Special Assessments
On 3-26-2024 my HOA's management company (RowCal) proposed a $1.9 million loan to our community for years of neglected maintenance. This is audio clip of me asking the Millbrook Board about special assessments that they have been hiding from the community since 2017. The Millbrook Board has a fiduciary duty to the members of the community to advise them of the capital improvements that are needed throughout the community. The have been hiding this information from the com
RowCal, our property management company proposed a $1.9 million loan to our community to repair neglected maintenance that the association has been hiding from my community since 2017 when they were told the association needed to do special assessments. Instead, the board ignored that and kept the information from our community for the last 9 years as several of them have sold and moved from the community (many of them profiting nicely) now leaving the remaining owners to foot the bill.
RowCal reviews a inspection that was done by a company called Marigold November 2, 2023.
Part 2 - General Overview
Part 3 - Building Exteriors - Asphalt/Concrete
Part 4 - Retaining Walls - Reserve Study - Wrap-Up
The review goes into more detail about these specific areas. Fun Fact 1: According to the last Reserve study for Millbrook that was done in 2017, all the asphalt was more or less at the end of its life with 30-40% of its alligator cracking. To do an overlay at that time the study it showed the cost as $289,700. The asphalt is much worse now, 40-60% alligator cracking, making it unlikely any of the asphalt is salvageable (I am by no means a expert). To replace the asphalt could cost up to 3 times that amount, if not more in today's money. I asked Ai to make a rough calculation and it came up with $1,011,500. Fun Fact 2: There are roughly 8-10 buildings that have not been painted since 2013. It does not sound like an issue until you realize that when it was painted last, they just painted over the existing paint. If they scrapped anything it was just to remove paint that was falling off. This is one reason why there is so much rotting wood. Fun Fact 3: Wooden Decks/porches are a huge issue in Millbrook. When ours was replaced in 2019 it was pulling away from the wall it was so bad. I have a tough time imagining how bad all the other decks are. The wooden porches are another issue altogether because before those are fixed, they need to fix the drainage issues and fix them properly. We will talk about this later.
Building Exteriors -Asphalt/Concrete
Retaining Walls - Reserve Study - Wrap-Up
Going over RowCal's "Guesstimate" This should be a eye opener considering the "guesstimates" given. Fun Fact 1: The estimates for the retaining wall are not realistic estimates at all. As a example the association had a couple bids done on one of the retaining walls. One was for $160,000 which was only a partial fix. The two major walls if done properly will probably run between $300,000 to $500,000 if I had to guess. Remember these retaining walls were built on unstable ground and where not built correctly from what I have heard from one of the contractors that bid on it. Fun Fact 2: Millbrook has never maintained the grading in front of any of the 35 buildings on the property. RowCal "guesstimates" $10,000 per building but the problem is that is not nearly enough for most of these buildings. Fun Fact 3: Millbrook took out a loan was issued February of 2018 (Note that this was after CMS took over the property, which is significant) which was meant to replace roofs that were not insurable because they were beyond their functional life (from what I was told) and to replace all of the gutters and downspouts on the property because they were to small and also to fix the drainage issues that we apparently still have. The original loan amount was approximately $764,000. June of 2018 the association returned $200,000 of the loan money to the bank. It's unclear if the refinanced it or just gave the money back. My question is why did we not use the money to fix any of the existing issues we are facing today??
RowCal gives the members of the association two options for a special assessment. Fun Fact: The Millbrook board members were told in 2015 that the community needed to do a $8,000 special assessment. Long story short, nine years later we still need to do assessments but now they are starting at $13,000 each with more assessments sure to come when the reserve study reveals the need to boost the reserves. This is the longest video in the series so far and worth watching. Homeowners may have better options, but they will not have any options if they do not all get on the same page which may be a problem for Millbrook considering the owners have never had a majority vote in their own community.
The Case Study looks at another community that is worse than Millbrook. This case study is based off a property in Colorado that was so bad it was going to be condemned by the city of Arvada. When I watched this video all I could think was: "How could this happen to a property that was professionally managed?" Everyone in Colorado should be wondering that as well considering it sounds like this is a widespread problem with these older HOA's.
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