The HOA Made My Day!!!


I thought things were already pretty great, but today the HOA made my day. Thank you, HOA!

After all the whining at the January Board Meeting about saving money on postage by delaying the Referendum, the HOA had to spent extra money to send out a copy of the 2025 Budget.

The letter opened with, "It has come to our attention that the 2025 budget was inadvertently not included in the January assessment mailing."

Was it "inadvertently not included"? Or was it omitted?

Luckily, the letter and envelope weighed 0.95 oz, coming in (just barely) under the one-ounce postage rate. First-Class postage is $0.73, so the mailing may have cost $1,810.40.

Had the budget been included with the Assessment Notice mailing, the postage then for each letter might have been $1.01 (2 oz. rate), or $2,504.80. That second ounce would have cost $0.28, instead of $0.73, or only $694.40 more (instead of costing $1,810.40). Handling and paper cost would have been less, too.

Was the omission "inadvertent"? Do you remember any year in the past 5-6 years that you received the Budget with your January assessment notice? I've seen the assessment notice for most of those years, and I never saw a Budget enclosed. Why wasn't it? Because nobody was watching.

What really happened this year? The Property Manager should have been familiar with the CC&Rs and the CAMS contract. She should have told the President and Treasurer, "You must mail out the 2025 Budget with the assessment notice. The CC&Rs require it." Did she?

Who paid for the second mailing? Did CAMS pay for it, without reimbursement from the HOA? Or will the HOA foot the bill?

If she was told to mail out the assessment notices without the budget, she should have complained to upper management at CAMS. It's not optional. The HOA must send out the budget with the assessment notice!

If the Board directed her not to send the budget with the assessment notice, then the HOA foots the bill for the second mailing. If this is the case, then the person who told her not to send the budget should pay the total cost of the second mailing (postage, envelope, printing, folding, inserting, sealing,, handling time). How much is that?

On January 5, 2025, my article on this blog included the provision from the HOA's contract with CAMS:
Art. IV, reads, in part, 

"Subject to the direction of the Board, the Management Company's functions, duties, responsibilities, and authority may include the following:

"§A, ¶4, Preparation of an annual letter to members of the ASSOCIATION enclosing the adopted budget ..."

Did the Board direct CAMS to exclude the budget?  I don't recall any discussion and vote at any Board meeting about that. Did one or more officers of the Board direct CAMS to exclude the budget?

My first article on this blog about the omission of the 2025 Budget was on December 31, 2024. You can read it here.

A HOA Member emailed the office on December 27, 2024 and wrote this:

"I did not receive the 2025 Budget with my Assessment notice, and I did not receive the Common Expense budget and my Base Assessment notice by December 1. 
"Will you please send the 2025 Budget to me? 
"Please explain why the 2025 Budget was not provided to me and why my Assessment Notice was two weeks late."

There was NO REPLY to that homeowner from the office! The budget was provided when the mass mailing that was sent to all. The office did not explain why the Assessment Notice was late.

Integrity is sometimes defined as "doing the right thing, even when nobody is looking."

How is the HOA doing in the Integrity Department?

I'm laughing so hard about the "It has come to our attention" part of the letter. Yes, I guess it has!

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