5 Condo Board Mistakes To Avoid

Condo Boards have many duties and responsibilities in performing their role of managing the Corporation. Despite their best efforts, mistakes can be made.  Hopefully, following these suggestions will avoid making mistakes in these areas.

Poor Budgeting/Financial

To avoid poor budgeting, you should:

• Ensure you are on top of condo fee collections
• Have checks and balances in place to manage the condo bank account
• Ensure complete transparency to avoid fraud
• Conduct detailed budget reviews at least once a year
• Make quarterly projections to ensure you have the money to cover expenses
• Use your reserve fund study to make better cost projections
• Stay on top of capital improvement projects to budget appropriately

Don’t forget that well-managed budgets and financials are changing entities. This includes effectively applying condo fee increases to ensure you can meet the changing demands of your aging condo.

Poor Upkeep of Exterior Elements

Avoid having your property deteriorate by:

• Being proactive to ensure you are assessing condo fees annually to cover exterior upkeep
• Having annual assessments of exterior elements such as roofing to address repairs in a timely manner
• Responding to complaints of issues such as leaks, even in garages or storage rooms
• Having maintenance watch for warning signs such as mold, stains, smells, etc.
• Ensuring all exterior areas of the property are cared for throughout the seasons keeps up the “curb appeal” of the complex

Unbiased Decision Making

As board members, you are emotionally invested in your job, and this can make it difficult to make unbiased decisions.

Maintain objective by:

• Avoiding making individual, one-off decisions even if it is in response to a resident complaint
• Always making collective decisions as a board to ensure you remain as objective as possible
• Accepting results for votes and decisions that don’t necessarily suit your personal needs
• Quickly addressing issues when a fellow board member is suspected of having a personal agenda

Insufficient training 

• Board members who haven’t spent time reading the governing documents, learning about their new role, and understanding the history of past decisions can quickly create difficulties.  
• New members should make a point of reading through their governing documents. This ensures they fully understand the condo corporation’s current bylaws, and their function as a board member.
• Training will cover topics like running board meetings, preparing budgets, insurance coverage, and understanding the value of reserve studies.

Not working together

• When serving on a condo board, you act in tandem with your fellow members.
• If you choose to make a big decision alone (like hire a vendor), you could be held liable.  
• It’s your duty to respect the consensus of the board, once a decision has been made as a group, you should stand by it.  

Standing united as a board not only helps strengthen relationships, but also improves your reputation with residents. A unified board helps easily make decisions and develop policies on handling these decisions, leading to greater benefits for your condo corporation. 

Serving on the board of directors of your condominium complex can be quite challenging but , it is likely to be an experience from which you can and will learn a lot. As long as you keep the above mentioned solutions in mind, you are likely to have an easier time volunteering for your condo board.