All Forum Posts by: Vlad Selsky

Greg, I understand all that, just looking for examples of fee schedules that are 'reasonable'. These are not luxury units. Mainly I have a current situation where owners are negligent in providing their proof of insurance. After first $25 offense, I wonder if $100 is reasonable for second offense. 

It would be nice to categorize the fines. Safety and non-Safety perhaps? Or what are some other categories? Maybe charge $100/$50 for second violation in safety/non-safety respectively.

As for collections, unfortunately we are now dealing with a delinquent owner (since Nov, not paying dues) and have had to hire a lawyer. 

Next year my parents plan to sell two of their rental condos and exchange for a single family home that they will rent out to me. I have a question on the 45-day replacement properties. Are my parents obligated to only buy one of those 3 properties? 

1) Say it is day 50 and we failed to buy the homes. Can we continue to search for other properties and complete the exchange?
2) If not, say it is day 30 and we failed to buy the homes. Can we continue to search for other properties up to day 45?

My 12-unit Condo Association doesn't have any mention of a fee schedule in the bylaws. Can folks share their HOA's fee schedule? For example, somebody who violates the non-smoking rule: written notice, first fine $25, second fine $100, etc.

Does your fee schedule differ depending on violation, or standardized across all of them?

Our HOA suffered a fire couple years ago and 4 of the 12 units went through repairs. These 4 units are owned by 2 owners.

Insurance payout did not sufficiently cover all the costs and I'm in the process of calculating the owner out-of-pocket costs. The non-construction costs are:

1) Insurance deductible
2) Private adjuster fee
3) Project administration fee (HOA property manager)

Is there a rule-of-thumb as to which of these costs should be shouldered by the HOA vs. the 2 owners who own the units part of the fire claim?

The answer to this question is not in our bylaws, and this is the first insurance-related project in our history, so I have no precedent to go by. Seeking input as to what is most commonly done, or if it is entirely up to the HOA to decide?

Thanks, Vlad

I'm the President of my HOA. We have an issue where marijuana smoke (legal in MA) is making its way to upstairs unit (which I own) and severely impacting the health and well being of my tenant. The downstairs unit does not have a no-smoking clause in the lease, and neither do the bylaws. Even before this situation, we were going to amend the bylaws to make the building non-smoking and will do so next month. A violation will be $50.

I have two questions:
1) Does the Board have the right to amend bylaws and have them cascade to the owners/tenants mid-lease, or can enforcement only commence with the new tenants that were given the updated bylaws as part of lease signing?

2) If the owner is fined the $50 violation, does he have the right to pass that down to the tenants? And should every attempt be made to collect through traditional means (eg check), or in anticipation of there being repeat violations, does the owner have the right to take it out of the security deposit?

Thanks, Vlad

Thanks!

I am looking for a new property management firm to manage a 12-unit HOA in Brighton (Boston) MA. Please send me any referrals.

Thanks, Vlad

My general contractor and I signed a contract to gut and renovate two rental properties for a fixed amount of $170K. When it came time to buy the kitchen cabinets, he budgeted $2000 per unit. After I spoke with him, he gave me the go ahead to buy cabinets of my own choice. I paid out of pocket well over double for much better quality. Of course he still received his labor fees for the cabinet install.

All of the contractor's items have an 18% markup for profit, contingency, etc. I'd like to understand if there is a business best practice for this question -- should the $17)K contractual amount be reduced by $2000? Or do I still owe the contractor the 18% on $2000 that he was anticipating pocketing? In short, in case the amount matters, it's only $720 (.18 * 4000).

Thanks, Vlad 

My mother-in-law needs to do 1031 exchange. She has about $650K, all cash. Anybody familiar with the Boston market? What is a decent cap rate for a two-family in Brighton, Waltham, Watertown, and Belmont?

Thanks!

Vlad

The HOA covers all the major stuff, and the inspection was very sound. Expenses run $40K a year and they just about break even. I calculated that a 17% HOA increase will build up a $10K reserve in less than 2 years (25% of operating expenses). I will be speaking with the pest management company on Monday.