Homeland Security - Service Should Target Your Community's Risks and Match Its Personality
By: Nena Groskind
March 2008
All community associations are concerned about security, at least in the abstract, but the intensity of that concern ebbs and flows, peaking when “something” (a break-in, a car theft, or something worse) happens, and ebbing during the long periods when it seems that those bad things happen only in other communities but not in “ours.” Reality and (for many communities) painful experience suggest otherwise. Bad things can happen to anyone and the more immune we feel, the more vulnerable we are likely to be. That is why security should be an agenda item for all associations – a question boards should revisit periodically, not just when an unfortunate incident demonstrates the need for precautions the community had failed to implement. Security planning should be thoughtful, methodical, informed and objective, which is why many associations find it helpful to retain a security firm or a consulting firm specializing in the area to prepare a formal “risk assessment” for their community. This is a detailed report that reviews the security measures you have in place, identifies “vulnerabilities,” and recommends additional precautions based on the nature of your property, the demographics of its residents, and the risk environment in which your community is located.

Building Community
By: Nena Groskind
January 2008
Communication, commitment, and concern for the community. In the common interest ownership world, those terms are invoked with the insistence and intensity of a mantra, repeated so often that they risk becoming background noise, like the “buckle your seatbelts” speech that begins every airplane flight. The safety information is important, but does anyone really focus on where the exits are located or how to activate the oxygen masks? We’ve heard the speech so often we think we know what do in an emergency, or assume that we’ll figure it out if the need arises. We treat the home owner association (HOA) mantra the same way. The concepts are so familiar and so deeply etched in our understanding, we don’t have to think about them. Association board members know communication is essential, don’t they? They know how to keep owners informed, how to involve them in the decision-making process, how to encourage their cooperation, foster their concern and ensure their commitment to the community in which they live. Boards understand and apply all of those principles to the process of building and sustaining a sense of community, don’t they? Well, maybe not.

Policies & Procedures
By: By Nena Groskind
December 2007
If you review a sample of the lawsuits filed against community associations — an educational, albeit depressing, exercise — you will find that many of the underlying complaints target board decisions that were haphazard, arbitrary, or irresponsible, or appeared to be. Dig a little deeper and you’ll discover that many, if not most, of the boards involved were well-intentioned and their decisions actually well-founded. They got into trouble not because their decisions were flawed, but because they lacked or failed to follow the procedures and policies that would have supported the decisions they made.

The Value of Professional Advice
By: Nena Groskind
October 2007
Community association board members sometimes compare their role to that of a ship’s captain steering an oversized vessel through uncharted waters during a raging storm. That analogy will sound overly dramatic only if you have never served on a board or advised one. A ship, after all, has a single captain, responsible for setting its course and dictating its movements – and that captain is almost certainly a professional, with many years of experience at sea. A homeowners association has a committee at its helm, consisting of volunteers, not professionals, many of whom have never steered a common interest ownership community before and whose experience in other sectors has done little or nothing to prepare them for the task.

Having Adequate Disaster Insurance
By: Nena Groskind
August 2007
Fires rage, winds howl, water surges, and the earth trembles periodically beneath our feet. Making sure community associations have the insurance they need to cover all the risks they face is the responsibility and challenge of their governing boards, who must determine how much insurance is needed for these various risks, and whether any insurance at all is needed for some of them. The nature of insurance is, you don’t need it unless you need it, in which case your association had better have coverage and plenty of it. If not, you can pretty well expect that the owners who screamed loudest about the insurance costs will be the first to sue board members who reduced the association’s coverage in order to avoid increasing the common area fees.