045 | What Happens Next After Contacting HOA Lawyers & HOA Insurance?

Kevin Davis: 0:00

That's where the problems again, you're not listening to me, I'm telling you board that you are not following the rules and enforcing the documents, you're not collecting the assessments where you should be doing. All these things are what people are saying to the board of directors. So the first piece of advice I give you, is to start making decisions. Okay? Don't forget you are a board member. So your job is to work through to make sure you maintain that common areas to make decisions to enforce the rules. But the key thing is to understand your roles responsibility, and where your authority comes from.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 0:36

Common Sense for Common Areas exists to help all 2 million volunteer board members nationwide have the right information at the right time to make the right decisions for their future. This podcast is sponsored by four companies. They care about board members, association insights and marketplace, association reserves, community financials, and Kevin Davis Insurance Services. You'll find links to their websites and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 1:06

Hi, I'm Robert Nordlund of association reserves. I'm Kevin

Kevin Davis: 1:09

Davis of Kevin David Insurance Services. And this is HOA Insights, where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund: 1:15

for common areas. Well, welcome to episode number 45, where we'll be speaking with insurance expert and regular co host Kevin Davis, to talk about when to contact your insurance agent or attorney and then what happens next, after they've been contacted. Before we get going though, I want to encourage everyone to check out episode number 44, where we caught up on some loose ends and told you more about one of our sponsors, association insights and marketplace. That's a company you should know about because they are rolling out an association scoring system that has the potential to change the entire community association industry as we know it, and that's because, like we all have a personal FICO score that we try to maximize their FiPhO score measures the financial, physical and operational behavior of the association. And the key here is it's a virtuous score for boards to pursue, designed to displace the destructive metric the ways so many boards chase the destructive metric of low monthly assessments. Well, if you don't know how to catch prior episodes, like last week's episode 44 You can listen from our podcast website, www.HOAinsights.org. Or watch the podcasts from our YouTube channel. Or you can be clever, and subscribe to the podcast on any of the most popular podcast platforms. And as a reminder, upcoming episode number 47. On April one, no fooling will be presented as a live stream at 3pm Pacific. And this will give you an opportunity to participate in a live podcast and ask questions live. In that episode, I'll be addressing the topic of reserve study legislation is your state next. So Mark calendars for April one 3pm. Pacific and click on the YouTube link in the show notes below. To visit the live podcast YouTube page and click on the Notify Me button to make sure you get notified when live podcast is about to begin. Last we regularly do we're going to start this episode out with an audience question. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story or a question you'd like us to address in an upcoming episode, leave us a comment on YouTube. leave a voicemail at 805-203-3130 or send us an email at podcast@reservestudy.com. So Kevin Question of the day. Anne from New Jersey asked as a board member I'm being accused of a number of horrible things mostly imagined. I think that's an interesting word mostly imagined on social media. Is this part of the job? And do I need to put up with this? I called her attorney. And he told me it was a personal problem. Not an association problem since the attacks were pointed at me, not the association. So Kevin, what do we tell Anne

Kevin Davis: 4:10

okay, what I read this in there, first of all poor Anne this is happening all over. I mean, we get more and more people talking about how they've been mistreated serving on a not for profit board on a condominium association now cheering and they're getting attacked, they volunteer to get attached. Now, the good news right off the bat is this. What we do is have insurance coverage for boards of directors we sell board liability coverage, dinos DNO insurance, so the first thing and said that I am a board member and being harassed as a board member, she says So what she says as a board member, guess what? She's acting the capacity as a board member, and it's not personal. So it becomes personal when she says I'm being harassed and attacked because my next door neighbor doesn't like the way If I'm taking my dog out at two o'clock in the morning, while I'm making too much noise, that's personal. As soon as she said, as a board member, then all of a sudden, my insurance hack and so on and it goes, Okay, she needs protected as a board member. So the first news here, Anne, guess what you are acting in capacity as a board member. So if something happens, you should have coverage, either from an insurance point of view, or an indemnification agreement, or the corporation itself should protect you. So you can take a deep breath there and say, okay, good. I don't have to worry about that. Now, one thing, we don't know all the details in it, but we see that as a board member, I am being harassed. Bingo.

Robert Nordlund: 5:42

Okay, so the the attorney kind of miss represented what she should do in that case, because even though she was personally being attacked, it was because she was a board member. So it becomes an association issue.

Kevin Davis: 5:56

It comes, as long as you act in the capacity as a board member. Got, okay, you're gonna see yes, you can be the next door neighbor. And being that next door neighbor, it was a pain in the butt. But she said, as a board member, I'm being attack, boom, right off the bat. It's a corporate problem. And so it has to Corporation has to protect her and have to back her up the rest of the board members, so she should not be alone here. All the board collectively is represented, even though she may be the president or just a regular board member, it doesn't matter. The key thing is, is that she is acting as a board member, as soon as he says as a board member. Got

Robert Nordlund: 6:34

it? We could go a lot of different directions. Okay, there's, what if she does nothing? What if she turns her social media off? And, you know, bang, bang, bang, I hear nothing. She could do that she could run to the world she did. She contacted her attorney. Good for her. We're going to give some better counsel here, you gave some better counsel, talk to your insurance agent, it is a covered issue. On number three, can she tolerate this? Should she tolerate this? When does it get so bad that he might even resign? What can we talk

Kevin Davis: 7:10

about? So what happens next? Here it is poor Anne in there, she'd been mistreated. This is the one piece of information we you and I give all the time, okay. And you want a board of directors in every Anne out there that's on a board of directors had been mistreated, they've been being mistreated for a reason, it's a prestige reason, the perception is that you as a board member, are not doing your job, you're not doing the things we should should be doing as a board of directors and on top of you not listening to me. So that's that's where the problems again, you're not listening to me, I'm telling you board, that you are not following the rules. And enforcing the documents, you're not collecting the assessments we should be doing. All these things are what people are saying to the board of directors. So the first piece of advice I give you in is to start making decisions. Okay, don't forget, you are a board member. So your job is to what maintain right to promote, maintain, reflect, do to make sure you maintain that common areas to make decisions to enforce the rules. If you're not doing that, people will be upset with you, even if you aren't doing it, people can be upset with you. But the key thing is to understand your roles, responsibility, and where your authority comes from. That's the number one thing, and all the Annes of the world will be an attack, if you understand your authority if you're being attacked, because you're not maintaining you that take care of the visitors parking, or the trashcans been out for more than 48 hours. So you're not vote, you're not having your elections in a timely manner, then what you got to do is make your informed decisions. Now, one thing we learned from Episode 41, which George Nowack, and he said the most amazing thing. And that is it's impossible for you to know all the rules and regulations that impacts community associations, it's impossible and to follow all those rules, and apparently, he can't do it. So it goes back to if you make an informed decisions, when a day comes you being sued, you have protection. But here's the problem. And so we're all these Annes the world face, Robert, is that when you have knowledge of a decision, you have now you bake it you get you have information, it says that these are the way you enforce these rules, and you make a decision not to do it. What happens next is where all of your problems come into play. What happens next? So now you know you didn't enforce the rules properly. First, and cat has a pet is not allowed to have a pet. So you say it's okay. It's a small pet is not a big deal. So now it's a new bringing bigger pets and now you want to enforce the rules. And guess what happens? They come back and say wait a minute, you haven't enforced them. So now all of a sudden, you will be getting yelled at and screamed that as a board member because you didn't enforce the rules properly.

Robert Nordlund: 9:56

Okay, let me wind you back just a little bit. You said Very quickly, but you said that you're going to be attacked, you're going to be criticized if you do the right thing, and you're going to be attacked or criticized if you do the wrong thing. So since you're going to be criticized one way or the other, and that's one reason why I just have so much respect for the President of the United States, because there's millions of people who hate that person's guts every day for doing arguably, as good as he or she can do at a community association says a lot smaller pool of people, there's always going to be someone critical. So as long as you're going to be someone critical, at least have a strong place to stand on. Is that kind of what you're saying, make today's decision, and at least stand on what's right.

Kevin Davis: 10:43

Yes, because what happens is, again, you go back to now you were a board member, and I said, You're a board member, you get sued. So all of a sudden, you did your job the way you did it. So what what do you think the judge is going to do? And again, this goes back to what George Novak said, Where was the harm? What was the harm? Because he didn't take the trash cans out in 24 hours? How will you harm because the visitor, the homeowner left his car parked there, actually, how will you harm? What has no damages, so nothing happened? But now, all of a sudden, let's say you didn't do your job the right way. Let's say you, you went after him purposely said, Okay, I don't like you. Because you're the one who's has been attacking me, Anne found that the person that's been attacking her for the past several years, now the sun's parked that car in visitors parking. So now Anne going to go out and attack that person called the tow truck immediately get that car out of there, and now Anne gets her revenge.

Robert Nordlund: 11:35

Revenge. Just that's a bad word to use when you're a board member. Yeah. usually

Kevin Davis: 11:42

happens all the time. No, that's again, you know, we go back to saying the same thing. Anne you have a problem right now you're being mistreated. If you do your job, the correct way, you make those informed decisions. And now that person comes after you and say, Wait a minute, you don't have the authority to do it. And you go, yes, we do. Yes, it is here, right here. The documents is here that says it loud and clear that you have to do this in 48 hours. If you don't do it in 48 hours, guess what you're subject to fine. Yep.

Robert Nordlund: 12:09

And then just like that person was mad that they got their car towed Anne can say we towed seven vehicles last month for doing exactly what you did. It's not about you, Fred. It's about cars parked in the fire zone. And we just can't have cars parked in the fire zone.

Kevin Davis: 12:25

And that's the thing that people lose track of, and they lose track of pharmaceuticals we the world we live in. And you got to know that he talked about the president United States, we live in a world where we just don't like each other, we come into play. And it just think what a board does a board makes decisions about where you live, they have to make sure that your roof is is okay. They have to make sure the place is clean places maintain the rules are enforced, and you collect assessments. And guess what, somebody there's not gonna like the decisions the board is making, you know, someone's not going to like it. Yeah,

Robert Nordlund: 13:03

well, in my world, fundamentally, we're counseling community associations to raise the budget to it's been an inflationary time that we live in. So raise your homeowner assessment rate, you know, there's going to be people that are upset about that for doing exactly the right thing. And you know, in your heart of hearts that you see the bill, the insurance went up, the management company rate went up, the landscaper went up, the person who cleans the pool went up the reserve funding, you can't get behind on that you have to raise the acceptance, and you're gonna get criticized for doing the right things. You're gonna get criticized for doing the wrong things, you might as well do the right things. And

Kevin Davis: 13:41

you got to do the right things in a timely manner. Got it? Okay. Well, Kevin, you've talked, we've talked so So in other words, if you raise anything involving money, people much about doing it the right way, having that be a strong not gonna be happy about if you raise assessments, but assessment to find federalize whatever it is, all you have to do is make sure you did one thing, follow your rules. If you want to raise your your, if you have a special assessment, what does your rule say about having a special assessment? If it says you only can do 3%? Then guess what? You can't do more than 3% Unless you go before the board, the board goes before the people live there and say, Guess what? We need to raise it 10 15% Because of insurance, because of the minute to eat, because Electric has gone up because of the landscapers charging more money. You can't say guess what we need 10% And we only allow them to three but we're gonna raise 10% Anyway, we're gonna do it anyway. Yeah. Because what happens then you in violation of the covenants. Now, what does that mean, though? So now all of a sudden, you get to you get that board member, you get a unit owner saying, wait a minute board, you're gonna have the authority to do that. Yeah, but we did it anyway, because we need to do it. So let's that board was that unit owner going to do that unit, we're gonna go in and say guess what, I'm not happy about it. And neither my neighbors are happy about it. And so going back to that, Episode 41 with George No Act talks about the derivative action. So now all of a sudden you have what's called a derivative action. We are all collectively representing, you know ourselves and suing you have the action against you board members, because guess what, you want a five thousand special assessment. There's 100 of us here in our in our association. So now, there's a half a million dollar action that we're going after you for a half a million dollars. Because guess what, what you should have done was to come to the board of directors, the board, Richard came to the unit and just say this what we need, we can't live with 3%. We need 10 and have it voted on and do it the right way. If you don't do it the right way. You're talking about right now you're facing a half million dollar lawsuit. platform to stand on as a board member, knowing your governing documents, knowing state law, having a pulse on the temperature of the community. And like George Nowack said, it's, this is not a game of perfect, it's, it is doing your best. But I want to get back to talking about what to do when you're accused. But before we do that, let's take a quick break to hear from one of our sponsors. Hi, I'm Kevin Davis, the president of Kevin Davis insurance services, our experienced team of underwriters will help you when you get that declination, we provide the voice of reason someone who will stand by you, our underwriters bring years of knowledge to our clients that can't be automated by technology, or driven by price. As a proud and wins company, we bring true value to your community association clients. We are your community association, insurance experts.

Robert Nordlund: 16:37

And we're back. Okay, Kevin, let's talk about what actually should happen. Let's say the board member has a defensible position. I did this because it was the right thing to do. I fired the landscaper friendly Old Joe, who's been serving our community for 12 years, because he was just missing too many weeks, or we raise the assessments. Because we have to You did the right thing for the right reasons. How much do you need to tolerate all this criticism? When does it get to a point where it really is the right thing to do to contact your insurance agent and potentially elevate from just a little bit of peanut gallery on the side to something that is significant?

Kevin Davis: 17:22

Here, the thing that we've been talking about is the hard part about being on a board of directors? Okay. It's first of all, we want a board of directors for Community Association. It's unlike being on board directors or anything else. Because if you want a board of directors or any other company, you talk about financial loss, you're talking about how dare you invest in this operation? Well, how dare you not give me the money that I've earned? When the Community Association, you're there, and I call them emotional damages? You know, I'm upset. You've heard me, you have heard what I said, You're not listening to me. So the damage are purely emotional. And that's what George Knapp was talking about. When you go from in front of a judge and suddenly things, the judge will say, how were you harmed. And I was harmed because there are rules in this association. And all I want to do is make sure they do things correctly. That's all I want to do is make sure they do things correctly. And Now hear me out my IV emotionally attached to it. You've been on the board, Robert for 30 years, and you still have not had an election in a timely manner. You still only have five board members, and it shouldn't be nine out I'm tired of it. So guess what I'm going to do I would have a judge to come in and do something about it. You were wronged. Oh, Robert, as the board of directors, you should have seven board members, you should have things in timely manner. So what happens is this, I'm upset. Now I contact my lawyer. My lawyer is going to do what? He wants to make money. He's saying, Well, wait a minute. There's no harm there sort of a big deal. But there's one thing that we'd know, but when am I ever talks about as ca prevailing party fees, prevailing party fees means this, if I'm a lawyer, I know the baord did something wrong. They should have said in board minutes, they only have five and he making decisions. Guess what? I'm going to sue that board. I'm going to when all the all the that will come from the association's DNO or from my Who amount of money that was spent you were the board president, okay. Or the association. I'm the unit owner who says Guess what? You have not enforced these rules in 30 years, you've been on that board. You have clear exposure, clear exposure, because you have not done it. Good. Okay. You have five board members use it. You should have seven board members or nine. Okay, you shouldn't have annual meetings. Okay. You haven't had. Okay, so now all of a sudden, I'm upset. Now the judge can say how are you harm? Okay. It's your job to do it correctly. So I'm upset with you. You know, now, what happens I call my attorney up by turning on and say off the bat there, there's no harm and so how I'm going to make money, but then he got to say If you didn't do your job correctly, Robert, because you didn't enforce the rules, it's clear as a bell, you should have seven board members to make any decision. So every decision you made in the past year or five board members, guess what it could be invalidated. So now all of a sudden, as a as a lawyer, I'm thinking that I could make a lot of money off this thing, because they prevailing attorney fees. So all the all the costs that I'm going to do to sue you, Robert, guess what can come back to me? Because you were automatically wrong. You were automatically wrong off the bat, because you should have done it the right way. And am I being sued personally as a individual for acting incorrectly on the board? No, no, your ACT what you're doing is you're acting in the best interest of the board. Okay. You didn't do a good job. But you did your job. You know, you made decisions. As I said, no decision is a decision decision.

Robert Nordlund: 20:57

Yeah, we tried. We couldn't get anyone to write back word. Yeah, yeah.

Kevin Davis: 21:01

Okay, we did the best job we could do that you put your carrier notice your carrier says we got you back. Okay. You made it you made an informed decision decision was I can't We can't have more than seven. We are where we are a in the south, we only have meetings three times a year because everybody goes back to Chicago or New York. This is the way we've been operating for the past 30 years. We'd love to be able to do it better, but we can't. But the meantime, that's hardiest saying, I want to start writing up some I've got to make some money. Now, because you haven't done this in 30 years, every decision you guys made in the past couple of years is invalid because he knows the collecting money off of it. And that's what creates a problem for these things. That's why it goes back to making that informed decision. Okay, because you make that informed decision. Now, all of a sudden, again, how were you harmed, you weren't harmed at all. And doing these things weren't harmed, there's no damage there. You weren't harmed, but you still end up costing $30-$40,000. Now, here comes the issue though. Okay. Now, what if you go in there and say, Oh, I didn't know I didn't care. You know, well, he he's just full of ill grabbed he's, you know what he's talking? Yeah, he's

Robert Nordlund: 22:12

a jerk. Yeah, we don't listen to him. Anyway, he's a troublemaker. There you go. Named, yep. Now

Kevin Davis: 22:19

what happened? You think all of a sudden there and that's what the problem comes into play their emotional damages here, right now. If you go in there, and you say, Judge, we did the best we can, the judge is gonna say, just like George Nowak said, No harm, no foul, this, this, redo the board, redo the elections or whatever it is, okay. And then obviously, attorneys not gonna make a lot of money. But if you go in there and start saying that guy is a troublemaker dissociation, now all of a sudden, the lawyer is happy, because now suddenly you impugning him, you have those damaged reputational damages, you're making things about him, you're saying bad things about him. Okay, so now all of a sudden, now suddenly, that lawyer there is happy now, because now he can sue you for damages. Because you actually choose this person there have been incompetent now walking through the community. And people look at that. And because they say I'm the troublemaker, and all I want to do is one thing is have you to enforce the rules uniformly.

Robert Nordlund: 23:14

I can imagine that's how that $30,000 of attorneys fees turns into a bigger problem. And then all of a sudden, you get into like you were talking about $500,000 for the special assessment, or the crazy million dollar damages that came from a minor misunderstanding or a minor misapplication of the way things are supposed to be.

Kevin Davis: 23:37

Yeah. And that's the key for every go go back to n right and guy sitting there. And she has to realize that people are yelling and screaming at her and has that choice to be able to say listen, all right, we've done a best job we can do. We were feeling great. We looked at it. We were our assessments are on we're maintaining the association, when forcing a lot of rules to the best of our knowledge. And pretty happy. Here's the key. Now once they crossed the line, that person, the person who's yelling or group, it might be five or six of them, saying Anne guess what? You're incompetent. You stealing money. Yeah, you're doing all these things wrong. You embezzled the reserves that you got a new car out there. So I know you're taking the financials.

Robert Nordlund: 24:19

Oh, yeah. That's, like increase loss. Yeah. Okay. Where there's an accusation that he's gonna damage her and she can say, this has been more than just sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me. Right. That is undermining. Okay. Yeah. And that is the kind of thing that will make her think I want to quit. I want to sell. I get the heck out of here. And that's

Kevin Davis: 24:44

it. That's probably let's talk about this. Let's talk about the line. What it is with a line is cross as soon as you committed a crime. You cross the line. That's it. That's the line you cross. Oh, that means you accused me of something I didn't do. Number two. You said I've had some kind of infectious disease. If you say, Oh, this guy quite COVID and he's on the board, and he's making all these decisions based on the fact that he caught COVID Okay, I'm incompetent,

Robert Nordlund: 25:08

writing this down, okay, crossed the line with committing a crime, infectious disease, incontinence.

Kevin Davis: 25:16

And here's the one that happens more often. I had improper sex.

Robert Nordlund: 25:22

Kevin, it's an amazing world that you live in. In the preserve a business. It's always asphalt and roofing and carpet, it's not improper sex, but

Kevin Davis: 25:31

about the perfect example what's happened in Georgia. With that with that case in Georgia, the whole thing with conflict of interest with the lady with the district attorney who wants to sue the whole organization, yeah. Yeah. Okay. That's about sex. A fair point. You have improper sexual relationship. Okay. And they go to court from that you damage I've been damaged out there you accuse me of this year is not about me. It's about you. No, no, you had improper sexual relationship, if I ever accuse you, Robert, and I know you very well, if I accuse you of having an inappropriate relationship with the with the, you know, with the landscaper, right, now all of a sudden, that's that's lied to, you don't want to hear is that that line we have now of a sudden, you gotta you're gonna ask

Robert Nordlund: 26:14

to me. Yeah, that would damage our friendship.

Kevin Davis: 26:17

But that's that line. If you cross any of those lines right there. That's it. You have a right. You've been damaged, you have been damaged. Okay. Now? Yes. Make sure that True though Yeah. That's what happened to her in Georgia. And it may have been true that he might have had an affair. So you got to be careful. You can't yell and scream at somebody and say, How dare you say this about me? And all of a sudden, you did embezzled the money to buy that new car? Yep.

Robert Nordlund: 26:43

Okay. Because when and wrote her question, she said, I'm being accused of horrible things, mostly imagined. Okay. Now, if we're talking about, well, George made the point that perfect is very difficult to do, if not impossible to do. So if, and I do it every month, I collect my business receipts, and I have most of them. But let's say that you as a board member went to your local CAI luncheon meeting and it cost you 30 bucks for the luncheon meeting. And you don't have a receipt for that. That's an example of imperfection. And someone could accuse you of being reimbursed 30 bucks for something that you don't have a receipt for? Is that the kind of damage that you want to worry about? Or is that the kind of imperfection that we should tolerate? And let the temperature come down?

Kevin Davis: 27:37

That's a good question. And that's what I always say, you know, you have to be realistic about these things. When I told you you was having an affair with somebody you were you were upset about it, you can see that visibly in your face. And that bothered you. Now, if I said that, guess what? I saw you talking somebody god, I can't believe he's such a jerk. And wait a minute. Roofers charging a lot more money than a roofer. I thought you should charge. It means you're getting a kickback, right? No, I'm not getting a kickback. They're a better roofer, you know, that live across when you said no, I know, if I went to your bank account, and I saw you buy the new car and I saw it. Now all of a sudden, you feel you've been damaged. That's the difference. You feel it. Now what happens is there's there's an line there that you got to fill in yourself, where I'm just doing my job guys that are being consistent. And I'm being uniform. I'm forcing documents in in your uniform way. It's not going to bother me. If you call me if you say guess what, I'm looking at your receipts and they don't match up properly. Guess what I'm consistent. Every single day, I'm doing this thing the same way. Like you said every 30 days, you go through your your account to find out and you do you reconciliation, we do it also, we may have made a mistake, we made a mistake. It's okay to make a mistake. It's okay, we made a mistake in there. Because guess what happens? You make a mistake. That's why you have insurance. If you get sued, because you made a mistake, you got insurance ain't gonna worry about it. So I'm never going to worry about it at all, until it gets to a point in time where A: seek that person crossed the line on me as a board member that I have to go after them. Or B: I may have done something incorrectly significant that I didn't apologize for. In other words, if you did something that you didn't follow the rules, let's say that you have seven board members, you only have six because Anne resign, you're going to try to replace that person. And then you may not get as a person but you feel that you've made a difference by trying as opposed to saying listen, Anne's going on, we're happy six people, we're gonna be a better board without her. And that's the difference. It we start to lose to make these assumptions and not for the Betterment Association. I mean your job as a board member to act in with the best interest of association as best interest association is to replace Anne she resides not to say glad Anne's gone. Let me get back to regular business. I'm gonna do more of a six of us than we ever could do with seven, eight or nine. That's the difference between being Being right and being wrong, because when you got it when you're wrong, it just adds up this the first of many wrong things you will be doing.

Robert Nordlund: 30:09

I like that when you're wrong, it adds up. And it's I wrote down in the best interest of the association and his body of evidence. If over the course of the year, I've missed two receipts, our accountant is not going to sweat it. They know that with all the business travel I do. That's pretty darn good compliance. And similarly, as a board member, it's not going to be perfect. You have some exposure, but the body of evidence support you, you're trying hard, you're doing it in the best interest of the association. And you're consistent. Can we add communicating well, to that also? Yeah,

Kevin Davis: 30:41

yeah. It's all about communicating if I'm not following rules, because I can't, because nobody wants to volunteer to be on the board, or Guess what time was off because of the holidays. And instead of having in 10 days we had it in 20 days, we're gonna say, We're sorry, this is the best we can do annex circumstances, we can either a except that this new slate of board members, or we can have the election all over again. What do you think is right, and then we can make decisions based on that? I guess what we okay, because we act, it was in the best interest of the association. As long as you act in the best interest for the Association, you taking a$30,000 loss, which is still a lot of money, that'd be 10-15. And that quarter of a million half million dollar loss, we can be as soon as I say, Guess what? He's a troublemaker an association. He always does that.

Robert Nordlund: 31:28

That's the escalation that we want to avoid. Escalation on Oh, boy. Got it. Okay. I like that. I got, I liked a conversation where I'm writing a bunch of notes down and learning, learning more myself. Well, Kevin, it's always great talking to you. Any closing thoughts to add at this time,

Kevin Davis: 31:44

make an informed decision is the most important thing you can do. Because you could hold your head up high in association, you're not gonna know all the answers, but just do the best job you can. And then make sure you have an adequate insurance policy, talk to the insurance agent. If this happens, do I have coverage? Because if you if they say you should have coverage, or based on these things, you want to feel good about what you're doing, because you're making that informed decision.

Robert Nordlund: 32:07

I like that. We hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common area. I look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 32:20

You been listening to HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas, you can listen to the show on our podcast website, Hoainsights.org, or subscribe on any of the most popular podcast platforms. You can also watch the show on our YouTube channel. Check the show notes for helpful links. If you like the show and want to support the work we do, you can do so in a number of ways. The most important thing that you can do is engage in the conversation. leave a question in the comment section on our YouTube videos. You can also email your questions or voice memos to podcast@reservestudy.com Or leave us a voicemail at 805-203-3130. If you gained any insights from the show, please do us a HUGE favor by sharing the show with other board members that you know. You can also support us by supporting the brands that support this program. Please remember that the views and opinions expressed by the podcast do not constitute legal advice. You'll want to consult your own legal counsel before making any important decisions. Finally, this podcast was expertly mixed and mastered by Stoke Light Video & Marketing. With Stoke Light on your team. You will reach more customers with marketing expertise that inspires action. See the shownotes to connect with Stoke Light