Home Owners’ Association Woes

I live in a new-ish development that was set up by Rottlund Homes.  There are 22 other single family homes besides mine on the west side of the main road.  Then there are like 284 condominium units on the other side of the road.  For some reason Rottlund setup a single association including all the single family homes and the condos.

As far as I understand, every house and condo unit has the same annual dues.

All the stuff that the association takes care of (e.g. maintenance of “common areas”) is within the condominium community.  The single family home owners don’t get any benefit out of the association.

Since this is a new development, the developer (Rottlund Homes) currently controls the association.  They’re essentially the current board.  In about a month they’ll be transitioning control over to actual members of the association.

Ever since the single family homeowners moved in (and before) many of us were told different information regarding the association.  Many claim they were flat out lied to about it.  We feel the best thing would be for us (the single family homeowners) to break away from the rest of the association.

There was a meeting last night with people from Rottlund to discuss the transition process.  Some of us had been told that the transition would be our chance to essentially secede from the association if we wanted to.  The main representative from Rottlund last night told us that it would be very complicated and difficult to do and she didn’t recommend it.  She also said she “felt no responsibility” to try to help us with our situation.

When the transition happens, a board will be elected by all 307 members (23 houses and 284 condos).  Each has an equal vote.  The Rottlund lady said that if we wanted to break away from the association, among other challenges and difficulties she alluded to, that we would need a vote of about 75% of all members.  Currently the house owners pay into the association, but don’t get anything out of it.  So we’re subsidizing the condos.  What are the chances that the condo members will want to let us out of the association?  Also, what’s the likelihood that the house owners will have control of the board?  It’s “taxation without representation” as one house owner put it.

We asked if Rottlund had any other associations that included single family homes and condos.  They said there was one other.  We asked if we could talk with those homeowners to see how they handled their situation.  “Handled what?” was the Rottlund lady’s reply.  She wasn’t listening to our problems at all.

Hopefully, we’ll be able to appeal to the condo owners’ sense of integrity and fairness.  I have some friends that live in those condos and I’m sure they can appreciate the dilemma we’re in.  Also, the dues from 23 (out of 307) units that they’d end up losing isn’t really all that much.  And if they actually think that we (the house owners) get the same value as them, then there’s no financial reason for them to want to keep us in the association, because by losing us, they’d lose our dues, but also our “expenses”, so it’d be a wash.

So… wish us luck!