Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Once You've Moved in, How DO You Manage Things?

[Willie Schreurs (Willie]

> From: LouHarr [at] aol.com
> Subject: Once You've Moved in, How DO You Manage Things?
> Date: Monday, September 14, 1998 8:27 PM
> 
> . . . 
>       My question is, do you have your legel entity, HOA, or 
>  whatever form it  is  just stick with it's legally designated 
>  items OR do you use it to coordinate and manage the  
>  actual day to week jobs : meals, landscape etc. etc.
>      OR do you have a second structure that takes care of  
>  these kinds of things.

At Greyrock Commons, we used a Limited Liability Company as the legal entity
during development and building (it still exists but will go away once the
construction profit has been spent down).  Now that we're in, we have a HOA to
do all the things that one would expect a HOA to do (maintenance, reserves,
utilities, etc.).  HOWEVER, if you use the HOA for anything that could be
construed as for-profit (the meal program would be one, for example) it could
lose its tax-exempt status.  This you do not want.  Because of this, we have
formed a for-profit company, Uncommon, Inc., that deals with the meal program,
charges for our LAN, etc. -- anything for which we charge each other money that
doesn't come under the purview of the HOA.  Not that it has much profit, since
our charges come close to balancing our expenditures over the course of a year.

    /\                        Willie Schreurs                        /\
   //\\ <Willie [at] Greyrock.org>(H) <WSchreurs [at] vines.colostate.edu>(W) 
//\\
  ///\\\            Greyrock Commons, Fort Collins, CO             ///\\\