Or sue him.Does his contract OK this kind of expenditure without your approval?

It can be different for day-to-day decisions than for capital expenditures.

If you are relatively debt-free (minus a mortgage), if you plan large expenses several weeks or months ahead of time, and can control your business expenditures, you are much more likely to succeed.DON'T start wholesaling without regular full-time employment.DO start wholesaling if you have a back-up plan. 

Maintenance fees is the monthly amount you pay - assessments are for large expenditures such as road work or roofing. 

Lets assume the following yearly numbers for a Single Family Residence (these numbers are made up, try not to get hung up on the minutia)$200,000 - Total price of property (purchase + rehab; aka ARV)$24,000 - Gross Income (from rents, no other income)$1,200 - Vacancy (5%)$3,000 - Property Taxes$1,000 - Insurance$1,000 - Utilities$2,000 - Maintenance/Repairs (1% of total property value)$8400 - Debt ServiceAs I understand things, my Operating Expenditures (Opex) will be:      Property Taxes ($3,000) + Insurance ($1,000) + Utilities ($1,000) + Maintenance ($2,000) = $7,000Now to calculate the Net Operating Income (NOI):      Gross Income ($24,000)  - (Vacancy ($1,200) + Opex ($7,000)) = $15,800Once I have my NOI, I can go on to calculate the Cap Rate (Net Operating Income / Total Price of Property = 7.9), the Debt Service Ratio (Net Operating Income / Debt Service = 1.88), etc.What I am missing, is my capex reserves.

Our only limitation is the line item limiting a single expenditure to an amount specified, which we recommend to be $1000 - $1500, (with the cost to replace a water heater as baseline recommendation) again depending on our initial assessment of the property condition.

Having a solid cash cushion helps when there are bumps in the road with either your career or capital expenditures required by your rental property.

I look at it as an expense item as part of my RE holdings along with taxes and other related expenditures (which I leave to my accountant to allocate).  

HOWEVER, I would take an hour to figure out market rates, condition to know approximate expense ratio, know what to plan on capital expenditures, and know what as improved rental rates and expenses associated with that would be.

Whether or not it's a lender requirement, you do need reserves sufficient to cover vacancy and repairs or capital expenditures on a property.