01/05/23
Hi Neighbors,
We are so sorry that our transition to a new property management company is pretty bumpy. We are working diligently with RowCal to clear up confusion and get our transition on a better track as quickly as possible. We are still working with AFC (Eva) and will pay bills through them until our transition is complete. There will be no penalty for late paying January and February and if you have not already sent in payment for January, it’s fine to hold off until we’re sure that our bank accounts are ready to go at RowCal. For those of you who have paid already, those checks will be held until bank accounts are ready.
We will have a dues increase this year to $435 in March. This is primarily because we’ve been told to expect another 20-50% increase in insurance rates this year. We’re hoping that RowCal can help us with searching the marketplace for better quotes since their business is predominantly HOAs. They have a department devoted to negotiating insurance quotes. That’s part of why we chose them.
The other reasons for the dues increase are a) water, landscaping, sewer – everything basically continues to get more expensive, b) we need to start painting buildings again to ensure that all get painted within a 10 year window. We haven’t had to budget for that since the insurance claim in 2017, but it’s time to start painting 2 buildings a year again. Our budget won’t allow us to paint 20 buildings in 2 years like we did last time. We have to space it out.
Lastly, c) yes, we will be paying more for property management, but that’s not a large hit to our budget. We’ve paid a very nominal rate the last 5 years, less than we paid 7 years ago, but using small management companies means limited resources to research vendors, keep pace with regulations, and limited guidance in general. The board is not and have never been experts. We rely on property managers for that, and that’s where small management companies fall short, especially when their business is more rentals and a smaller percentage are HOAs. We need expertise to tell us how to properly maintain 50 year-old buildings, to help us build a better reserves study, to help us find vendors who can effectively maintain our sprinkler system and save on water, and to keep us abreast of and in compliance with changes in regulations. We think it’s necessary to start relying more on experts. We’ve done pretty well as a board and have invested a lot of effort, however, we think the right management company can do better.
All of this is difficult and a bumpy transition makes it that much harder. Again, we apologize and are working towards getting Linvale onto a smoother path with this change in property management. As a board, we should have communicated more, earlier, and we apologize for that as well. Partial information is better than no information – we had hoped to present a full picture so we waited and shouldn’t have.
Please try to be patient.
For all, here is the phone number and other info so you can reach the RowCal Care Team if you have any questions.
Care Team Contact Information
Monday – Thursday 9am – 5pm
Friday from 9am – 1pm
303-459-4919, then press 2 if calling during normal business hours
Linvale Condo Project Association 