SirDaedra t1_jdwtwd3 wrote on March 27, 2023 at 7:44 PM

We had a similar issue buying our condo in a two-family that had been recently flipped by an absentee investor who used a property manager company. The property manager was charging about $350 per month, but to be honest, that seemed about market rate. The issue is that with triple deckers in Boston, you are only splitting that cost 3 ways instead of more at a bigger building where it would be affordable.

We ended up just volunteering ourselves as the HOA trustee and handling all the paperwork to get rid of the property manager ; the other resident has been cool with it. It was a little bit of a pain with getting all the paperwork where it needs to be at the beginning but things run on autopilot for the most part now. You should do the same because there is no reason to pay a property manager that much on a smaller place. Our fees for a two family are $250 per month, which includes water, common area electricity, snow removal (most expensive cost in the budget), landscaping, and $1k in reserves per year.

P.S I would advise you to read through your HOA bylaws. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it is not ethical for a trustee to essentially award money like that to themselves. If they had a legitimate cost, such as they bought lightbulbs for common areas, that’s one thing, but the developer should not be reimbursing themselves for lost time. Do your bylaws also not state anything about automatically becoming a trustee? Ours makes each unit owner a trustee within 30 days of purchase automatically.

Caraless_While22 OP t1_jdxbjfv wrote on March 27, 2023 at 9:38 PM

>P.S I would advise you to read through your HOA bylaws. I am not a lawyer, but my understanding is that it is not ethical for a trustee to essentially award money like that to themselves. If they had a legitimate cost, such as they bought lightbulbs for common areas, that’s one thing, but the developer should not be reimbursing themselves for lost time. Do your bylaws also not state anything about automatically becoming a trustee? Ours makes each unit owner a trustee within 30 days of purchase automatically.

I am going to read over them tonight, but I think he still has control for 4 months. I don't know if he will stick to those 4 months though. There are still some maintenance issues from the last storm a couple weeks ago that he was "fixing". The unit that was being sold flooded and we probably need a bigger sump pump. I hope he will close out these projects before quitting.

SirDaedra t1_jdxlke4 wrote on March 27, 2023 at 10:49 PM

Personally, I feel that he is violating his fiduciary duty as a trustee. As long as he is a trustee, he is supposed to be acting in the best interests of the HOA. All of the things that were mentioned in the $500 are the basic tasks that a member of an HOA. Was he contributing anything toward that $500 cost when he owned the unit or was he expecting you and the other unit to split between yourselves?

Caraless_While22 OP t1_jdxsmue wrote on March 27, 2023 at 11:41 PM

The remaining unsold unit was the biggest, so had the highest HOA fee of $425, so he would deposit $425 and withdraw $500 each month.

SirDaedra t1_jdy50h0 wrote on March 28, 2023 at 1:13 AM

Yeah, f that guy. He is trying to pull a fast one. It depends upon how far you want to take it, but you could just refuse to pay and have him sue you, at least that leaves the decision about whether it’s owed up to the judge. He would also have to explain how he arrived at that exorbitant fee. That’s my initial inclination, but it depends upon how you and the other HOA members feel. At the amount of money we’re talking about here, it could be worthwhile for you and the other owners to split an initial attorney consultation.