Board Member

Board meetings can sometimes be a cause of stress for HOA members. It might be that your meetings seem disorderly, too much time is allocated to minor issues, or it just feels like nothing gets accomplished, resulting in lost time. If these scenarios sound familiar, it might be time to revisit your HOA board meeting agenda. Recognizing this problem underscores the necessity of well-structured HOA board meeting agendas. These agendas act as a guide, directing discussions, prioritizing tasks, and fostering transparency within the community. In this piece, we\’ll explore the significance of well-structured agendas, emphasizing their role in accelerating decision-making, empowering board members, and ultimately elevating the satisfaction level within the HOA.

Why is an agenda important for HOA board meetings?

Having a framework to follow when preparing for your board meetings is beneficial. In fact, it has the potential to alleviate many of the issues you are experiencing with board meetings, such as spending too much time on a particular topic or discussions that go out of hand. Let\’s explore how an organized agenda can benefit your meetings.

1. Preparation

One of the main reasons why HOA board members should always have an organized agenda is to make preparation easier. With a well-structured agenda, board members can research important information they need during the meeting and developing their viewpoints ahead of time. This preparation allows members to contribute meaningfully to the conversations, ask well-informed questions, and provide practical solutions. Furthermore, thorough preparation develops a feeling of ownership and accountability among board members, who arrive at the meeting ready to fully participate.

2. Focus and Direction

According to studies, 39% of time in meetings are spent on items that are not on the agenda, leading to wasted time. An agenda acts as a compass, giving focus and direction to HOA board meetings. Agendas helps to keep meetings on track by specifying topics you need to discuss and establishing a timeline. Furthermore, the agenda allows board members to keep control of the meeting by gently bringing topics back on course if they deviate.

3. Efficiency

By providing a planned framework for discussion, the agenda ensures that meeting time is spent wisely and productively. Predetermined time restrictions for each agenda item keep conversations focused and on track, avoiding tangents and unnecessary delays. Board members can prioritize items based on their significance and relation to the HOA\’s goals, allowing for more effective use of time and resources.

4. Transparency

An agenda promotes transparency by distributing it to all members, including homeowners before the meeting. Everyone is aware of the issues that you need to discuss, eliminating surprises and allowing for proper preparation or attendance if preferred.

5. Accountability

Finally, the agenda promotes accountability among HOA members. The agenda establishes responsibility by clearly detailing the issues that need to be discussed and the decisions that need to be made. Furthermore, the agenda is a written record of discussions and decisions, keeping everyone accountable for their actions.

What makes a solid board meeting agenda? 

It\’s useful to have a defined framework to refer to while restructuring and updating your regular board meeting agenda. In reality, it can efficiently solve many issues raised at board meetings. Aside from the basic data, such as the meeting time, date, and place, several essential items must be included in your HOA board meeting agenda.

These components include the following:

1. An Outline of the Agenda

Begin by identifying the critical topics for discussion at the meeting. Ensure that these themes align with your community board\’s goals and responsibilities. Next, rank these agenda items based on importance, allocating appropriate time blocks for each item to promote thorough consideration.

2. Communicate Expectations to Staff

Effectively communicate the meeting\’s objectives and expected outcomes to all members. This clarity promotes a focused mentality and ensures that members understand the importance of their contribution. Furthermore, it encourages members to participate.

3. Distribute the Agenda in Advance

Once the agenda has been created, it must be provided to all board members and residents before the meeting. This gives them time to review the issues, acquire necessary data, and prepare any presentations or reports required.

4. Set Clear Expectations

Define the expected level of involvement among staff members during the meeting. Inform them whether they will be expected to offer updates, engage in conversations, or give presentations on certain topics.

5. Follow Up After the Meeting

Finally, plan to follow up with the community after the board meeting. After the meeting, work with your community managers and other board members to create a list of the meeting action items, decisions made, and who is responsible for taking the next step on each task.   Provide comments on individual contributions and acknowledge staff members\’ efforts to prepare for and actively participate in the meeting.

How to Communicate about Follow-up Tasks from the Board Meeting

Effective communication is the foundation of good governance. Following a successful board meeting, clear and effective communication on follow-up duties is critical. This communication not only enforces responsibility but also promotes community cohesiveness and growth. Below are some of the ways to communicate about follow-up from the board meeting:

1. Document Action Items

Assign a specific person to organize action items and decisions during the meeting to improve communication. Create a detailed list of action items, including precise tasks, timeframes, and responsible parties.

2. Send Out Meeting Minutes

Next, you can send out meeting minutes to members. Meeting minutes should be distributed as soon as possible following a board meeting to provide accountability within a HOA. To promote successful communication, minutes should be precise, short, and well-organized, emphasizing major issues, resolutions, and responsibilities.

3. Clarify Responsibilities

Clarifying roles is critical to ensuring proper follow-up after a board meeting. Begin by describing each individual’s allocated duties, including their responsibilities, expected outputs, and timeframes. Provide thorough instructions and resources as needed to assist in job completion. Communicate any dependencies or partnerships necessary to complete the job effectively.

4. Set Reminders

Setting reminders is essential for keeping everyone on track with follow-up duties following a board meeting. Use digital tools like calendars, task management applications, and email reminders to notify team members of forthcoming deadlines and work statuses. Customize reminders depending on their urgency and significance to guarantee that tasks are completed on time. This proactive strategy helps reduce missed deadlines while promoting team accountability and productivity.

5. Document Progress

Documenting progress on follow-up activities after a board meeting is critical for monitoring accomplishments and detecting possible issues. Maintain a centralized system or document that allows team members to update their task statuses routinely. Include information such as task completion, problems faced, and resolutions.

6. Review and Follow Up

After allocating responsibilities following the board meeting, organize frequent reviews to identify progress and handle any challenges that may arise. Hold follow-up meetings or check-ins to review task statuses, challenges, and necessary revisions. In addition, open discussion and criticism should be encouraged throughout these reviews to foster teamwork and successfully resolve any issues. Regular follow-up and progress reviews keep activities on track and promote a feeling of accountability and collaboration within the community.

How to Leverage a Task Management System for Board Meeting Action Items

Effectively handling action items that are created from a board meeting is essential to community operations. Using a task management system enables you to track action items and keep everyone informed of outcomes.

1. Centralized Task Management

One of the greatest benefits of having this system is the centralized task management. Task management software organizes and tracks all action items and tasks in one place. This removes the need for many spreadsheets or email threads, simplifying the follow-up process. With Pilera’s task management tool, you can streamline all your work into one accessible location. This includes any comments, files, and email replies connected to your tasks. To ensure a smooth board meeting, you can set up a custom category just for board meeting agenda items and then apply this filter on your dashboard for easy viewing. This will provide you with a comprehensive list of all tasks you wish to address during the board meeting.

2. Accountability

Task management software allows you to assign specific tasks to people or teams while clearly defining responsibility and ownership. This ensures that each action item has a designated responsible person who is held accountable for its completion. With Pilera’s task management feature, you can assign tasks to other fellow board members or to your community managers. When they are assigned a task, they will receive an email notification automatically keeping them informed.

3. Setting Deadlines and Prioritization

Pilera’s task management system lets you set deadlines for each work and rank them according to their urgency or relevance. This capability guarantees that the follow-up process runs smoothly and that crucial action items are addressed immediately. Setting deadlines and prioritizing activities inside the program creates an organized workflow that maximizes productivity and prevents critical tasks from falling.

4. Collaboration and Communication

If you\’re planning to communicate or collaborate online, a task management system is a perfect solution. The system includes collaboration and communication capabilities, including commenting, file sharing, and real-time updates. By centralizing communication, you can minimize miscommunication, speed up workflows, and promote a more coherent and coordinated approach to follow-up actions. Furthermore, real-time updates guarantee that you are always informed of the most recent developments and adjust work accordingly. Through Pilera, board members and managers can communicate directly on the task itself. The comments section enables board members and managers to share updates and notify each other through email.

5. Visibility and Transparency

Transparency and visibility are vital in community management. Task management software provides visibility into each task status, allowing board members and managers to track progress, identify bottlenecks, and guarantee follow-up activities completion. This openness encourages accountability within the team since everyone can see who is in charge of each work and follow its progress from start to finish. With comprehensive insight into task statuses, you can interact more efficiently, make informed decisions, and remain on track with project timeframes and objectives. Pilera’s task management system tracks every action taken on a task, including status updates, file attachment updates (when files were added and removed), comments, and email replies on a ticket.

Watch Video: Tasks, ACRs & Violations Management

Transforming HOA Meetings with Organized Agendas

An organized agenda is the cornerstone of efficiency, transparency, and effectiveness within homeowner associations. Think of it as the guiding light for productive discussions and informed decisions, pinpointing issues and setting priorities. It not only encourages planning and accountability among board members but also streamlines meetings, boosts community participation, nurtures trust, and ensures alignment with the HOA\’s mission and values. 

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, operations, client support, engagement, and voting.  Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Are you considering switching to online voting for your community(ies) but hesitating due to worries about privacy, vulnerability to manipulation, or doubts about user-friendliness? Using technology to advance HOA eVoting can be a game-changer, yet some communities have concerns with online voting.

This blog post will cover five misconceptions surrounding online voting in HOAs. From concerns about security and transparency to questions about accessibility and reliability, we\’ll delve into these worries and offer actionable strategies to address them within your community. These practical solutions teach you how online voting can streamline decision-making and foster a stronger sense of community.

Disclaimer: Our article provides ways to navigate misconceptions about HOA eVoting practices in your community. You should still consider referring to your community\’s governing documents and state laws for exact guidance on regulations.

Misconception 1: \”My vote can be changed or manipulated.\” 

Communities often hesitate to leverage online voting due to concerns about potential vote changes or manipulation. Addressing this concern is crucial to instilling your resident\’s trust and confidence in the voting process. When residents trust the system, participation rates improve, leading to better decision-making and community-living experiences.

To address these concerns, communities can select HOA eVoting software that safeguards the integrity of votes. Additionally, transparently communicating the voting process to residents, emphasizing the aspects of privacy and security, can further reinforce confidence in the system. Encouraging residents to ask questions and provide feedback can help too.  

Choose software that protects the integrity of your voting processes

When it comes to technology, here are some ways in which Pilera\’s HOA eVoting software protects the integrity of your community\’s voting process:

• Tamper-evident technology – Managers, board members, residents, or other community users cannot modify votes once they are submitted.
• Digital signatures and authentication checks: Our platform has precise logging and audit capabilities to detect any unauthorized attempts to vote on behalf of others.  
• Lock votes: Pilera can lock down votes based on your community\’s voting requirements, determining how many votes each unit can submit. 
• Independent audit: Our platform conducts independent audits to verify every vote in case of any doubts or questions. Our platform implements robust security protocols and has successfully passed multiple security audits conducted by unbiased, independent security audit firms. 

Misconception 2: \”My vote can be accessed\”

Residents\’ concern that their votes could be accessed or hacked can hinder a community from conducting online elections. To address this concern, it\’s essential to use software that takes your association\’s data security seriously and regularly updates its software with the latest security protocols. Here are some steps you can take to address this concern for your residents:

Use software that performs regular audits and updates:

Your chosen software provider should conduct frequent security audits to keep the platform up to date with the latest security patches and protocols. Doing so helps to identify any vulnerabilities and strengthen its defense against potential threats. For example, your software should also have an intrusion detection system that monitors and analyzes system activity in real-time and protects your association\’s data against unauthorized access.  

Pilera implements the latest security protocols and regularly releases security updates to protect our client\’s data. 

Educate and train your residents on online security best practices

Educating residents about best practices to maintain the security of their login credentials, recognizing phishing attempts, and following secure browsing habits can contribute to a more secure voting experience. Email your residents these best practices before your community\’s voting starts to help them prepare and stay protected.  

Misconception 3: “It’s Too Difficult To Vote Online”

In your community, you will encounter residents with varying levels of technology know-how. While some excel with the latest tech, others might find it challenging. Complex software can slow decision-making within your community and make quorum hard to achieve. 

Here\’s how you can address these concerns:

Choose user-friendly software for your next ballot

When selecting eVoting software for your HOA or condo communities, it\’s important to prioritize user-friendliness. Choose a platform that caters to residents with varying tech abilities, ensuring accessibility and ease of use for everyone.

Provide instructions or tutorials on how to log in & vote:

Empower residents by offering step-by-step instructions or tutorials on the login and voting processes. These resources should be easily accessible and understandable, assisting users, especially those less familiar with online systems, to navigate the platform confidently. Send your residents these instructions well before voting through email communications, or make them easily accessible in the document library.

Use a help desk to answer resident questions

Implement a dedicated help desk to address residents\’ questions or concerns. Through the help desk, residents can submit support requests and monitor their progress. Additionally, it\’s helpful to implement a knowledge base/FAQ for your community and answer questions about the voting process. That way, residents can look up answers to any questions at their convenience without needing to call the office.  

Having a reliable support team to assist with technical issues or clarifications can improve your residents\’ experience and confidence in voting. Ultimately, your community can experience better voting turnout and quickly move forward with community decisions.  

With Pilera, residents can request support directly in the app, and managers can keep them up to date on the status of their requests. Our robust knowledge base lets residents quickly find answers to their voting questions.     

Misconception 4: “There’s No Sense of Community”

With online voting, there’s a concern that it’s far removed from the sense of community that in-person voting allows.  Residents, board members, and managers can meet face-to-face, create new connections, or nurture existing relations during in-person voting. In contrast, online voting can leave residents feeling disconnected and raises worries about maintaining a sense of community. Here are some ways your community can address this concern:

Regular communication with residents

Even if your HOA community is conducting eVoting, you should still maintain regular communication with residents before, during, and after the voting.  Regular communication is key to fostering a sense of community.  Through HOA software, you can send out newsletters, updates, and important announcements about voting.  Communication has to be two-way to be effective.  Encourage open dialogue and resident feedback, ensuring everyone feels connected and informed about community matters. 

Pilera Connect enables you to reach the entire community while catering to each resident’s preferences.  Here’s how you can utilize PileraConnect to boost engagement for your next ballot:

• Send automated phone, email, text, and postal mailing to residents based on their communication preferences.
• Encourage residents to select their language preference for text and email, ensuring every message is understood. 
• Confirm if an email was opened, a text was received, or a phone call was picked up or went to voicemail.
• Create professional newsletter emails with images, links, and document attachments to share more information about your voting process or candidates. 

Facilitate conversations with a discussion board

Implement a discussion board feature within the HOA software to encourage resident interaction. A discussion board can be a space for sharing ideas, discussing concerns, and fostering a sense of belonging. Encourage active participation to create a vibrant online community.  It’s also a great place for community members to have healthy conversations without risking exposing private community information to the public. 

Hold regular events to improve community relations 

Organize and promote regular events like community meetings, Q&A sessions, or fun social gatherings. HOA Software can help you create and organize these events, allowing residents to engage, socialize, and build relationships. These events strengthen community ties and create a more neighborhood-like feel.

Misconception 5: \”There’s a lack of education on community issues\”

Insufficient understanding of community issues often results in apathy and inaction. This lack of engagement can lead to poor decisions or halting the decision-making process within the community entirely. However, combining your voting platform with a powerful HOA communication and management tool can educate residents about community issues and increase participation rates.   

Sharing documents

HOA management software provides a centralized place to share information on community issues, proposals, or agendas. Boards can post this information in a readily accessible document library to ensure residents are well-informed before voting.

With Pilera’s document library feature, board members and managers can organize documents into folders to make it easy for residents to find important information on voting or share a secure, direct link to the document.  You can restrict documents to board members, owners, tenants, and other occupants, so only the right people can access specific information.  

Regular communication

HOA management platforms can facilitate ongoing communication between managers, the board, and residents. You can send announcements and timely reminders about votes, empowering your residents to stay informed and engaged throughout the process.  Communicating regularly before voting ensures residents have enough time to review information and ask questions before the voting period begins.  Again, you must review your state’s laws to determine when you need to start notifying residents.  

Pilera’s automated communication feature enables you to reach residents through phone, email, text, or postal mail based on their preferences.  The email feature offers greater flexibility as you can create professional-looking newsletters and attach documents to your email.

Q&As and Discussion Forums

You can implement interactive elements like discussion boards and Q&A sections to create a sense of community and encourage resident conversations. Residents can ask questions, seek clarification, or engage in discussions with board members, which fosters a more informed voter base.  As with any discussion board, it’s essential to set rules that encourage your residents to express their thoughts and concerns but maintain a respectful environment for everyone.  

What if Online Voting is not allowed in my state?

This article covers numerous misconceptions surrounding online voting and practical tips and technology solutions to address them.  But what if your state does not permit online voting?  

As eVoting gains acceptance in more states for HOA community elections, board members and managers must understand the legal landscape in their respective states. Check your state laws to determine if online voting is permitted, the specific voting requirements or limitations, and the advance notifications required for residents.

Improving resident participation rates even when online voting isn’t allowed

However, even if your community cannot vote online due to state laws, you can still take steps to improve community engagement so that you get the participation rates you need and reach quorum. This includes sending out regular communications and notices, posting documents and Q&As, encouraging residents to participate in a discussion board, and much more.  This proactive approach helps build trust within the community and encourages higher participation rates, fostering a more engaged and connected community.

Conclusion

As you consider the shift to eVoting for your HOA or condo communities, it\’s common to face apprehensions regarding security, manipulation risks, usability, and how residents perceive this transition. Leveraging technology offers opportunities to streamline voting, facilitating resident education on ballot issues and enabling online voting. However, certain misconceptions might impede communities from embracing online voting fully. By implementing actionable strategies—such as selecting a secure online voting platform and maintaining consistent communication to keep residents informed—you can effectively tackle security worries, improve resident participation, and enhance decision-making for your community. 

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Tired of delays in decision-making, low voter turnout, or concerns about fairness in your community’s voting process?  The skepticism about the fairness of community voting and the cumbersome paper ballots have left many seeking a better way. We’re excited to introduce Pilera Votes, a more streamlined way to run secure and fair voting or elections in your community association!  Say goodbye to delays and doubts about transparency and transition to a more secure, efficient, and trustworthy voting process.  

In this blog post, you’ll learn how Pilera Votes can streamline your voting process to meet quorum, improve decision-making, and unite your community.

Easy to use and convenient

With Pilera votes, managing elections and voting has never been more accessible.  Our user-friendly platform makes it a smooth and hassle-free experience for HOA administrators and residents. Pilera Votes is mobile-friendly so that residents can participate from anywhere. This helps to increase engagement in your community and improve voter turnout.

Secure and transparent

We understand that a secure and trustworthy voting process is your community\’s top priority when conducting elections.  That’s why our software locks down votes, guaranteeing that only residents in your community can cast their votes.  This enables you to earn the trust of your residents while safeguarding the integrity of your voting process.  

Direct access

The voting form in Pilera is also easy for your residents to access.  Residents can access the election form directly through the resident portal in Pilera or through a secure, shareable link.  This eliminates the need for time-consuming paper ballots or manual processes that may take weeks. 

Fair and equitable voting

Many condo associations need to track unit weights (also called allocation of ownership) to identify how much influence an owner has in the association for voting, distribution of common area maintenance, assessment fees, etc.  In Pilera, you can add unit weights, and it will automatically populate it in the election form. Then, you can download an XLS of the voting results and calculate the votes using the unit weight.  This helps to ensure a fair and equitable voting process. 

Improve decision-making with instant results

Manual processes or paper ballots often cause weeks of delay in decision-making.  With Pilera Votes, you no longer have to experience delays in your community’s decision-making process.  With Pilera Votes, you can watch as the votes are counted instantly, helping you to verify how many votes you need to reach a quorum.  Once the voting concludes, you can access the results in a table for easy browsing or graphs to identify voting trends. 

Integrate voting with your daily community management workflow

Although many standalone voting platform options are available in the market, the benefit of Pilera is that you can easily integrate voting with your daily community management workflow.  Pilera offers 4 products that transform your communities and help you retain occupants, build cooperation, and grow in value:

• Pilera Connect – Send routine or emergency notifications to your community through phone, email, text, or postal mailing. Using Pilera Connect with Pilera Votes lets you spread the word and get 80%+ voter turnout.
• Pilera Ops – A collaborative system that acts as a powerful shield on top of your accounting system.  Easily streamline work orders, ACRs, violations, tasks, and RFPs.
• Pilera Care – A support tool built for the community management industry that makes it easy for your employees and offshore team to resolve resident issues and deliver personalized service.   Pilera Care with Pilera Votes enables you to support residents throughout the voting process. Residents can submit support questions and view FAQs about the voting process.
• Pilera Engage – A self-service portal for residents to access the latest community information, make payments online, request services, and communicate with other residents.  

How to get started with Pilera Votes:

Getting started with voting software is easy with Pilera Votes. Pilera Votes is an add-on to the Pilera family of products: Pilera Connect, Pilera Ops, Pilera Care, and Pilera Engage. Through our Ballot Builder, you will submit your requirements, such as the ballot question and voting dates.  Our team will then build the perfect voting system for your community and will train your team.  

Build Your Ballot

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About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Choosing board members in an HOA can sometimes feel challenging. Residents often don\’t know much about the people running for these roles, leading to unfair judgments and concerns about possible fraud. However, during the pandemic, many HOAs started conducting their elections online. The trend of electronic voting for HOAs is here to stay. With so many technology choices available where you can conduct electronic voting, it\’s not always easy to figure out how to do it right.

Key highlights:

• Why HOA board members should consider electronic voting
• Best practices for implementing electronic voting in your HOA community, from voting to communicating with your residents before, during, and after voting.
• How technology can help you organize a secure election and keep residents engaged.

Disclaimer: Our article provides best practices to improve the online voting process in your community. It\’s essential to refer to your community\’s governing documents/CC&Rs for exact guidance on regulations.

Why Consider Online Voting for HOA Board Elections:

Here are some reasons your HOA should consider online voting for your next board election!  

1) Ease of access and transparency

Online voting platforms provide a transparent and easy way for residents to participate in board elections. Residents can access information about candidates and review their qualifications, all from the comfort of their homes.  It also enables residents to make more informed choices as they have more time to learn what each candidate can bring.  Because online voting is more accessible, HOAs can see increased participation and reach quorum faster. 

2) Increase voter participation and reach quorum faster

With online HOA voting platforms, residents don’t need to physically attend meetings or polling stations.  This makes it easy and convenient for residents with busy schedules, mobility issues, or those who may be out of town to vote and contribute to the future direction of the community. Allowing residents to vote from anywhere can increase voter turnout and help your community reach quorum faster.

3) Reduce voter bias

Online platforms offer a fair playing field for candidates, as residents can access candidate profiles without preconceived bias. This helps ensure that candidates are judged based on their qualifications rather than personal connections.  To this end, it’s also essential for candidates to provide information about their affiliations and potential conflicts of interest.  It shows the community association is committed to a fair and impartial election process. 

4) Prevent fraud

Traditional paper-based voting systems could be vulnerable to fraud and errors. Electronic voting systems have security measures built in to allow one vote per unit and prevent other fraudulent activities, ensuring the integrity of the election process in your HOA.  

5) Saves the community money

While setting up online voting software costs money, the efficiency you gain and convenience for residents outweigh the cost. It can help your community save money by eliminating printed and mailed paper ballots if your community’s CC&R mandates online voting only. 

6) Faster results

Online voting accelerates the tabulation of results faster, which means the community can know the outcome shortly after voting.  This eliminates the need to count votes manually and makes the voting process more efficient.  

7) Keep track of voting results

Another benefit of implementing online voting platforms for HOA elections is their robust record-keeping capabilities. HOA voting platforms provide a single place to store election data, ensuring that critical information is not only readily accessible but also well-preserved for auditing purposes.

Best Practices for Online HOA Voting with Technology

1) Choose a trusted online voting platform

Research and select a trusted online voting platform that can help you streamline HOA elections. 

Online voting platforms offer several features to streamline the election process for HOA board members and residents.  The ocean of HOA voting platforms is vast, ranging from specialized election tools to comprehensive HOA management software that includes election features. While some platforms focus solely on elections, others, like HOA management software, offer features to streamline every aspect of HOA operations. HOA management software encompasses automated communication, voting mechanisms, dedicated help desks for voting support, and much more.

This article will cover how HOA management software can transform the voting process by educating residents, providing essential support, and efficiently managing the entire election process.

2) Create comprehensive candidate profiles

Encourage candidates to create detailed profiles, including their photos, biographies, qualifications, and reasons they believe they are the best choice. 

At the same time, it’s important to avoid loading residents with too much information.  You should give each candidate the same amount of space and exposure to provide their qualifications.  That way, residents can make more informed decisions without feeling overwhelmed.

3) Communicate with residents

Communicating with residents before, during, and after the election is essential in creating a transparent environment and keeping them engaged.  With HOA Software, you can send residents updates on the voting process and announce the results. As part of the online portal, you can also give residents access to documents about voting rules and the community’s CC&Rs. 

Pilera’s communication platform makes it easy for managers to communicate with residents during the election season.  To keep residents informed, managers can send automated communications based on their preference – phone, email, text, or postal mailing.  Residents can also access an organized document library where they can view CC&Rs or processes on voting anywhere, anytime. 

4) Encourage resident questions and feedback pre-voting

Encourage residents to submit questions to candidates or about the election process. You can create a survey that asks residents to input their questions for board member candidates to answer during a meeting before the election.  This interaction can help residents better understand the candidates and their visions for the HOA.

5) Test the voting platform

Before the election, do test runs with your team to ensure the online voting system functions correctly. This will help identify and resolve any technical issues in advance. If you find issues in advance, you can work with your software provider to correct any issues.  Ensure your software provider can offer comprehensive support and training, so your team is ready to hit the ground running.  It’s a great idea to test the following functions:

• Being able to see candidate profiles and information
• Access to the online voting platform to logged-in residents only
• Ensure that only one vote per unit (if applicable to your community) is recorded
• Ability to easily view and tabulate results.

6) Let your software do the tabulations for you

Online voting platforms eliminate the manual work involved with tallying votes.  Looking for an online voting platform that can tabulate the votes automatically is essential.  This speeds up the process so you can announce results in real time and reduce the chance of errors.

Pilera\’s voting feature makes results instantly available in many formats, including tables, charts, and exports.  

Track allocation of ownership

Many condominium associations must factor the “allocation of ownership” into the community’s voting process.  It’s essential to ensure that your software can track the allocation of ownership or unit weights.  Pilera recently enhanced its voting feature by enabling managers to track and implement unit weights during voting.  

7) Offer support to residents

When residents have questions about the election process, do you have a way to streamline responses and provide support? A meaningful way to improve resident participation rates is to provide robust support and transparent information about the election process. Inevitably, residents will have questions, encounter issues, or grapple with technical challenges during voting. To address these concerns effectively and enhance transparency, we recommend the following best practices:

Encourage residents to submit inquiries

Invite residents to ask questions about the online voting process.  This enables them to feel more confident and engaged in the process.  A well-informed community is a healthy community.  Pilera enables residents to submit support questions and receive timely assistance from HOA managers.  Residents can then log into their portal, view responses, and communicate with the manager.  This direct support channel ensures residents get the help they need promptly.

Create a FAQ/Knowledge Base section

Create an easily accessible FAQ section where residents can quickly find answers to common queries. A 24×7 accessible knowledge base reduces the need for residents to call in the office and improves your workflow. Pilera provides a robust Knowledge Base/FAQ feature that enables managers to post articles on common questions. Managers can tag articles to make it easy for residents to find what they want.

By implementing these tools, not only do residents receive the guidance they require in real-time, but it also lightens the workload on your management team. This proactive approach enhances resident participation, streamlines voting, and fosters a more engaged and well-informed HOA community.

8) Get feedback after the voting with surveys

After the voting concludes, don’t forget to seek feedback from your residents. Ask your residents what worked well during the voting process and what could be improved. This feedback shows you care about their concerns and helps you plan better next year. Your residents\’ insights are invaluable, so explore what worked and what needs a little fine-tuning!

In Pilera, you can create a survey that asks residents questions in ratings, multi-line descriptions, dropdowns, and more.  You can view the results instantly as residents fill out the form.   

Consider adding the following questions to your survey:

• Experience – How would you rate the overall experience with the recent election process?
• Ease of use – Did you find the election/voting software easy to use?  
• Communication – Did you feel the HOA communicated sufficiently about the election process before, during, and after the election?
• Candidate information – Did you have sufficient information about the candidates to make an informed decision?
• Voting process – Did you face any issues or challenges with online voting?
• Additional feedback for improvement – How else can we improve the voting process for you next year? 

9) Choose software that keeps your community’s data safe

Online voting platforms use encryption and industry security measures to safeguard election data, preventing tampering or unauthorized access. These security features create confidence that the election results are trustworthy and accurate.

Pilera uses the latest industry technology and standards that make it safe for managers and residents.  Some of the ways we help keep your data safe include:

• Encrypted passwords that are hashed repeatedly.
• Sitewide lockout policies to defend itself against attempts to break in through brute force.
• Up-to-date HTTPS security policies and certifications.
• Regular security updates to keep our customer\’s data safe.  

10) Keep archives for auditing and compliance

Electronic voting platforms include historical data tracking, ensuring that past election results are preserved and easily retrievable for your HOA community. This historical data can be vital for comparing current and past elections, identifying trends, and making informed decisions about the direction of the community.

If there’s any dispute or legal issue, archives can be used to verify the election’s legitimacy.  Keeping an archive also ensures that the HOA remains compliant with laws and can produce evidence of a fair and lawful election if necessary. 

Within Pilera, managers and board members can view the election results instantly, including who won, the votes each candidate received, and how many residents voted.

Conclusion: Simplify HOA voting with technology

HOA electronic voting can significantly simplify the process by promoting transparency, reducing voter bias, and safeguarding against fraud. By following best practices and utilizing the features of online HOA voting platforms, communities can streamline the election process, making it more accessible and convenient for residents. Choosing a system that makes voting simple and less painstaking for board members and residents can help the community to succeed in its goals.

Pilera\’s HOA Management Software empowers board members to streamline the election and voting process. Residents can easily and securely cast their votes online through our voting capabilities, ensuring a smooth and efficient election. Pilera also provides robust communication tools to inform residents about the election, candidates, and voting instructions. Additionally, our help desk feature makes it easy for board members to support residents and answer questions during the voting process. To continuously improve the election experience, Pilera offers surveys allowing board members to collect feedback and make data-driven decisions, ensuring that HOA elections are hassle-free and tailored to meet the community\’s evolving needs.

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. Book a personalized demo to learn how Pilera can help improve efficiency and reduce costs. 

Halloween’s nearing, and we’ll all revel in the spirit of the Holiday Season very soon. It’s that time of year that we all look forward to – ‘tis the time to be jolly, indulge in the best food, and put out elaborate decorations. While the idea of beautiful decorations sounds wonderful during the Holiday Season, homeowners are often on tenterhooks, hoping they haven\’t violated any HOA CC&Rs with their all-out decorations.

For HOA board members and managers, it’s a whole different ballgame. For them, it’s all about maintaining peace while ensuring people follow the rules. And that’s a challenging task. So, HOA board members and managers out there, if you’re looking to ensure residents comply with HOA CC&R guidelines this holiday season, here’s a guide to help you out.

Holiday Décor Challenges and How to Deal With Violations

Bright lights, noisy, or life-sized inflatables are just some reasons that can cause a nuisance in the neighborhood, requiring you to step up and intervene. Let’s have a look at some of the typical violations you’d come across during the holiday season and how you can address them:

Appropriateness of Decor

This is the first aspect you need to address. Even though a certain level of civic sense is expected of residents, there will always be some who’ll still go ahead and put up inappropriate decor. As an HOA board member or manager, it’s an important responsibility to regulate the decor that residents put up and ensure the decor is not offensive, derogatory, inappropriate, or disrespectful.

Larger Than Life Decor

To ensure there are no violations concerning decor size, it\’s best to list clear guidelines on the allowable size of decor well in advance. The allowable height of the decor, safety measures, aesthetics, and other aspects should be included in these HOA CC&R guidelines.

If some residents still wish to install decor that could pose safety risks (for example, decor that needs mounting), they can have their requests reviewed by the Architectural Review Committee. The committee can deny permission to install or assist residents in installing the decor safely.

Flashy Lights

What’s a celebration without the lights? But sometimes, lights are too bright and flashy, disturbing the overall aesthetic of the neighborhood. Some blaring lights may even become a cause of nuisance.

To counter this, HOAs can create guidelines on different aspects related to lights – from the color of the lights, permitted timings to operate the lights, the number of lights, and the type of lights.

Noisy Decor

These days, many of these fancy and noisy items are available in the market, and let’s be honest – many residents love to feature them at their doorsteps or front yards. As an HOA member, you need to have a separate set of HOA CC&R guidelines on the noisy decor to ensure no disturbance in the neighborhood.

These guidelines can mention the permissible ‘noisy’ decor items and the items that are big no-nos. Don’t hesitate to strictly disallow any decor that would disrupt the peace in the locality. You can, of course, be a bit flexible. For some of these decors, you can also establish fixed hours when residents can turn on the decor and when they are required to turn them off.

Safety Challenges

At times, elaborate holiday decor can also result in several safety hazards. That oversized Christmas tree a resident decided to place by their doorstep? Well, it looks stunning, but it also blocks the sidewalk! Imagine the inconvenience caused to every person walking past their door.

Apart from this, residents may also put up decor that is not outdoor-friendly. This may result in injuries to people or property damage as well. These are just some safety challenges that you, as an HOA board member or manager, must tackle during the Holiday Season.

As the HOA board member or manager, when you formulate rules about décor during the Holiday Season, you expect all the residents to comply. But unfortunately, that’s not what happens. Every year, you’ll still have a certain number of people who don’t pay heed to any rules and will end up violating the rules.

As part of the HOA, you know how difficult it is to deal with holiday decor challenges. But here’s the key – educating residents about the rules improves compliance in the first place, reducing disturbances or safety hazards. Here are some ways you can ensure compliance with the HOA CC&Rs:

How to Ensure Compliance

Make the Rules Simple and Easy to Understand

List the rules in simple, straightforward language to get the point across to all the residents. Rules need to be concise so that people can quickly browse through them. You can mention the rules in separate categories (like the ones mentioned above) to make it easy to understand.  This helps ensure there’s no ambiguity or room for loopholes in the rules.  

 Issue the Rules as Early as You Can

The community guidelines need to be communicated to the residents well in advance. This would give them ample time to rethink their decor and incorporate necessary changes to comply with decor guidelines.

Re-evaluate Outdated Rules

HOAs must carefully review and evaluate their CC&Rs and ensure they are updated yearly. This would ensure that the CC&Rs are up to date and reflect today’s expectations.  Also, a gap in communication can result in residents being unaware of any new guidelines put in place.  This can hinder compliance.  Once the community’s rules are updated, it’s vital to notify residents about the changes, why they were made, and how they impact them.

Culture Sensitive Rules

Communities are diverse and have different cultures and festive traditions. When creating or updating the HOA CC&R rules, you must keep this in mind so that the rules are fair to everyone. This would further encourage people to comply with the laws, as they know the rules were made keeping their culture in mind.

Ensure You Include FAQs

Even if the rules described in the CC&Rs are simple, residents may still have questions. You can create a separate FAQ section to address the most common questions. This would help residents have a much better understanding of what the HOA CC&R guidelines expect them to do (or not do!).

Safety and Compliance Checks

HOA Board members and managers can run safety and compliance checks to ensure residents follow the updated guidelines. These inspections can be carried out twice – once when people have just started to put up their decor and the next during the Holiday Season.

Bring “Fun” into Compliance

We’re all aware that everyone wants to throw caution to the wind during the festive season and go all out. In such a scenario, no one wants anyone to force them to follow a set of guidelines. So, instead of attempting to enforce the policies on them, try different ways this time – like sending out a newsletter encouraging them to ‘celebrate with care’ or announcing a holiday decor contest.

In your community’s CC&R document, make sure to include all allowable decor items so people will comply.  It could be anything – the best lights, a crafty gingerbread house, or a prize for minimal decor. Incorporate other gentle, creative ways people would be more than happy to comply with the CC&R rules. This is also a great way to unite the community, create harmony, and keep residents engaged in the festivities.

Offer Assistance

To ensure the safety and security of the neighborhood, you can always assist residents to put up their decor safely. You can also help people take down the decor items promptly (after the holiday season). 

How HOA Software Can Help You Manage Compliance

HOA software is designed to assist board members and managers enforce HOA CC&Rs confidently while increasing the public appeal of their communities. From informing and educating residents about community rules to automating the violation process, HOA software can help.

If you’re looking for a more efficient way to ensure compliance this holiday season, Pilera’s HOA software can help you simplify the process.  

Automated Communication

With Pilera, you can send regular communication or reminders to the residents in your community, informing them of the rules. You can send out the messages via email, text, or postal mail – residents can choose how they want to hear from you.

Maintaining a steady flow of communication with your community via their preferred method of communication is a great way to ensure they remember and follow the established HOA CC&R guidelines.

Storage of Documents

All those HOA CC&R documents that you so painstakingly compiled? Well, Pilera provides a secure portal to store all of these documents. These documents are easily accessible to the residents in one place.

An informed and aware resident will likely comply with guidelines and issues. You can easily organize the documents in separate folders so the residents can easily find CC&Rs or any other newly uploaded documents. You can also notify residents when you upload a new document, and they can log into the portal to securely access the CC&Rs.  

Knowledge Base

Pilera’s HOA software also enables boards and managers to post knowledge base articles on commonly asked CC&R questions. Residents can resolve their questions regarding HOA CC&Rs through the knowledge base feature without needing to call or email the management office. 

Tracking Rule Violations

Despite all the effort you put in to ensure compliance with guidelines, violations will exist. Pilera makes it easy for HOAs to track violations and categorize and notify residents by email. This ensures quick communication with the violating resident and prompt response from their end, too.

Board members can keep track of all the violations that occur in a community over some time. Residents, too, can resolve violations directly in the portal. Pilera helps maintain a record of all this data, making it easier for board members and managers to identify problem areas and educate citizens better.

Conclusion: Maintain a Balance between Holiday Spirit and Compliance

This holiday season, strike a balance between spreading holiday cheer and upholding the rules. By keeping the rules clear and being fair, you can foster harmony in your community.

With the help of HOA software, you can streamline the compliance process – from educating residents to efficiently resolving violations. So, don\’t delay educating your residents about decor rules this holiday season. Discover how Pilera can make community management stress-free today!

About Pilera

Pilera Software is the premier community and property management software that has helped thousands of community managers enhance communications, improve customer service, and manage compliance and operations. To learn how Pilera can help to improve efficiency and reduce costs, book a personalized demo. 

As a board member, managing a community has its own unique set of challenges.  However, it’s also a rewarding experience as you dedicate the time and energy to run the community and make decisions that benefit residents and increase harmony.  Given your limited time, finding ways to efficiently achieve your community’s goals is important.  Whether you are self-managing your community or are working with a management company, this blog article will offer some valuable tips in Pilera to help you boost efficiency. 

1) Manage tasks and collaborate with managers

Your responsibilities are diverse and encompass a range of tasks. These include overseeing community maintenance, hiring vendors, managing approvals, analyzing the budget, and more to ultimately enhance the resident experience. It\’s important to foster a close collaboration with fellow board members and managers. By seeking their expertise on important community matters, you can ensure that decisions are made with care.

Pilera’s task management feature opens up a collaborative workspace for you, other board members, and managers to work together on community tasks and issues.  Here are some ways Pilera can help you stay organized: 

• Regularly check your board member dashboard to see a live snapshot of your assigned tasks.  
• Create tasks directly from the dashboard to track important issues you or your manager need to work on.  
• Assign tasks to yourself, another board member, or a manager to follow up with appropriate priorities and due dates.
• Update the status of your tasks and communicate with other board members and managers through the in-app comments feature.  
• Use the bulk edit and duplication features to speed up your work.   

2) Streamline approvals for Architectural Control Requests and Requests for Proposals 

Keeping up with the constant stream of architectural control request submissions and vendor RFPs can often be challenging.  Pilera helps you prioritize all your requests, manage the approval process, and communicate with managers.  That way, you can move projects or requests along more efficiently.  Here are some ways Pilera helps you streamline approvals: 

• You can set up ACR committees consisting of board members and residents to approve or decline ACR requests.  
• Accept or reject an architectural control request or request for proposal and notify the appropriate person.  
• If a resident ACR or a vendor RFP requires more information, you can send an email notification with your comments to them.  

3) Get real-time insights into ongoing and completed projects

When you manage a large number of tasks, it can be overwhelming to identify which tasks have been completed, are in progress, or are stuck. That\’s why you need real-time insight into the operations of your community to identify which tasks are on track or are falling behind.

Whether you self-manage or work with a management company, you can easily gain important insight through Pilera.  Here are some ways you can gather important community insights from Pilera: 

• Each ticket type has a filterable dashboard, whether a work order, ACR, RFP, or resident support ticket.  The filterable dashboard lets you see where tasks are currently at.  You can filter tickets by status, assignee, date range, etc.      
• Using the dashboard filters, the charts give quick snapshots into ticket volume, pattern problems, and workload assigned to each staff or board member.  
• Access professional reports when you need them or during board meetings.  For example, the Community Meeting Report for work orders shows you all the maintenance work based on your selected filters.    
• See a history of all communications you or managers sent to residents.  You can filter messages by type and year to find a particular message through the message center. 

4) Document sharing and organization

Community associations often struggle to find the best way to organize, share, update, and retain important documents.  HOA board members need to ensure that community documents, such as governing documents, bylaws, rules and regulations, financial records, meeting minutes, and contracts, are well-organized and easily accessible.  Managing and updating documents over time can be challenging, especially as you have more documents.  Some local or federal regulations also have stringent requirements for maintaining and retaining documents.  Here are some ways Pilera can help you manage documents more efficiently:

• Managers and board members can restrict access to documents by role.
• Organize documents by creating multiple sub-folders so it’s more easily searchable for residents.  
• Upload an unlimited number of documents into Pilera.  
• Share access to documents through a secure link.  

Conclusion

Pilera helps make your job as a board member easier by gaining visibility into your operations and improving collaboration with other board members and managers.  With Pilera, you can manage your tasks, oversee community projects and trends, streamline approvals, share documents, and more.  To learn more about any of these features, contact [email protected].

Homeowners associations help create safer, wealthier, and more friendly communities for nearly a quarter of Americans. Running a successful HOA is challenging as management needs to balance maintaining property values and keeping residents content. Some HOAs are set in their ways, which may not be efficient or secure anymore.

Here, we look at two factors integral to any HOA’s prosperity – security and productivity. How have recent changes impacted these areas? What can HOAs do to thrive under new circumstances? Find out below.

What Security Challenges Do HOAs Face?

Homeowners\’ associations are prime targets for cyberattacks. HOA management is often behind the times. That’s why HOAs are unprepared for the increasingly sophisticated threats to lax cybersecurity. Strengthening this aspect of your HOA administration duties is vital to safeguarding residents\’ data and maintaining their trust.

Data breaches have the most severe consequences since HOAs store diverse personal data on their residents. Stealing it through phishing or malware attacks can yield names, addresses, and banking information, and more that cybercriminals can profit from. Such a breach can even directly impact neighborhood safety if you have a security code database.

How to Strengthen Your HOA’s Data Security?

It\’s the HOA management company\’s responsibility to maintain up-to-date data security practices. These are the first steps you should take.

1) Assess the data your HOA keeps

An HOA can hardly protect its data if the management and board members aren\’t aware of everything they\’re collecting. Brush up on the laws that mandate which data you must collect and then take stock of your records.

Some HOAs might not be fully compliant. Others may find they collect more data than they\’re legally obliged to. The less information you need to store, the lower the chance criminals will get their hands on valuable something if a breach occurs.

2) Know how secure your HOA software is

Assessing the data that HOA keeps is important. However, another major task is to be aware of the security of the software and systems you use to store and process that data. Many HOAs and management companies use community management software to manage every aspect of their community operations.

Therefore ensuring that any software you use has the necessary security protocols is the top priority. Since security protocols keep your data safe, they prevent cybersecurity issues. Here are how Pilera keeps client’s data secure:

• Passwords are securely stored using SHA-512 encryption and salted with 512 bits for more security.
• A site-wide lockout policy is implemented to defend against brute-force attacks.
• HTTPS security is used, and certificates are automatically renewed to keep server-client communication secure.
• The database is encrypted using an SSH certificate and IP blocking to prevent unauthorized access.

3) Implement a data access policy

A comprehensive security strategy needs to take inside threats into account. Creating a data access hierarchy will limit the people who have access to your HOA\’s sensitive data. It’s a good idea to check your HOA software to see what permissions are available to assign to each staff member.

Permission-based roles allow you to give your staff access only to the information they need and that is pertinent to their job function. For example, Pilera has a variety of permissions that managers can set for their staff and board members based on what they need to do, such as managing tasks, sending messages, updating the document library, etc.

4) Start using a VPN

HOAs constantly send sensitive documents to vendors and other third-party actors. If the network these documents travel through isn’t secure, someone could intercept and use them for nefarious purposes. A VPN prevents this through a separate secure connection that encrypts any data you send.

While surfing on the internet, your unprotected connection can jeopardize your security. And yes, even if you use a Mac instead of a PC. Compared to Windows, Mac OS has strong protections built into them. Yet, the answer to your can Macs get malware question is always a yes. Since Macs can bring viruses like PCs, you must protect your connection. Fortunately, you only need to activate a VPN browser extension nowadays.

5) Spread awareness

Most cyberattacks succeed due to deceit. It\’s much easier to prevent them if managers, boards, and residents understand how phishing and malware work. Researching these dangers and distributing a primer on how to avoid them will help form healthy security habits.

What keeps HOAs from being more productive?

Most residents find living in an HOA is a positive experience — those who express dissatisfaction with their HOA site\’s slowness in resolving issues as their chief complaint.

More than 200,000 HOAs in the US have diverse views on management, varying technological acceptance, and different levels of community engagement. While all these factors play a part, being slow to embrace technological change is the most pressing issue.

Greater reliance on technology would have happened sooner or later. However, the pandemic put into perspective how using modern means of management and communication can help technologically savvy HOAs weather crises with more confidence.

How to Boost Your HOA Management\’s Productivity

Streamlining repetitive, unnecessary, and tedious tasks is the key to a more productive HOA. Doing so cuts the administrative clutter, leaving management free to focus on solving disputes and bettering the community. Here are a few solutions you should implement or expand upon.

1) Automate what you can.

We might be well into the 21st century, but some HOAs still get by with handwritten notes or printouts on notice boards. Even something as simple as an email management program can ensure board members and residents get pertinent info in time.

2) Start using community management software.

HOAs share many responsibilities and workflow with conventional offices. There are documents to process, tasks to manage, and reports to fill. HOA and property management platforms provide comprehensive solutions for such responsibilities.

Especially with HOA management software, you can streamline tasks like work orders, resident support, architectural change requests, rule violations, and internal duties. This software empowers your team to organize all your community\’s activities and communications in a single place and improve the visibility of your operations.

3) Involve the community.

An HOA is nothing without the community it represents, and technology can help. You can empower your community by setting up a residential portal. Members can catch up on the latest news and discuss neighborhood matters there.

This way, residents can conveniently submit requests and pay online on their own time, reducing the board and manager\’s workload. This allows managers and board members to field fewer inbound calls, allowing them to focus on more strategic tasks for the community.

Conclusion

Homeowners’ associations provide a valuable service to their community. To continue this service, they must adapt to the latest technology and security standards. Taking action now, instead of waiting, will guarantee that your community is qualified to manage developing demands from residents, technological advancements, and security risks.

Bio

Stacey Wonder is a freelance blogger from California. She usually writes on educational topics, career, self-development, and writing. When not busy with her projects, Stacey creates detective stories. She dreams to become a well-known writer one day.

As an HOA board member or manager, it’s very important to ensure that your community is thriving and you have great communication with residents. It’s common to encounter a lot of homeowners that want to rent their property. However, depending on the situation your HOA might need to impose some restrictions. But what kind of rental restrictions can you impose in the HOA? How can you communicate those restrictions with your residents? Here are some ideas to keep in mind!

Why are there any HOA short-term rental restrictions?

As an HOA you want to maintain great community standards, and a high property value as well. Also, these limits will help keep the liability insurance rates under control. Any limitations like these will help ensure lenders provide loans for new properties.

Plus, limitations can help boost the community\’s stability. Not only that, but many renters might not follow the community standards, which leads to violations and other problems. It’s very important to avoid those issues, so imposing certain restrictions can be the right thing to focus on.

The most common HOA short-term rental restrictions 

You will find a variety of restrictions for both long and short-term rentals in HOAs. Here are the most common ones:

Rental caps

Rental caps are ubiquitous and very helpful to keep rentals under control. Some HOAs even require new property owners to reside there for at least a year before they rent the property. 

Lease restrictions

Lease restrictions have provisions that must be part of the lease agreement. Such restrictions can include a minimum lease period, among others. The tenant will also need to comply with the community standards too. 

Evictions

Some HOAs will even require the landlord to add a clause where non-complying tenants can be evicted if they break the community standards either once or multiple times.

Vetting/Screening Prospective Tenants

In some cases, HOAs can even choose to vet/screen prospective tenants. This enables HOAs to avoid any potential renters that are not suitable for their own community. However, this is on a per-state basis, as not all states see this as a legal option.  In addition, board members and managers should refer to the CC&Rs (the community’s governing documents) to see if tenant/vetting screening is allowed or not.

Is it mandatory for HOAs to disclose any restrictions?

It all comes down to the local laws, but also the community\’s governing documents. Normally, any HOA short-term rental restrictions must be public and not hidden. This is important because potential tenants and landlords need to know what kind of restrictions are in place. When enforcing these restrictions, things can be a bit difficult.

Tenants are not a part of the HOA since they just rent the property, so they aren\’t normally bound to the HOA rules and regulations. That\’s why an HOA needs to direct all its enforcement actions to the landlord/homeowner. The homeowner needs to enforce all the rules upon their tenants. An HOA can even file a lawsuit against a homeowner if their rules are not followed either by them or their tenant. 

Communicating HOA rental restrictions to homeowners

Every HOA can establish its own restrictions based on local laws and governing documents, but the challenge comes from communicating those restrictions to residents. There are many different methods your HOA can use to communicate restrictions:

• Email Communications – Sending emails to the community is one of the simplest methods any HOA can use to showcase and share any of its restrictions. Since everyone tends to check their email at least once a day, it\’s a great way to spread the word and inform any residents.

• Board Meetings – HOA meetings also offer a great time opportunity for HOAs board members and managers to remind residents of their rules. They can also update those rules and let the residents know of any changes too.
  
• Website – Creating a dedicated page on the community website is also a great idea. The website can list all the rules and procedures, and show exactly when these changes went into effect as well.

• Document Library – Having a document library also comes in handy, and here the HOA can easily share documents featuring all restrictions according to their latest guidelines. 

• Resident Support – A phone line or support ticketing system that residents can use to contact management with any questions is also very helpful. This way any residents can get in touch with any HOA representatives board members/managers and see what kind of rules they need to abide by.

How HOA Software can aid in communicating restrictions

While enforcing these rules can be challenging, these communication methods can make it easier for HOAs to enforce their own rules professionally. 

That\’s where HOA software such as Pileracomes into play. With Pilera, you can easily create a community website with private/public pages for all residents, and you can share any restrictions on those pages.  Additionally, Pilera\’s HOA management software also offers secure document storage and a help desk feature where board members or managers can provide customer support and reply to tickets issued by residents. 

Conclusion

Every HOA needs to have control over how many people rent a property and how these properties are rented in the first place. It’s very important to focus on the stability of the entire community, while also maintaining a certain resident quality. In addition, any HOA needs to have a say whenever someone enters the community. All these things can be enforced with adequate rental restrictions. 

It’s very important to use HOA management software, as this is an exceptional tool that will help track rental restrictions, while also notifying residents whenever any changes arise. If you\’re an HOA board member/manager and want to find a better way to communicate important community information such as restrictions, contact Pilera today!

As you get ready for your annual board meeting, you know that improving resident attendance to reach quorum is critical.  But reaching a quorum can be challenging, and definitely doesn’t happen overnight.  It takes effort over time to interest and engage residents. Transparent communication and giving them more ways to be involved are essential.  In this blog post, you will learn how Pilera’s community management software can help you increase your HOA board meeting attendance to reach your required quorum.  

6 Ways to Increase HOA Board Meeting Attendance & Reach Quorum with Pilera

1. Communicate with residents

To build interest among your residents it’s vital to communicate with them. That means, keeping the conversation with them that goes beyond just board meetings and elections. Keep them informed about maintenance, social events, ways you\’re making the community safer and better, and responding to resident queries so you can establish trust.  That way when you’re ready for the next board meeting, you have built interest in the residents.  Pilera’s automated communication enables you to connect with residents how they want: phone, email, text, and now postal mail too.

Sending a community newsletter by email or postal mail is a great way to highlight positive things happening in the community. And, when it comes time for the next board meeting or annual election, communicate the benefits of it to your residents. Pilera\’s communication platform also enables you to create professional marketing messages and newsletters with our rich text editor.

2. Schedule your board meetings in advance

It\’s vital to schedule meetings in advance and notify residents about it, so they can fit it into their busy schedules. In fact, many states even require giving residents advance notice. Pilera’s built-in event calendar feature allows you to create multiple calendars for different event types.  You can then create recurring or one-time events and easily modify them if your schedule changes.  You can also send event notifications on-demand by user type – manager, board member, resident, or other occupants. For example, if you are holding emergency or committee meetings that are board only, you can choose to notify just board members. The event notification also includes a description which is a great way to include more details or important links. For example, you can include a link to join the virtual board meeting.   

3. Value your resident\’s feedback

Showing residents that you take their opinions and concerns seriously is vital to generating homeowner interest in board meetings.  One easy way to do that is to create a pre-meeting and post-meeting survey.  With Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can customize your form questions and post them in the portal or email a link to residents. Furthermore, you can get results in real-time with tables, charts, PDFs, and Excel reports.

4. Share documents with residents

Many state laws and governing documents require that residents receive a copy of the agenda and/or meeting minutes.  Through Pilera’s online document feature, you can organize files into folders and subfolders, set permissions to improve security, and email documents to residents.

5. Promote self-service within the community

Promoting self-service within the community is a great way to increase homeowner involvement.  That means residents can look up community information at their own time and convenience, without having to call or email management.  The more information you as a board member or manager can add to the portal, the more informed and gradually engaged residents will be.  Through Pilera, you can increase resident engagement by:

• Posting documents and knowledge base articles on a regular basis.  
• Keeping your event calendar updated. 
• Encouraging residents to self-manage their own data such as contact information, addresses, alternate contacts, pets, insurance, and more.  
• Providing them with a convenient, secure way to pay their dues online and review financial balances and ledgers.
• Posting surveys and access to the election ballot when it’s time to vote.  
• Allowing residents to submit work orders, support requests, and architectural change requests and inform them of the status.  

6. Conduct elections online

If your state and governing documents allow it, then consider conducting your community elections online. Online elections give your residents a convenient way to participate from the comfort of their own homes.  You can reach quorum faster and more effectively with online voting because it’s secure, convenient, and fast.  With Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can customize the ballot, easily send residents a link when it’s time to vote, allow only one vote per unit, and get results in real-time.  Real-time, automated counting of votes saves your community time and eliminates errors.      

Increase HOA Board Meeting Attendance with Pilera

Increasing your HOA board meeting attendance begins with transparent communications and involving residents in the community.  Keeping them updated about what’s happening in the community and giving them more ways to be connected can help you to reach your quorum goals faster.  As you get ready for your annual meetings, consider sending announcements, updating the resident portal, and conducting your elections through Pilera.  To learn more about how Pilera can work for you, contact us at [email protected], book a personalized demo, or drop an email to our support team at [email protected] (if you’re a current client of ours). 

As a board member or a community manager, you hold regular HOA board meetings on a monthly and annual basis to discuss important community issues, make decisions, and communicate those decisions to residents. Successful board meetings are critical to smooth community operations, reducing costs, and increasing resident satisfaction. However, many board meetings are plagued by low attendance, an unorganized agenda, and overrun meetings. This can cause frustration for residents, board members, and managers alike. In this post, you will learn how to improve your HOA board meeting by offloading some key tasks onto technology platforms.

Preparing for your HOA Board Meeting

1. Schedule your HOA Board meeting well in advance, and notify your residents.

Low resident attendance is one of the biggest challenges that board members and managers face.  It’s important to schedule board meetings well in advance and communicate with residents.  Notifying residents in a timely manner can help alleviate attendance woes by giving them enough time to fit the meeting into their busy schedules.*

Community management platforms can help to keep residents informed and increase attendance.  Through such a platform, you can create one-time or recurring events and notify residents on-demand.  Through Pilera’s event calendar feature, managers can create a custom Board meeting calendar, set recurring events, and notify the community by user role. Residents can log into their community portal and view a calendar with all the upcoming events.

2. Create an agenda and make it accessible to residents

Most states require that an agenda be created for the board meeting. The purpose of an agenda is to keep track of all the issues that need to be discussed or resolved in the board meeting. It generally includes topics such as maintenance projects, manager updates, disputes, and homeowner concerns.  In some states such as California, residents must receive a copy of the agenda along with the meeting notice 4 days in advance of the meeting.

A document management system can make it easy to store agendas and share them with residents. Make sure that through your document management system, you can create folders and subfolders to organize your documents. Your residents will then be able to find what they\’re looking for quickly.  

In preparation for your meeting, you can also take advantage of a task management solution to keep track of all agenda items.  Through Pilera’s task management system, you can create tasks and assign them to other board members or managers. You can create a special category called \”Agenda\” and use the dashboard to filter just those items during the meeting.   

3. Survey your residents

Getting your residents involved and curbing apathy starts with letting them know their opinion matters.  A survey is a good way to collect resident feedback prior to the meeting so that you can stay on track during the meeting.  You can decide which ones to respond to via email and which require more discussion during the meeting. 

Some community management platforms provide automated communications and form features to automate this process.  Through Pilera’s integration with Formsite, you can create simple or more comprehensive forms.  Through our automated communications feature, you can distribute the form link electronically and track who clicked on it. Charts, searchable tables, PDFs, and Excel spreadsheets help you to capture the data you need to make decisions.

4. Holding an election during your annual meeting

During annual meetings, communities will usually hold elections for members to vote for the next year\’s board positions. Many communities are now turning to online voting as a way to increase owner participation. Residents can vote from anywhere, even in the comfort of their own homes. In an online election, it\’s important to prepare the online ballots well ahead of time. Make sure that candidate information and how they plan to operate and improve the community are clear on the ballot.

As many residents may worry about security and privacy of their data, it\’s important to make sure that your community management platform has security protocols in place. Pilera\’s integration with Formsite for voting provides a secure platform for residents to vote and management to store election results. It also allows one vote per unit so your elections remain fair and compliant. The results are also instant, eliminating the need for managers to manually count the votes. Leaders can get insights into what the community finds important with analytics. Results and feedback can be collected in multiple ways – searchable tables, visual graphics, PDFs, or Excel spreadsheets*.

*These are best practices aimed at helping you improve your board meetings.  These tips are not legal advice.  We highly recommend that you review the community’s governing documents and state laws on what your board meetings must adhere to.  Different states and governing documents will have varying requirements on meeting notices, agendas, voting, and meeting conduct.  

During your virtual Board Meeting

In the past year and a half, most communities have turned to online meetings like Zoom or Skype to conduct association business. With virtual board meetings, members can meet from anywhere, making it more convenient and a good way to increase homeowner attendance. Since virtual board meetings tend to attract a larger number of homeowners, it\’s important to have a structure, timeline, and set expectations to be respectful of everyone\’s time.

1. Do a test before going live

Before you go live with your Board meeting, you\’ll want to set 30 minutes to an hour of time to test the meeting software with the Board. As you run more meetings and become more familiar with the software, you can dedicate less time to a test run. Doing a test run helps you identify any issues beforehand so that there aren\’t any delays in the meeting. In your practice meeting, you will want to test the following:

• Audio settings – Make sure that each speaker\’s microphones are functional.
• Screen share – Test that each person is able to share presentation slides and web browsers.
• Questions – Enter in a question and check if other presenters can see it.
• Chat – Enter in a chat message, and then test responding to the chat individually or publicly to everyone on the meeting.
• Muting and unmuting individuals – It\’s essential to make sure that muting options work to limit distractions during the meeting.
• Document sharing – Upload a document and test to see if others can download it. Do a similar test with links.

2. Assign roles

Assigning specific roles during the meeting will help to run the meeting a lot smoother, especially when everyone understands what they are responsible for. Depending on the size of your community, you can combine these roles or keep them separate. Here are some roles you\’ll want to assign:

1. Speaker – This person will be responsible for driving the meeting. They will go through the meeting rules and agenda items.
2. Meeting Coordinator – This person will assist the speaker by managing the chat, muting or unmuting members, and providing technical support to residents during the meeting.
3. Task Manager-  The task manager will be responsible for noting down action items that come up during the meeting.  They will benefit from a task management system that allows them to create tasks, assign them, set a priority, and a due date.  Pilera’s task management system makes it easy to create and manage tasks on the fly from any device or location.
4. Meeting Minutes Coordinator – This person will be responsible for taking meeting minutes.  The coordinator should use some type of word processor to type the notes during the meeting. As an example, Gmail provides a free word processing software called Google Docs.  

3. Dedicated time to each item on the agenda

No one wants to stay in long board meetings on a workday evening, so it\’s important to keep meetings focused. Dedicating a set amount of time to each item on the agenda keeps everyone on track. You can dedicate an equal amount of time to each item or based on the complexity of the issue.  

4. Allow a set amount of time for homeowners to speak

If your governing documents allow for it, dedicate a set amount of time for homeowners to speak and give their opinion. Before the meeting, it\’s important to set expectations on the amount of time residents have to speak about their issues or concerns. During the meeting, have your residents use the \”raise hand\” feature on the meeting software when they want to speak. Table any issues that homeowners bring up that require a longer discussion for the next board meetings.

After the Board Meeting

Now that you’ve run a successful board meeting, what’s next?  

1. Send meeting minutes

Meeting Minutes are important to document what occurred while reviewing items from the agenda.  It should be a short and concise summary of who called the meeting, discussions about the agenda items, and any items that were resolved.  Check out the Meeting Minutes template created by Hillcrest Management.

Once the meeting notes have been approved and recorded, store them in a secure online document management system.  Keep each month\’s meeting minutes organized by creating folders and subfolders. Additionally, the document management system should allow you to notify residents when you\’ve posted the new meeting minutes.     

2. Review action items list

Revisit all the action items that your team took note of during the Board Meeting and transition it to a task management system if you haven’t already done so.  Your task management system should allow you to organize, prioritize, and track items efficiently.  Be sure to assign each task to another board member or manager, prioritize it, and set a due date for completion.  That way everyone knows who is responsible for what tasks and nothing slips through the cracks. Through Pilera’s task management system, you can keep everyone informed by posting an update, changing the status, and e-notifying boards or managers.

3. Collect post-meeting feedback from residents

Even if you’ve had a successful board meeting, there are always things that you can improve for future meetings.  Collecting feedback from residents on how the last board meeting went can give you insights on what was done well and what needs improvement.  Create a short survey, email the residents, or encourage them to log into their community portal to complete the survey.

Improve your HOA Board Meeting with technology

With the advancements of technology, Board members and community managers can offload many key, cumbersome tasks onto software. It empowers you to handle every aspect of the Board meeting to ensure it\’s productive for everyone:

1. Prepare for a board meeting by scheduling meetings, sending event notices, conducting surveys, and sharing agenda documents via a community management solution.
2. Run a smooth meeting with virtual meeting platforms like Zoom or Skype and keep track of action items in a task management solution.
3. Keep your team on track with action items by prioritizing them and providing updates in a task management system.

Pilera\’s community management solution enables board members and managers to streamline various aspects of a board meeting with automated communications, events, document sharing, surveys, and task management. To learn more about how Pilera can work for you, request a personalized demo.