Julie Adamen: 0:00

The board has to understand and believe in what they're doing as a whole as a group. So if you have a board of five, and you have three people that are on board with the special assessment and two naysayers on the board, the three who now knows that needs to be done need to, you know, try as hard as you can to bring those others in. But if you are one of the naysayers and the board has already said we have to do this. You may have voted no, but the majority voted yes. You guys all got to be together on this and speak with one voice you may disagree, but speak with that one voice be on board and believe in what you have to do, because if you don't believe it, no one else is going to believe it.

Announcer: HOA Insights: 0:34

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 for companies that 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: 1:07

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

Julie Adamen: 1:10

I'm Julie Adamen of Adamen inc. And this is HOA Insights, where we talk about common sense

Robert Nordlund: 1:16

for common areas. Welcome to episode number 63, where we're again speaking with management consultant and regular co host Julie Adelman. Today we'll be discussing the topic of how to pass a special assessment now sometimes due to lack of planning, sometimes due to surprises. Special assessment power is given to the board to rapidly collect cash from the homeowners over and above regular assessments to fund a particular need that they have at the association. And as they are an unexpected demand that the homeowners give more money to the association. They're rightfully dreaded by the homeowners. Now, as a board member, you're going to face an uphill battle. But sometimes associations need money they don't have so special assessments are the tools boards use in these cases. So settle in and adjust your volume because you're about to get some important and helpful tips. Well, this is a follow up to episode number 62, where we dipped into our network of industry friends to hear from Don Bauman, Senior Vice President of Government and Public Affairs for CII, the National Trade Organization, Don is on top of legislative trends and helps influence legislation on both a state and national level. So if you're wondering where new laws come from, and how they are shaped, make sure you catch episode number 62. And if you missed that episode, or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcasts website, Hoa insights.org, or watch on our YouTube channel. And better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, so you don't miss any future episodes. Now, we enjoy hearing from you responding to the issues you are facing at your association. So if you have a hot topic, a crazy story or a question you'd like us to address, you can contact us at 805-203-3130 or email us at podcast@reservestudy.com And one of those listener questions prompted today's episode. And it's Roger from San Antonio asked, we need to pass a big special assessment for our streets and parking lot. Do you have any helpful hints? So Julie, what can we tell Roger?

Julie Adamen: 3:34

Luckily we do. Yes, I just wrote in my own publication, which is the HOA manager Newsline, I just published an article about this very thing because I had been speaking to the board president of a large association with lots of amenities golf, food and beverage, all that kind of thing. And they had a very serious problem in getting their special assessment passed. In fact, the when they needed actually failed. And having listened to him and observed, you know what had gone on. It was fascinating because the reason that this assessment did not pass wasn't really financial from the homeowners, though, of course, it's always that and it was a good size, but it was close to $5,000 a unit. And so that's that's big, you know, no matter what, though, they people were going to be able to do pay over time and that type of thing is most boards give their members that choice, however, by observation was that the political aspect of doing this type of thing was not being addressed. I mean, the board knew what they had to do, and they they definitely needed the money. That's not an issue. They knew what they had to do, but they didn't go about it correctly. And their administrative staff probably didn't have the skill set to know how to go about getting a special assessment passed. And so I wrote a whole article about it. If you want to go you go to my website, Adamen-inc.com, go to Hoa Newsline, and you can find the most recent one By the way,

Robert Nordlund: 5:02

we can probably put a link directly to that in the podcast notes. Okay, we'll do that. Well, let's just frame this. Okay. Board members know that special assessments are tough news. They're what they don't want to do them if you don't need to, can we at least characterize put special assessments into some boxes like minor is 500 or less. And you talked about a medium sized specialist, a couple 1000 5000. It's not onerous. And then there's the monsters that are the anhand 20 50,000 are special assessments are more or more I write Yeah. Okay. So again, we're, we expect that board members hit a wall, and they say, we need the money. So it is a financial need. And I don't think we're going to go into or have the time to go into what your governing documents say, what your state laws say, we're going to talk about the average run of the mill special assessment, how we can help you have success passing that, isn't that where we're gonna go today? Yeah,

Julie Adamen: 6:08

that's where we're gonna go, we're just going to just assume that you that everyone knows what their state law is, this is what you need to do, you know, your state law, and you need to look at your governing documents and likely talk to your legal counsel. But assuming you're doing all of that, let's go into some of the practical things that you can do. First one I would tell everyone is start early, if you know that the association is going to have to special assess, and you're going to need the money in six months, you need to start immediately communicating with the owners on this. And I know we've talked about this kind of thing before Robert, about good communication, but this is even over and above that. So if you are putting out a you know a monthly newsletter, I would say you should be doing eblast twice a month, maybe three times and start preparing people for the fact that this is coming down the pike and why. And so you're communicating

Robert Nordlund: 7:01

urgency, and something something is different. Don't just flit it, fit it into the board meeting notes that, oh, we're probably going to have to do a special assessment and then wait till the next month, you need to commit this is real folks. Something's new, something's different and get people's attention. You don't want that you're,

Julie Adamen: 7:19

yeah, you're seeding you're throwing seeds. I mean, that's what you want to make sure that people understand that there's stuff coming out, see, if you only do it once a month, or when the meeting minutes come out, the board will be viewed as not being transparent, because and that's the worst thing for you. Because a lot of people don't read that stuff. So you know, what's, what's the first rule of marketing seven times in front of someone and they see it, let alone read it. So you have to be very aware of your timeframe. And if you have a longer timeframe, like the board knows that 12 months from now, we're going to need to do this because we know what whatever we need to do the special assessment for and what did we say wherever to insurance going up? There's insurance going up four or 500%? Right? Yep.

Robert Nordlund: 7:58

Insurance is going up. Other utilities, there's special assessments for well, there's the operating budget type, special assessments, and there's a reserve budget special assessments where maybe you have a roof that is you know, what your rainy season is in your area, or something happened because of hail. Or maybe it's not really time dependent. Maybe you have trip and fall hazards, and your insurance company is saying you've got to get this fixed within six months, or we're going to cancel. Yeah,

Julie Adamen: 8:25

those are. So typically you're gonna have some sort of deadline. So just for our purposes, let's talk about the six months, we'll do it that way. So I would say every other week, something should come out from the board to the owners addressing the specific situation. And you want to be informative, but you don't want to overload people with too much stuff. So I would say for each communication, think of like three major bullet points, because people can absorb that. And if they're getting one every other week, ostensibly, that's what that is, every other week, people will start looking at it again, as you people know, everybody knows out there, the attention span of most people is very, very short nowadays, right? So think of it that way. Think of it that way. And the next thing I would tell them all to do is well, actually maybe this was the first thing, let me go back on this. So the board has to understand and believe in what they're doing as a whole as a group. So if you have a board of five, and you have three people that are on board with a special assessment and two naysayers on the board, the three who now it knows it needs to be done need to, you know, try as hard as you can to bring those others in. But if you are one of the naysayers and the board has already said we have to do this. You may have voted no, but the majority voted yes. You guys all got to be together on this and speak with one voice. You may disagree, but speak with that one voice be on board and believe in what you have to do. Because if you don't believe it, no one else is going to believe it.

Robert Nordlund: 9:45

Right. So we're not convinced and you're the one who sees the financial reports. You're the one who sees the bank balances. You're the one who sees the imminent crisis coming on that made the majority think that we have no other options.

Julie Adamen: 9:57

Right, right. And you're the one by the way board, ma'am. Because you're the ones who have the fiduciary duty to do this, the you're elected to do this. And if you have this in front of you knowing, okay, our insurance is going to go up, let's just use that kind of thing, you know, 60% next year, you're gonna have to have a special assessment, you need to be on it and let everybody know what it is. So I was be super transparent, and all of your communication, and believe in your mission. The next thing, think about this recruit allies. Because you know, as you all know, things, you know, misinformation or disinformation will get spread about well, quite rapidly around cocktail time. So you want to have other people who are out there in the community. And I always say, try and find a high profile person. I mean, if you have a golf community, if you could get the head of the men's golf club and ladies, ladies golf together and say, This is what we need to do, oftentimes, those people will be the board allies, and start and bring them into the process and let them know what has to happen. And answer all their questions and give them all the information they need. And stay on top of that at all times. If those people have questions for you, board members always be available. Answer the questions. You if your manager out there, you've listening to this podcast, you too, you can't go oh, it's their deal. You have to say, yes. What questions can I help you answer because those people out the community will mean everything to the board in getting correct information out at all times. So yeah, yeah, go ahead.

Robert Nordlund: 11:22

Let me when I think of special assessments, I often think of them as the board versus the homeowners. And the more homeowners you can recruit, the more you break down that wall, and then anyone who's just well, the board's crazy than they realize it's not the board, there's lots of homeowners that appreciate that, you know, it's just getting more expensive to live here. And you've broken that down that argument. And like you were saying, with the communication one by one by one, think of talking heads, like we see on television, they're making a point, they're not trying to do everything all at once in your frequency, you can say this, and this and this contact your if you're in a high rise, contact your floor captain, contact this list of homeowners or whatever it is, or your present people, because you need to be great. Committee

Julie Adamen: 12:14

members, there you go. Yeah, like architectural landscape. Yeah, breaking down

Robert Nordlund: 12:19

opposition. And say, it's not the board versus it's the associations, our community. Allies are such a big thing. They

Julie Adamen: 12:27

are a huge thing, because it also it takes some of this pressure off the board. I mean, it's the fierce there's five or seven of you, people will come at you from all angles, about information, and why are you doing this and some is not very pleasant and longer is probably not very pleasant. But you know, as the more people you have out there that have friends, I mean, say if they're like committee members, or floor captains, if you're in high rise, that type of thing, people who are trusted within the community and and also have a good network of contacts. So like I said, the golf committee, or if it's a tennis, where I live would be the pickleball. Committee, they have 800 members out so Right, no, right.

Robert Nordlund: 13:07

Yeah. Or let me stereotype the moms who sit around the tot lot every afternoon, or the person who's always saying, Can you refill the dog poop bags, because we're out again, you know, penetrate the dog community. Find out who these allies might be and help them understand that. In the discussion point, this is the Community Association is our community association. And you've all heard about the insurance crisis. I don't want to bash insurance. Let's say it's not your fault. Yeah. Or it could be the roof. It could be the asphalt could be the entry date. It could be whatever it is the assumption all

Julie Adamen: 13:46

three, it could be it could be it could be reserves, it could be utilities, and it could be insurance. I mean, people are being hit with all three of those things all over the country. It's not just California, not just Florida. It's everywhere. And of course, then, you know, we always get when we have to do a special assessment, especially a larger one is we get well now I can't afford to live here anymore. I heard that from people who were who had been around this particular thing. And they're like, well, we just actually I read it on nextdoor.com. Which, by the way, that's why you want to get in front of all this board members, because you want to fill that don't have an information vacuum, you want to fill it quickly. Get the stuff out as quickly as possible with as much information as you can, that people can absorb. Because if you don't, it'll be on next door. It'll be on Facebook, and then you have no control of that narrative once and I have to tell you, once you start looking at especially next door when people get all riled up. That's it's pretty depressing. I mean, especially for board members because they're usually taking your name in vain. The allies is a huge thing. And I think definitely boards don't think about that. You don't have to be alone. And there's another nice the sidebar to that is that when you see what kind of allies you have, you have potential new board members, right?

Robert Nordlund: 14:53

You are banding together and anything that draws you together is something that helps them see that they can be Part of the process and they can be contributing to the future of this association, and maybe in a small, helpful way. Well, Julie, this is all fantastic stuff. Let's take a short break. So I want to follow up on one of the things that you said, after we hear from a message from our sponsor.

Paige Daniels: 15:16

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Robert Nordlund: 15:48

And we're back, Julie, we're speaking about allies. And during the break, we're talking about the different points of view that they bring, and almost preventing the pushback that you're gonna get from next door and other social media channels. But yeah, talk about allies and the different, all these different points of view?

Julie Adamen: 16:06

Well, I mean, you know, the person may be an ally of the board, and in that they understand why this needs to happen. But they may have a different idea on how to implement or they can also bring the board feedback from who the people they're talking to. So and it will help if it would help if you know, you, you publish the financial statements in a shorter form or something, whatever it is that people are like a small tutorial, so they can understand what the financial statement means. And boards, especially if you you know, unfortunately, smaller associations don't usually have the resources, larger ones often do that they have staff, or, or a manager or whatever, who can help do this and put those kinds of things together. But when you're going through this process, you board members out there be a little light on your feet, because if you are thinking, well, we're just going to go down this path, and it's going to work and communicate this many times. This is the information we're going to communicate are the facts. These are the facts. But if a an ally who's out there in the community, the head of the pickleball committee, comes back and says, you know, people are pretty much okay about it. But here's what I'm hearing. And if they're hearing, they're not getting information on this, or that, or maybe someone said to the pickleball chair, or maybe 10 or 12, people said, you know, I'd really wish the board would come talk to all the owners like and have a town hall. And so if you're hearing that, and you were planning on doing a town hall, I would highly suggest you do that, because you're looking responsive. And that's what you want to be you want to be responsive during this period of time. Now, is it a lot of work? Yes, I, I'm not discounting that whatsoever. I've went through this with an association that I was doing some consulting on, it was a huge amount of work, the communication that had to go on, and the town hall and the willingness the board members to do it. And it was difficult, but they did. And the more that the naysayers, especially, they will always have some objection. Well, they're not meeting us in person. Well, who hears the board meeting us all in person, ask us questions. And you know, another thing that town halls allow you to do is to bring in an expert, because you're in it, let's just say it's insurance, bring in your insurance agent, and have him come in and have him or her come in and talk to the members and answer questions. Don't let it go on forever. But if it's an hour townhall, keep it in an hour and get as many questions as you can in and tell everyone to write down that other questions they have and leave them at the door, send an email to, you know, info out our association.com, or whatever it is. So Robert, one more time, this all goes to transparency, because as you all know, the biggest problem that happens in HOAs is because so many people don't really know what's going on and only the board and you know committee members of the people are involved the administrative people, they understand what's going on, and other people just go about their lives and then something like this hits them. And they're like, Oh my God, they're stealing money or whatever they're doing. You know, and that's so you want to be super transparent on all of this. If they want to townhall do a town hall, I would suggest you do on anyway before somebody even asks, I would that would just be part of my communication plan. Get ahead and and get ahead, get ahead of it. Get ahead of it and stay ahead of it. And you stay ahead of it by hearing the feedback that's coming from the owners. Yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 19:15

Okay, a couple of thoughts. One is, again, this comes back to believe you've got to believe that failure is not an option. We've got to get this special assessment done. We have to So what can we do? Okay, I go to the mailbox, let's put a notice on the mailbox. I see the doggie waste pickups. Let's put a notice on the doggie waste pickups. I see people playing tennis I see the pool let's put notices on the pool gate on the that there every Saturday morning. All be available outside the pool. And yes, it's going to take time, but you have to believe that failure is not an option and get ready for Tuesday night we're going to have the reserve study expert or Are we going to have that person online? The link is, again, the link is on our website, whatever it is. Yeah, get ahead. Many ways, as you get ahead this quarter,

Julie Adamen: 20:13

yet, stay ahead, stay ahead and use all these different mediums. Robert was just talking about, you know, put put actual physical notices up in the clubhouse at the pool. I mean, I know it's not easy to do, and it will take time, absolutely, you probably going to spend money doing this, but use will be so worth it. Because this means when you are putting this much effort into it people see, to go back to what Robert was saying is they see that you believe in it. And now your allies believe in it. And your allies are out there talking to people. Oh, and I want to make one more point about this. Everyone, whether its allies, pickleball, chair, whatever, allies, board members, staff, whether you have management staff or a manager, everybody needs to have the talking points. And everyone needs to be giving the same type of answers. It's never going to be exact, I don't want you to sound like some awful politician. But what I'm saying is that if you initially you can pretty much figure what people are going to ask it's often the same type of thing. So if they're say, well, has the board, did the board go out to bid for insurance? And the Allies honestly be able to say yes, in fact, I saw the bids and five different bits. I delivered it and if the app and and that person should have seen those things. So for you guys to get in front of this, what are the questions you would ask if you felt totally blindsided by a$4,000 $5,000? Special assessment? You're you want to know some things and you're also kind of angry about it. So what would you want to know? I'd want to know why this white how it came to be, I want to know how many bids you got. I want to know when this has to happen. And I want to know why now, why didn't other board members do it five years down the road, or whatever it is, you can have those answers right there. And then as the feedback comes in to you, from the town hall, from your allies, from your email, I would say look on next door. But that can be awfully discouraging. So don't quite do that, have them come to you, I'd much rather have talked to me, or whether you're being stopped at the pool or stopped at the mailbox or out on the golf course, you're a board member, you're gonna get stopped and asked and you need to have the answers. And if you don't have the answers yet, if you don't have them, get them and get them back to that person.

Robert Nordlund: 22:20

Right? Have as a board, you need your talking points. And it may have started out with five things, it may turn to 15. Because someone's gonna say, Can I get a payment plan? And all the board members need to know? Okay, what's your answer on that? The answer is yes, we can spread it over six months, whatever it is, and you get a discount, you have $100 discount, if you pay in advance, whatever it is, have one plan have communicated. So people are realizing oh, yeah, the board is listening. And they are and like you said adjusting.

Julie Adamen: 22:52

And, and it makes you look competent. Cuz you are competent. If you are have your plan ahead of time, this is our communications that we're going to do for the next five months. Don't forget, if it's a six month out month six is spent for for voting, basically. So you've got five months to deal with the communication, map it out emails every other week, you're gonna have it on at the pool, you're gonna have it in the clubhouse, you're gonna have it on your website, you're also going to talk about it in your regular newsletter that goes out. And for all of those little piece where information is someone needs to keep track of where it is because all that information should be updated as new information becomes available. So if the website has a message on it, that's from a month and a half ago, you don't look like you have your act together. So you need to make sure that everyone is sitting in the same queue and singing from the same hymnal for the most part. And that means all of your mediums. Yeah, yeah. And maybe

Robert Nordlund: 23:46

put the new questions this week at the top. So they don't have to scroll down to see that. Oh, there's a new number 18. And next week, there's a new number 1920 and 21. Yeah, put them at the top. Exactly. I'm thinking here. There are successful battle plans. And there are unsuccessful battle plans. If you are sitting looking like, like you started out with saying, Joey, if you're looking like you don't care and you're sitting on your hands are like, oh, yeah, we'll just put a notice out and we'll see how we'll see how they react. That's a losing battle plan comes back to you believing that this has to happen. We are spending money hand over fist repairing all these roof leaks. We're bleeding money, we've got to get a new roof. That's the only way forward and we can't go through another year, it's going to cost us $100,000 In roof leaks alone to get through another year. So we we can't do that. So and then you it comes with believing how can I win this battle? And like you said, the six month plan, start with here start with there and be like,

Julie Adamen: 24:48

I don't get it, but it's you know, it's a great topic and it's something that I've known about for years and you're you know, you can use the same type of process where special assessments or maybe if you're trying going in fighting a board recall or something, you still have to have this game plan this this board work plan, I guess and understand you're going to communicate, you're going to be transparent, you're going to be light on your feet. In other words, you're not going to be dogmatic about well, that information is not going out till month three, when everyone's asking about it at the end of month, one that's responsive, that's transparent. Where you get into trouble is being unresponsive and untransparent. And you and you don't look competent, and you don't look organized. And you may be the most competent board in the world. But if you're not willing to go out there and sell this, because that's really what you're doing is selling them on a reality of this needs to happen. And then just you have what have I called the bowling pins of objection. So if people have I can't do it, I can't afford it this month or week, I can't afford this or you didn't get enough bids or whatever those objections are, you want to just knock those one by one down and keep going. And last thing, I'll

Robert Nordlund: 25:54

leave you all with one by one by one, as you answer those questions, one by one them ally, make them

Julie Adamen: 26:00

that makes them an ally give information if there's someone asking really intelligent questions, and they're amenable, make them and maybe they're a new ally, bring them in board, bring them on board, and have them help you with this. And as I said, one more point I was going to make, and that's gone now. But I've got to memory act,

Robert Nordlund: 26:17

I've got to your point of view, I think it will surprise board members that there's such a large fraction of people at your community association that think they live in an apartment, they have no idea that it is a community association, it's our association, we take care of things, the management company, yeah, they collect the funds, and we send the money to them, but it's not their property, it's our property. So appreciate the point of view of the people that you're speaking to. It's Our Community, you may have to educate them that this is a community association, we control the bank balance, we have controlled the income stream with your assessments. And by golly, we undershot. Or we were surprised. And you need to appreciate the point of view. And then the media, I was just remembering we had one client that had balcony problems. And it was like a four storey cluster of buildings. And of course, first story had patios, second, third, and fourth had balconies. And they were having a hard time convincing people because it was only one building that was having the balcony problems. And they've the special assessment failed on the first pass. And they realized, what do we got to do? Because these balconies are someday going to fall off the building. And someone said, Well, why don't we just take the debris from the one balcony that we fixed, and put it by the guard gate. And so everyone, every time they came in and out, saw the debris, and they had a sign off? They said, This is why we need the special assessment. So are your visual look like this too late? So I like really late. So it's different media. Maybe it's a piece of rotted wood that you bring to a board meeting they can pass around? Yeah, you need to think creatively. But you're talking about battle, your strategy planning ahead, and just realizing that we, we can't look like we're casual about this, we need to double up. It's going to be some hard work. And it's it's a fascinating little topic. Here.

Julie Adamen: 28:22

It is. And it's one that I you know, it's coming, it's going to happen more and more. Because because of the utility costs because of insurance costs, inflation. And one of the last things to talk about here is that you're always going to have people who go well, now I can't afford to live here anymore. And you know, you have to have that as part of your your game plan in answers, you know, your answers to objections. And the truth is that yes, there are people who will not be able to afford to live there anymore. If they I mean, if you start looking at special assessments, Robert like it for those some of those high rises that have to just do a genius, ginormous amounts of work. You know, if you have a special assessment of $50,000, you probably have people that now have negative equity there and so they're not going to want it. And then you have people have been living in that building for 25 years. And they are definitely now priced out. Because they can

Robert Nordlund: 29:08

they bought it for 50,000. They can't imagine that they need 50,000 more, because they bought it for 50,035 years ago.

Julie Adamen: 29:15

Yep. And they've been retired for about 30 of those 35 years. So they don't necessarily know how much things cost. I mean, they know what they go to the grocery store, you know, milks higher, everything's higher, but they don't necessarily translate that into this apartment I live in, because that's what they often think of it as you're absolutely right. Yeah. Well,

Robert Nordlund: 29:32

Julie is fascinating speaking on this topic, and as always, it's great to spending time with you. Any closing thoughts to add at this time, any closing of ideas, tips?

Julie Adamen: 29:42

Well, you know, I just want to emphasize again about the transparency and being as transparent as possible. Yes, that's a lot of work. That means you may have to send information out to individual people or groups of people. You may have to meet with individual people and groups of people. But if you need this special assessment? Honestly, you don't have any choice because it is your fiduciary duty as a board member, you know what needs to be done, you've done all this work, you've been, you know, six months ago, you were talking about this stuff. And now it's come to fruition. So you need to be willing, you need to believe I just want to say, I believe I believe that you have to, you have to, if you don't, you're not going to bring others along with you. And that's what you want to do. You kind of want to bring people from, you know, out there in the wilderness, and bring them in with you to see why this needs to be done. And again, be as flexible as possible when people wants particular information, you know, don't be rigid to what your communication timeline is, you may have to put some more information out earlier than you thought I would honestly tell everybody, you should hold town halls, at least one or two, maybe three, just depending bring in your experts. And maybe legal counsel might be one of your experts that comes in, you know, because they're the one that says, oh, yeah, this is their duty to do so. And this is what's happening in other communities, as well as your could be a reserve expert, it could be a management expert. I mean, you could have someone come in like he's in management role. That would be something like like me, and be able to talk to the owners and and answer those operational questions they may have. Because, as you board members know, No Man's Prophet in His own hometown. So expert certainly help you to sell some of this stuff, and feel free to rely on them, because that's what you're supposed to do anyway.

Robert Nordlund: 31:24

Yeah. Or if you have a couple of follow ups, if you have a real estate agent that is regularly selling homes in your association, ask them and they say, what will happen if we do this $5,000 special assessment to paint fix the roof and all this. And if they say, Oh, easy, it's going to make every home worth $7,500. Boy, get that get that talking point. And then sometimes I think, in a jam like this board members are going to say, I don't see any clear, good way forward. But I've been reminded lately that sometimes when you don't see a good way forward, there's at least one way that is not as bad as the others. And sometimes that one way is the special assessment. It's unpalatable. But it's a whole lot better than a leaky roof. Or it's a whole lot better than no insurance, whatever it is, you

Julie Adamen: 32:14

can't hide, you have to have insurance otherwise. However, if it's an insurance issue, everyone needs to know that if the if the association doesn't have insurance, people can't get mortgages. It's a problem. And you can't have that. So all the people who want to put their house on the market or their unit on the market, they're going to be unhappy about that. And then they're going to have to see that yes, we do need to do this. Fantastic.

Robert Nordlund: 32:33

Well, we hope you learn some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas and a special assessment. If and when you need it. We look forward to having you join us for another great episode next week.

Announcer: 32:50

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