  What does "a notion was made" mean?  There is no such thing as a "signal 30" contract. The Special Duty Agreement was not "not renewed"; it was canceled.  What does "notion was made to not open the pool" mean?  What is a "notion"? Who wrote "notion"? Did that come from the Committee or the person who prepared the Minutes? What is that nonsense in the Finance Committee's report? Did the Treasurer write that?  "vetted to the board"?  "catastrophic cap?"  "semi-balanced budget"?  "Employee salaries

Read the Board's reason for moving the September 5, 2023 Board meeting from the church to Zoom. Go to the Minutes, found on the HOA's website. www.summithomeowners.com   Then hover over RESIDENTS, click on DOCUMENTS, click on Board of Director's Minutes, click on September 2023. Scroll down to Page 5.  It is no stretch of the imagination to think that the Minutes are FALSE. If this entry in the Minutes refers to my email to Barony Place neighbors and my encouragement that they attend the September 5th meeting and object to the board's prohibition on attendance by homeowners, it is FALSE to expect a "disruption".   Are those the Justin Martin's words that "What happened at the last meeting is not how we conduct business"? Who is "we"? No one was unsafe at the August board meeting. No one was expected to be unsafe at the September meeting. What did Justin expect? A "January 6th insurrection"? In fact, if "the safety of eve

Why would the HOA change its Registered Agent from an individual two miles from its office to a business that is 144 miles away? And do so without official corporate action? Who said OK to that? What is a Registered Agent? The Registered Agent is the person designated to receive official communications; say, a registered letter from IRS, notification of a lawsuit; a demand letter from a government. Why should a person, not a business, be named? In a word, accountability. When Notice of a legal action is given to a Registered Agent, he (or she) is responsible for informing the business. If Notice is given to a business, who receives it? The mailroom? A receptionist? A secretary? Somebody who might not still be employed, when a court appearance is required to prove the Notice was received? Why should a Registered Agent be local? For convenience. If an officer or attorney of the business needs to meet with the Registered Agent to hash out details of receipt of the Notice, it's a lot e

Last February the Summit's HOA renewed the Special Duty Agreement with RCSD. That's the deal which, for $48.00, deputies spend time in the Summit after their normal duty hours and "keep us safe". I quickly pointed out several problems with it. 1) The Agreement was not made in the legal name of the Association. Somebody was careless and submitted the Agreement in the name of "Summit HOA". That's a different business. 2) CAMS paid several invoices from RCSD, even though the Association was not a party to the contract. Through 6/30/2023, $7,752 was paid to RCSD. 3) The Treasurer executed the Agreement, not the President and the Secretary. The Board apparenty never addressed and approved entry into the Agreement. 4) The Liability Clause created a huge potential liability for the Association. 5) The Board apparently never had its attorney review the Agreement before it was signed. 6) The Board apparently never had its insurance company review the Agreement. T

Why is the Summit's HOA refusing to post the 2022 Annual Audit to its website? The Audit was publicly delivered to the Board at the June 6, 2023 board meeting. That was when the board was still allowing homeowners to attend meetings.  Remember those days? All the Annual Audits for 2001-2021 are posted on the website. All, except the 2022 Annual Audit . What is so special about this one? And what is special about the Management Notes that were delivered before the end of April. That's where the real "meat" is. I went ten rounds with Angela and the HOA's attorney. They wanted to charge me up-to-$265 for it. They estimated up to two hours at $125.00/hour plus a $15.00 document fee. Angela and the attorney were unable to understand that I had requested to examine the Annual Audit, not receive a copy of it. It's a document that every homeowner is entitled to see. And I'm entitled to see it via the Power-of-Attorney I hold from a homeowner. They claim there is

Are there three (3) homeowners in the Barony Place Neighborhood (Barony Place I and Barony Place II) who are willing to be on the Neighborhood Committee? Of these three, one would become the Voting Member and two would be Alternates. A legitimate Voting Member is needed by the November 14, 2023 election of four directors. The sooner the better, because of the nominating process. There are 78 homeowners in Barony Place. If you are willing to do a small part for the next year, let me know. Email  gusphilpott@gmail.com    Do it now. Don't procrastinate. I can get 4-5-6 homeowners to a Meeting, and I can get enough Proxies so that one-third of the 78 properties will be represented. The result will be that, for the first time in five years (and maybe a lot longer), Barony Place will have a legitimate Neighborhood Representative/Voting Member. It's not a lot of work, when the workload is shared. There are other ways for homeowners and residents to help. If I could serve, I would. But

Of course, they should be open. If you believe that monthly Board meetings of YOUR Association should be open to you, the homeowner, email your comments to the Barony Place Voting Member, Billie Jones, at billiejones6433@icloud.com Tell you you want the meetings to be open and ask her to make a lot of noise before and at the next board meeting. And then, after October 3rd, ask her to tell you what she has done. Of course, Billie isn't a legitimate Voting Member, because Barony Place has not had an Annual Neighborhood Meeting in more than five years.  But she's the best you have. And the HOA's attorney says that the Board recognizes Billie as your Voting Member. (The attorney's statement is true, but it is not supported by the Board's non-compliance with the By-Laws.) Even though it shouldn't. Make some noise, neighbors! And write to the Board members yourselves: President Justin Martin   jdmartinscx@gmail.com Vice President Mary Ann Games   mgames@icloud.com Sec

 At the September 5th private Board meeting on Zoom, a discussion about raising dues was opened. Read this report of the Finance Committee, Vernell Butler, Chair. What's wrong with this Board? The monthly budget is $125,000. The HOA has $2,000,000 i n ban ks. Member Receivables (unpaid dues) as of 7/31/23 were $ 570,056.02,  an increase of 31.8%  over 6/30/23. If the Board and CAMS would collect the old money, they wouldn't have to think about new money! Director Dennis Rybicki said a while back, "We don't want to force people out of their homes."  Okay, tell them to pay their dues. When the deadbeats don't pay, the burden falls on those (you!) who do pay their dues. The HOA is a non-profit corporation, but it is not a charity! Look at the grammar in that report. Disgusting. "vetted to the board to be looked at" - what kind of dumb statement is that? "consideration, remediation and or [ sic ] change"? - somebody missed a few classes in com

Here are the email addresses for the Directors on the HOA's Board of Directors, along with the term-of-office for each. This information should be published in The Summit Scoop and on the HOA's website, but it is not. Justin Martin, President jdmartinscx@gmail.com (2021-2023) Mary Ann Game, Vice President mgame@icloud.com (2021-2023) Gregory Thomas, Secretary gregory.thomas13@gmail.com (2021-2023) Vernell Butler, Treasurer vernellbutler88@yahoo.com (2022-2024) Brenda Bryant, Director bbryant_sc@yahoo.com  (2021-2023) Tanisha Holmes, Director tanisha.holmes@yahoo.com  (2022-2024) Dennis Rybicki, Director dennis.rybickisr@yahoo.com  (2022-2024)

The Minutes of the September 5, 2023 Closed monthly board meeting have been posted on the HOA's website. You'll want to read them very carefully and then watch this blog for the truth about what is said in the Minutes. Most importantly, the Minutes of the Special Meeting on August 22, 2023 have NOT been posted. That was the short-notice meeting that the board had, at which they decided ("resolved", as Justin called it) to severely restrict attendance at monthly Open board meetings and to prohibit Homeowners/Members (that's YOU ) from attending the monthly board meetings of your own Association. It is all the more important for the board to publish those Minutes promptly, since that meeting was also held in private, out of sight and hearing of the Members (homeowners). What, exactly, does the Resolution (to close monthly board meetings) say? Was there, in fact, a Resolution? Or was there just a voice vote? The HOA and its attorney have refused to provide a copy of

Read the Minutes of the September 5, 2023 secret Board meeting. They are online. Go to www.summithomeowners.com  Hover over RESIDENTS, then click on DOCUMENTS. Then click on Board of Director's Minutes, then click on September 2023. Read carefully. I shall dissect the lies in several following articles. But FIRST, read the Finance Committee report about the possibility of a dues increase. At the Barony Place luncheon on September 14, I mentioned I had heard a rumor of a dues increase. I stressed it was a rumor. I had not read the Minutes of the September meeting yet. It's not a rumor! The key sentence, for now, is "We do not want to, but fees may need to be raised ..." That is one of the things the Board did not want to say in public at the September 2023 board meeting and a reason they fled into a Zoom meeting at the last minute. They are about to stick it to you. More information in articles to follow. There is a HOA election coming up, folks.