RowCal started managing Millbrook on March 1, 2023.

Their first task was to schedule Millbrook's 2023 Annual Meeting—a simple task that any professional property management company could do blindfolded. Not RowCal.

It took them three attempts to send out mailers within ten days of the meeting per our governing documents. When the annual meeting finally did happen it was a disaster in itself that seemed planed. Thirty minutes into the meeting it abruptly ended and a new meeting was held but only a select few were able to make it back into the meeting and of course I was not one of them.

The story is pretty funny:

Sentry Property Management, the prior management company, scheduled our annual meeting for March 27, 2023. Sentry also sent out ballots for two Board member positions that were expiring, along with ballots to approve new Declarations for the community.

(Fun fact: I am one of the candidates for the Board, and if you've read anything so far, it was highly unlikely that I would get elected for several reasons.)

A week before the annual meeting, the Board advised the community that someone at Sentry had opened the secret ballots for the election, thereby voiding the election results. As a result, it was necessary to reschedule the annual meeting and resend the ballots. That's where RowCal took over April 1, 2023.

Read about it here:

• Added Annual Meeting 2023 "Postponed" Part 1
• Added Annual Meeting 2023 "Postponed" Part 2

Back in August 2020, Sentry Property Management became Millbrook’s new property management company.

The association was aware that they were taking legal action against me, so was Sentry—along with their management, which at the time was led by a gentleman named Matt Egan.

Mr. Egan was the regional manager for the office that oversaw our property. The manager he assigned to our community had never managed an HOA before—and it was very obvious.

I called out both of them on several issues and within six months, neither Mr. Egan nor the community manager (Michael) were working for Sentry anymore. The new manager, Ms. Gill, told me that Mr. Egan had been let go and that the previous manager was on leave.

Doesn’t matter—because these two screwed up our elections in 2021. They also misrecorded our meeting minutes by omitting anything that made the association look bad. On top of the for nearly six months, they failed to approve and release meeting minutes to the community.

Sentry is gone, and RowCal is now our new management company. And guess who works for RowCal? Mr. Egan. Interestingly enough the association also failed to do a reserve study for 2023 even though it was budgeted for AND a year overdue. This oversight is only postponing the inevitable and will cost homeowners more money down the road as a result of the negligent delay.

Our association is now looking at a minimum of $1.9 million in special assessments, according to a proposal made by Mr. Egan that was based on a guesstimate. An interesting side note is that this proposal did not take into account our reserves being underfunded and requiring a special assessment as well.

Check out part one of the proposed guesstimate here: RowCal's bailout proposal.

The Reserve study was completed in July, 2024 after Mr. Egan's proposal was made. No surprise that it suggested a $2.3 million special assessment to fund the reserves. Check it out here: 2024 Reserve Study

The Board terminated RowCal and SJJ Law’s contracts around August 2024. Their last day was September 30, 2024. M&M and Altitude Law took over on October 1, 2024.

My advice?

• Do your research.
• Ask lots of questions.
• Walk the property thoroughly.
• Get educated.
• Hire a lawyer (you will need one).
• Request a copy of the contract between the association and the management company. (It might help you make a more informed decision about the arrangement between them.)
• Most importantly—find out which law firm or lawyer represents your association and research them. I can't stress this last point enough.

One last thing—don’t bother looking at the good reviews if you want to know the truth about any of these companies in this industry concentrate on the bad ones.