budget proposal (I’m the HOA President). This budget calls for another increase in our dues, and that’s mostly driven by a large 18% increase in the management fees. They didn’t give any reason for the increase. Dumb. The management fee is now about $400 per home per year.

The HOA doesn’t really do anything anymore for most of us. We just pay money every month because there is no alternative. In order to get rid of the HOA, we would need to get the city to agree to take ownership of the private road that 4 (out of the 20) homes are on. There is also a small nature preserve that the HOA owns, but that is already managed by a nonprofit that was given an endowment from the builder to manage the land in perpetuity. That’s easier to get rid of.

We have been advised that the city will not take over the private road- there is no reason for them to do that. It’s just a liability for the city with no benefit. Somebody else is maintaining the road now, so why would they take over? Without that, the law forces us to keep the machinery of the HOA running. We need to have accountants and pay for reserve studies and have an insurance policy. And unless one of us decides to just handle all of that for free, we also need to pay a management company, which is over half of the annual budget. We are just paying money every month so we can continue paying money every month.