Guide · Checklist

21 articles in Guides · Clear filters

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

Audience Owners & Residents 7 Board Members 17 Community Managers 14 Firm Leadership 1

Medium Guide 20 Checklist 1

Kind Commentary 7 Reference 10 How-to 4

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

The 20% Cap You Think You're Under

The 20% Cap You Think You're Under

Compliance asserted from a miscalculation is worse than no compliance check at all, because it is confidently wrong, and the confidence goes in the minutes. The 20 percent cap is a one-line rule with ...

Budgets & Assessments Board Members Community Managers

Sep 4, 2026

Why Budgeting Off Your GL Is Wrong

Joseph Gangaram

Why Budgeting Off Your GL Is Wrong

In fifteen years of corporate budgeting, I never once saw a serious company budget directly on its chart of accounts. Dimensions, cost centers, analytic layers: separating "where the money posts" from...

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

Sep 4, 2026

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

Joseph Gangaram

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

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