Kevin Davis: 0:00

It is time for community associations to really just understand we're human beings and as human beings, we want respect, we want dignity, but we also want to be heard. We will be listened to. And so what we're going to do is take a couple minutes as board members to hear people out. They hear their concerns and just acknowledge their concerns. We don't have to agree with their concerns, they can say, Guess what? A special special assessment is outrageous. We don't have any money. The systems are too high. Well. Thank you very much. I appreciate your concern, and we'll take it back to the board. That's it. Hoa.

Announcer: 0:32

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Association Insights and Marketplace, Association Reserves, Community Financials, Kevin Davis Insurance Services, and the Inspectors of Election. You'll find links to their website and social media in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund: 0:47

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

Kevin Davis: 0:50

I'm Kevin Davis of Kevin Davis Insurance Services. And this is the HOA Insights, where we promote common sense

Robert Nordlund: 0:57

for common areas. Welcome to Episode 142 where we're again speaking with insurance expert and regular co host Kevin Davis. This is a follow up to our episode 140 where all three of us, myself, Kevin and Julie, spoke about the top trends to be aware of in 2026 and incivility was clearly one of the top three. So today we have some time to dive into that a bit deeper. How much do you need to embrace as a part of normal life, just the tension and incivility and what can you do to keep it from getting out of hand? We want our listeners to be well prepared for the challenges facing them here in 2026 and be well equipped to lead their associations forward. Last week's episode 141 was a great interview with Jeremy Lara, the president of Baja roofing, and it was an opportunity for you to get a sneak preview into the world of a roofing company. How they see associations. What makes a roofing project more or less expensive, how long a roof lasts, the value of ongoing maintenance, things like that, roofs are regularly one of the most expensive projects at an association, and we wanted you to have an opportunity to listen in, kind of eavesdrop on a conversation with a roofer, where nothing about your association or its roof was at stake if you missed that episode or any other prior episode, take a moment after today's program to listen from our podcast website, Hoa insights.org or search for HOA insights on YouTube. Better yet, subscribe from any of the major podcast platforms, or subscribe to our podcast on the YouTube channel so you don't miss any future episodes. More subscribers fundamentally means a higher search ranking, which means we can reach more boards with these free educational and inspirational episodes. So we're trying to help as many associations as possible, and you can help us accomplish that. Well, those of you watching on YouTube can see the HOA insights mug I have here, Kevin, you've got one too cool favorites. Of course, we're on the team, and we got those from the merch store, which you can browse through from our Hoa insights.org website or the link in our show notes, and you find we have some great free stuff there, like board member zoom backgrounds and some specialty items for sale, like mugs. So go to the merch store, see if there's anything interesting there that you'd like to purchase, or just download a free zoom background for your next board meeting. Well, we enjoy hearing from you responding to the issues you're 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 always contact us. Leave a message at 805-203-3130, or email us at podcast at Hoa insights.org, but today's program is on us. We again want to set you up for success in 2026 so let's get right to the subject, Kevin, how much incivility is healthy.

Kevin Davis: 3:56

Well, you know what incivility is a big problem now, more than has ever been before. But first I want to say, what do we define incivility? To me, it when I hear that word is disrespectful behavior. Okay? This treating somebody with disrespect, somebody in your community association could be a person live next to you. Could be the board member, it could be the landscaper. And what we're seeing more and more these days is this disrespectful behavior within community associations. Now, basically, these people are nuisance. You know, these are people who go through the association and just kind of debug everybody. They're nuisance. But the difference between a nuisance and lack of civility, to me, when you talk about lack of civility, it's contagious. It goes throughout the community association to the point where it just lowers the temperature, and everybody feels like, you know, they don't matter, and things don't matter, and what they're doing doesn't matter. And so that, I think that's, to me, what we're talking about with lack of civility and community associations in a nutshell. Okay?

Robert Nordlund: 4:56

Because I think of board members have different priorities. Days than homeowners. Homeowners don't have the responsibility that board members do, so they're going to see things differently. And then you add in how long you've been at the association, there's people there that have been there 2030, years, and like it the way it was in the good old days, people from different socioeconomic backgrounds. There's people with kids, people with no kids, and let's not even talk about the dog owners, pickleball players, or all those other factions. So there's going to be a mismatch. You're not going to be best friends with everyone, but what you're talking about here is people that Well, I guess in prior episodes we've spoken about we want to cool things down. When tempers get hot, to cool it down. But here we're talking about incivility really drives it down to cold where people are grouchy. Yeah, they're mean, and you use the word disrespectful, so it's one thing to pass by someone in the hall or someone going to the mailbox area and you hey, you know, you're cool. That's fine, gone to be best friends, but it's one thing if they're just plain mean or disrespectful.

Kevin Davis: 6:07

And that's the difference there, Robert, is that historically, we always had people in the community association that everybody ignored. We all had that one person in there that, oh, there's that guy. Go again. When that lack of civility gets there, it just all of us feel that way. We all start feeling that same negative energy. And you're right, the cold is the right word. If we want to have a goal today, let's just teach people how to change that attitude to when, when you meet somebody with lack of civility, somebody there who really is rude or disrespectful. Well, these are certain things you got to be able to do now, because this is 2026, and we want to stop some of the behavior that we've seen since covid. Yeah, covid is over five, six years ago now, and now suddenly, what we need to do is say, Okay, we recognize as human beings that we need to treat each other, but with respect. We live in a community association where we see each other all the time. We walk past each other, right? And you're right. We both have, we all have different agendas, different ideas, if you view points, but let's start respecting the other person's viewpoint.

Robert Nordlund: 7:15

I think about, wasn't it Abraham Lincoln that famously had a cabinet, a cabinet, a cabinet of disagreement, or something like that, a cabinet where they had constructive discussions amongst each other. What's better, what's worse? What should our strategy be? I get that, but we are indeed in Community Association living, and we either in an HOA, we share the same entryway, the same roadway, or in a condo, we're in the same hallway, using the same garbage chute, the same elevators, that kind of stuff. So we're in, we're in close quarters. We can't really avoid people. But when I, when you started talking about this, I started thinking about the chill that some people bring just by walking, you know, it's like, oh no, yeah, just that kind of but let's,

Kevin Davis: 8:02

let's look at it this way. Let's say we become, we focus in we're bored. You and I are the President, Vice President, of happy acres Community Association, and we said we're gonna start this year 2026, to be a little bit kinder to one another. And guess what? By being kinder, what happens is, is that when it comes to assessment, collection, you know, when it comes to maintaining the association right, when it comes to enforcing the rules, we're just going to enact those things in a more kindly way. You know, instead of saying, you know, you're late, or how can I mute it and do X or Y, or how come this is going on, we're going to, we have to address things differently. We're going to do everything we do in a kindlier way.

Robert Nordlund: 8:45

You know, that sounds trite, but I think that's the foundation of so much of social interaction. We talk about social graces, the ability for me to say, Oh, gee, I'm sorry, I'm five minutes late, just to acknowledge that it's on me. I'm late. I'm sorry. Rather than barging into a room in a pompous manner, just saying, now that I'm here, we can start. There's all these social graces and being kind. And we've had episodes where we talk about vision and mission, and even though we're talking about some very important things, collecting assessments, getting them, everything maintained, following the rules. You can choose, and Julie will say it. You can choose your tone. You can choose to do it in a kind of manner, and say in a way that is, can we even say like Mr. Roberts, Mr. Rogers, neighborly,

Kevin Davis: 9:41

yes, okay, now, but let's, let's do this now, because what happens now? People listen to this and go, we live in a fantasy world because we don't manage associations. But however, we both served on board of directors of community associations, so we're speaking from experience. Now, let's look at it this way. What if they don't? Let's say that, you know, you. Right? Us as board members, you know, we're not kind everybody. It's 2026 and now of a sudden, we need to pass special assessment. Now, what do you think is going to be the easiest way to pass special assessment? By being kind about it and saying, Listen, this is what we need to do, because the roofer, we need new roofs. We we heard last week about Mr. Roofer there, and we listen and guess what? It's time to get a new roof. Now, when we talk in a kindly manner, as opposed to, Oh, guess what we need to do now, we need to get a roof. Because it starts in that board at board room. If you and I are saying, Oh, no, not another. We can't believe that. Do this again. It permeates throughout the community association. If we are together and we're saying, guess what? We got to get this roof. We got to communicate the roof now and talk about why we need him, and let's do it in a kindly way. Then guess what's going to happen? People will be more responsive than us, saying, uh oh, we need special assessment. We need a new roof. We need to do it now. That's when people start feeling like, Wait a minute. I'm not engaged, I'm not involved, I'm not motivated, so it kind of disables that to happen exactly, right,

Robert Nordlund: 11:05

versus them exactly. That's it, yes, yeah. I think it's, well, I think you said it's a choice. And number two, it's a way to be human. It's like, oh, darn. You could literally announce it that way. We're sorry, but the roof isn't making it to 2028 like we thought, the roof is leaking now, and because we have tried to keep assessments to a minimum, we don't have a lot of margin, and it looks like we're going to have to pass a special assessment. Please come to this meeting in a month to we can talk more about it. So it's a tone of, we're sorry we get it. This is bad news that we have to share. It's not like,

Kevin Davis: 11:50

Darn it, yes, yep. And it started lines as the board members. It starts with us, Robert, as you're the president, I'm the vice president or chair, whatever you want to call me, and we have to come out first because we can't control the union owners. They can be disrespectful, they can be rude, they can be obnoxious, they can be a nuisance to us. But if we come out first and we say, Listen, this is what we're going to do in 2026 you know, our board is committed to being kinder and using kind of words, and we believe that's going to change our associations. Culture. Again, civilian incivility is contagious. Unlike being a nuisance, nuisance, we know that person is a nuisance, we avoid them, but a person who it lacks civility, it creates that lack civility to all of us across the board, and we need to change that culture. We need to change that associations, culture, that mindset, by saying, guess what? There's no hope. You know, if I go out there and send me a special assessment, guess what's going to happen? They will get mad at me, yell at me, and they want to get me off the board. They have a board recall all those things that we that we know can happen. It still can happen. Robert, they still can say, we want to recall that existing board, because they all have the right to pass special assessment. Now we have a choice. We can panic, or we or we can be disrespectful back, or we can say, Listen, based on the last election, it was a proper election. We know it's proper. So you know the ability to recall election at this time us is not really appropriate, and we talk high to somebody. You know, it's harder to get for some of us to get mad, get mad about what, but it's harder to get mad at somebody when they are looking at you and saying, especially looking right at you in the eye and said, Listen, I understand your feelings right now, but it's something we need to do, because the roofs will leak, and there's

Robert Nordlund: 13:43

nothing we can do about it, nothing we can do about four units that got wet in the last rain, yeah? And that's the truth of the matter, yeah. The word I'm thinking is compassionate, where you again, you're not cramming anything down someone's throat, and it is a choice, just like I believe. Well, you said that one of the key issues about incivility was it was contagious. I think what you choose as a board member, commit to setting the tone, commit to being kinder, commit to being more compassionate. That setting the tone sets the culture at the association. And you can start to spin it in the right direction, where people understand that it's a we and the board members aren't a bunch of bad people over there. They are. Boy, I'm glad I'm not a board member. They got to wrestle with all these hard questions, and then they can be compassionate towards you back. Do you think it ends up going back and forth like that again?

Kevin Davis: 14:38

That's what I think for this year. If we start, we start we start to trend. We start saying, You know what, it is time for community associations to really just understand we're human beings. And as human beings, we want respect, we want dignity, but we also want to be heard. We will be listened to. And so what we want to do is take a couple minutes as board members to hear people out. They hear their concerns and just acknowledge their concerns. We don't have to agree with their concerns. They can say, Guess what? Special, Special assessment is outrageous. We don't have any money. The systems are too high. Well. Thank you very much. I appreciate your concern, and we'll take it back to the board. That's it. We just acknowledge what they're saying. We're not saying we agree with them, and we will, make a change. Just acknowledge that we heard what you're saying, and we have that same problem. I believe also, too, that I can't afford special assessment, but sometimes we need to be able to do certain things for the benefit of the association. It's a mind shift that if we started in 2026 you know, in 2028 in January, we'll have a different talk about we talk about, remember, two years ago, we talked about lack of civility. It seemed going away. Don't you think, yeah, that's our goal.

Robert Nordlund: 15:47

Yeah, I bet it is something that is not a month measured in months. May be measured in years, but you got to start now. And I also think my wife and I were talking about this yesterday, how we fight, and we were talking about a younger couple that we know that seems to be having a lot of tension in their life. We talked about a commitment that we made early in our marriage, that when we thought the other one of us was attacking us, we committed to believing that we had misheard and that that person really did have our best interests. And we would talk about on a numerical scale, that if I felt my wife hit me with a on on a one to 10, if we were having a nice, peaceful one two conversation, and she hit me with a five, I committed to thinking I must have misheard her. She wouldn't attack me out of that, because early in our marriage, she would say something that I thought was a five, and I'd come back with an eight, and from her point of view, she hadn't said what she said. And so I come out of the blue and hit her with an eight, and we realized we created a fight just by misunderstanding.

Kevin Davis: 16:59

I would go one step even different with what you're saying is great, but understand too, is that we all, what we normally do is make the assumption that you're not looking at my best interest. Instead of saying, You know what, I believe that we all have the same interests. We all want to have a better Association. Okay, so if you're saying you want to raise the assessments, and I said, No, no, you can't do it. I'm assuming that you're not looking out for my best interests. And you go back to your fiduciary responsibility to look at the best interest Association. If we say that as board members, we have one job to make sure the association a we have a we have fiduciary responsibility to act in the best interest Association by any conflict, and if we do that on a consistent basis. Guess what happens? Then we should be okay. That's all we can follow. That one basic rule. We're enforcing the rules when collecting assessments. We maintain the association. Just understand that we have one job to do, so that if we're talking, if you were in a board meeting together, Robert and all of a sudden we have a disagreement. The disagreement for me ago, yeah, but we have the same, we same belief that. But now he may go over a different way that I do, but let's talk it out and see what's the best way get that special assessment, you know, you say, may get it all at once, or maybe when do it over a two year period. So we now, we're talking about something that, okay, let's have a vote on it and see, as opposed to saying you're wrong. You know you're wrong. What do you think? Doesn't make any sense to me. That's my first response. It's protect ourselves. Yeah, by saying you're wrong, anger shows up and the anger shows up, then you can't go for it once. Anger is there. I'm defending myself. Where do you go from there?

Robert Nordlund: 18:36

Right? And I get angry at you. You get angry at me. I'm wondering if there's that extra middle of ground where, if we're again, in this hypothetical, we're talking about a special assessment because of the roof, maybe we call a roofer up and say, Hey, Joe or Fred or Susie or whatever their name is, what are the chances you could repair it for only 50 grand and buy us another couple years? And that way you get a professional opinion, and that way, I'm not blaming you. You're not blaming me. And the roofer says, you know, we could do that, or you just be throwing good money after bad because the roof is still going to cost$400,000 and you're going to have to do it next spring, and you're going to end up spending$450,000 because of all this interim stuff you do that way, it separates between me being mad at you and you have this other thing that helps you. Well, I guess you have to commit to that one thing. This what's in the best interest of the association. And I think if you're asking the right questions, then all of a sudden you start to get some clarity.

Kevin Davis: 19:38

But that's what happens, though, if you think about it. If I'm angry, you're angry, there's no option B, if we have, if we communicate, there's an option B, oh, let's just call the roofer. Yeah, if I have what they say, they all of a sudden, now we're being more we're not angry, we're not operating we still, we're still debating what the right answer is. We don't know. But because I accept the fact that we're both on the same. Page and meaning that we both listen to best interest Association. Then there's an option B, I like that.

Robert Nordlund: 20:06

And then once you start thinking about options, there's probably a whole lot of options. Can the roofers start with just a deposit? And so can we have a special assessment that we collect over 12 months, and so it's ongoing, where we give them payments over 12 months, and that kind of stuff. So there's lots of different ways. And then you can ask your manager, has that worked successfully at any of the other associations they know of, and get the manager's opinion,

Kevin Davis: 20:29

we have to watch out. Because one thing we have to watch out for is that stop sign. Whenever we have a communicate with each other, there's always magical stop signs that peers and communicate. Communication stops because of anger or because of some something happens out there. And once it stops, then it starts going in a different direction. You have to understand that, wait a minute, that stop sign disappear, and I'm still open to the possibilities, because sometimes, you know, we get we start getting anger because we don't believe we're being hurt. You know, you didn't hear me. Robert, I said, I want to do it now. You didn't hear me. You didn't hear me. Then all of a sudden, stop sign gets up there, and we have to be aware of that stop sign in ourselves and of others so that we can go, okay, I get it. I understand. Let's figure out another way.

Robert Nordlund: 21:12

Yeah, hey, we need to take a break and hear from one of our generous sponsors. But I'm wondering, have you ever heard of an association, or have you been exposed to an association where they were having an impasse, they're in a board meeting, they're having tension, and they just say, you know, let's take a break. It's 730 it's eight o'clock at night. How about we take a break and we convene over it? Billy's bar and drinks are on me, and just a change of scenery and 10 minutes for everyone to cool down and just talk about it over drinks or coffee or whatever. Have you seen that play out? What do you think about that?

Kevin Davis: 21:51

Okay, that's going to play out whenever you again, we're talking about a stop sign. The stop sign is up, so somebody has to recognize the stop sign is up. And what do we do about it? And we end it. Okay? We got to take a break now. Let's stop and just kind of move forward. Let's do something different. That stop sign is so important that whoever's running the meeting and whoever is in that room know that we reach that point where we can't do anything else. We're going to have to take a break and reconvene. But let's get a drink first, or let's go out and socialize a little bit, because at the end of the day, we're all on the same page. We want to do what's in the best interest of the community association.

Robert Nordlund: 22:27

Okay, cool. Hey, let's do that. Let's take a break time to hear from one of our general sponsors, after which we'll be back with more common sense for common areas and the discussion about incivility and what we can do to mitigate it.

Kevin Davis: 22:40

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 women's company, we bring true value to your community association clients. We are your community association insurance experts.

Robert Nordlund: 23:09

And we're back, well, we're trying to figure out, where do we go with making the world a better place here? And this is actually so important, we believe, to so many associations across the country that are feeling like there's a lot of things going wrong, there's a lot of tension and avoiding those stop signs that you mentioned, Kevin, so what can we proactively do? You talked or at the beginning about committing to being kinder. What does that look

Kevin Davis: 23:37

like, understanding that, you know, we live in a world where people are disrespectful for one another. So we're saying is that if we are kind of ourselves as a group of board members, we can make a change. Now, what does that mean to me? He set expectations, and the first thing set expectation, meaning that we as a board, saying that we want to be kind to one another and kind to the people who live in our community. I don't care if you're a renter, you live there or landscaper. This is our statement for 2026 to our community. You know, we're going to focus on kindness. And you mentioned the word compassion too, you know? And that is the result of kindness. The way to show your kindness, to being compassion, to hear somebody and say that, Oh, you have a problem right now with assessments, let's kind of talk about, maybe to figure out a way to help you. You know, that's compassion, empathy, all those things that we hear about, they kind of get left at the door, because, guess what? We're frustrated as board members. Who is we got to make the tough decisions about that roof.

Robert Nordlund: 24:36

Then you hit that stop sign, and then you got a problem. Okay, I think about it. You talked about the vision and mission statement. I think in the last few months, we've talked a lot about that on the program, having a guiding statement, a guiding principle that maybe read at the beginning of board meetings. Thinking so many board meetings. Are now online, and so just say, you know, welcome. What a privilege it is to be at where we at today, happy acres, yeah, what a privilege is to be here at Happy acres. Happy birthday to us. We just celebrated 32 years as an association. You can choose words that make it sound like we are happy to be here. We are lucky to be here. We have good things going on. And then the Celebrate your victories. The pool. We're going to open the pool one week early this year, or we're going to get the pool resurfaced when the pool is closed before we open at Memorial Day. You can celebrate victories. You can celebrate the good things that happen. The local high school football team won the state championship. I don't know what it is, but I think there's so much you can do to welcome people, welcome to the board meeting, whether it's Yeah, I

Kevin Davis: 25:55

like that word of celebration. I think the more we celebrate, the more we get used to celebrating. And again, all those things go together. When we talk about being kind and compassionate, it all goes to means that you matter. And when you matter and I matter, guess what? We get things done. If you don't matter as a human being, I can't work with you. If I'm looking at you and go, Oh, this guy gets on my nerves. There's no way where we can work together. I have to look at you in the eye and say, You know what? I believe we can really get some work done. I think we can make a difference. Let's make a difference now. It's not an easy thing to do, but if one person starts in that board, there's one person said, I heard this podcast about being kind to one another. Let's try that and see. Because we do have a lot of people in HOA who's disrespectful to one another, and sometimes we are too as board members, we have a choice board members not to be disrespectful. If we choose that way, we can't control them, but we control our own behavior. Mic drop, now, right? Yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 26:53

Mic drop, I'm thinking long time ago was Saturday Night Live, was it Chevy Chase and Jane Curtin would say, Jane, you ignorant slut and you just be, can't we're gonna be sending people to search for YouTube on that not, not

Kevin Davis: 27:10

really, because everybody listens to our YouTube as our age. Remember, that's right,

Robert Nordlund: 27:14

but yeah, how you set the tone in your discussion to each other, privately, in public in front of the homeowners boy, as much as incivility is contagious, I think the kindness, the compassion that you show that's contagious also. And it's really hard for someone to be a bully to you when you're smiling there and you have a reputation of being kind, all of a sudden the bully looks so out of place.

Kevin Davis: 27:42

So that's our message. And we want in 2026 we're gonna switch over contagion of being incivility, incivility or lack of civility, to kindness, and we're gonna make that contagious. Kindness has to be contagious to one another, and then we will see again two years from now, in 2028 our first conversation gonna be so what do you think have we still in civil, incivil What was our lack of civility? Lack of civility? Yeah, uncivil, yeah.

Robert Nordlund: 28:10

But I think you're right. It is a choice, and you said it earlier. It's it can be hard work, because inside of you, yeah, you may be thinking, I don't like that person, but keep a smile on. Be polite. Welcome. Hey. Thank you for that question. And you know that's a very good point. Let me look into it, or we shared the financials last month. Let me find those for you, and I'll get that information to you. Let me get your email address, and I'll send that information to you. And like you said, treating them like a person, like they matter, and that makes so much of a difference. Kevin, it's always a treat. We have this outline about where we think we might go, and it's fun to see where it actually does go. Now you're committing us to a closeout episode in two years to find out how we did on this. So we may do just that anyway. Any closing thoughts to add at this time, I

Kevin Davis: 29:02

think again, we have to understand that it's contagious. And if we focus on that contagion and say when to move it from point A to point B to kindness, I think we all do a lot better in long run.

Robert Nordlund: 29:15

Yeah, it's a choice, and to our audience, you can do it. We encourage you, and we're going to be in there ourselves. Well, we hope you learned some HOA insights from our discussion today that helps you bring common sense to your common areas. Thank you for joining us. We look forward to bringing many more episodes to you, week after week after week. We'll be here, and it'll be great to have you join us on a regular basis. Spread the word you

Announcer: 29:43

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