Budgets & Assessments · Maintenance & Vendors

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Topic Budgets & Assessments 18 Rules & Enforcement 1 Maintenance & Vendors 2

Audience Owners & Residents 7 Board Members 15 Community Managers 13

Medium Guide 18 Checklist 1

Kind Commentary 6 Reference 9 How-to 4

Series The Three Ways Every HOA Budget Goes Wrong 10 The Responsibility Map 2

A Budget You Can't Revise Is a Budget You'll Violate

A Budget You Can't Revise Is a Budget You'll Violate

Here is what happens at an association with no revision process when reality departs from the adopted budget: nothing. The spending continues, because the insurance must be paid and the water stays on...

Budgets & Assessments The Three Ways Every HOA Budget Goes Wrong Board Members Community Managers

Sep 4, 2026

Budgeting for an Insurance Renewal You Haven't Seen

Budgeting for an Insurance Renewal You Haven't Seen

Every HOA budget contains at least one number nobody has seen: next year's insurance premium, because the renewal lands mid-year, months after adoption. You cannot fix that. What you can fix is everyt...

Budgets & Assessments The Three Ways Every HOA Budget Goes Wrong Board Members Community Managers

Sep 4, 2026

Loans and NBI: The Two Lines Nobody Budgets

Loans and NBI: The Two Lines Nobody Budgets

Two lines go missing from association budgets more reliably than any others, and not because they are small. Debt service can be one of the largest lines an association carries, and the tax on non-exe...

Budgets & Assessments Board Members Community Managers

Sep 4, 2026

The HOA Pre-Draft Budget Checklist

The HOA Pre-Draft Budget Checklist

A budget is only as good as what it was told. This is the complete list of what to tell it: every check that should happen before a single number gets typed. Work the list with the documents open, and...

Budgets & Assessments The Three Ways Every HOA Budget Goes Wrong Board Members Community Managers

Sep 4, 2026

Is Your Share Calculated the Way Your CC&Rs Say?

Is Your Share Calculated the Way Your CC&Rs Say?

You live in Building A. The big line in this year's budget is Building C's roof. And a version of the same question is being asked at an annual meeting somewhere every night of budget season: why am I...

Budgets & Assessments Owners & Residents

Sep 4, 2026

Who Carries This Cost? The Responsibility Map Hiding in Your CC&Rs

Who Carries This Cost? The Responsibility Map Hiding in Your CC&Rs

Every association fights the same fights: who fixes the balcony, who pays for the pipe in the wall, whose insurance covers the fence. Here is the part almost nobody says out loud: at most associations...

Owners & Residents Board Members The Responsibility Map Community Managers Maintenance & Vendors

Sep 4, 2026

When the Association Fixes It and Bills You (and When You Pick the Contractor)

When the Association Fixes It and Bills You (and When You Pick the Contractor)

The responsibility map in your CC&Rs says who maintains what (finding and using it is its own guide: Who Carries This Cost? The Responsibility Map Hiding in Your CC&Rs ). This piece is about the map's...

Owners & Residents Board Members The Responsibility Map Rules & Enforcement Maintenance & Vendors

Sep 4, 2026

How a California HOA budget is actually supposed to be built

How a California HOA budget is actually supposed to be built

Four years ago I became president of my mixed-use HOA here in San Diego. It was a bit of a rescue mission. Reserves were running low, and we had just spent a significant sum on an unplanned exterior w...

Budgets & Assessments

Aug 27, 2026

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