Re: Costs for Shared Services
From: Sharon Villines (sharonsharonvillines.com)
Date: Thu, 3 Apr 2014 06:35:34 -0700 (PDT)
On Apr 2, 2014, at 4:54 PM, Diana Carroll <dianaecarroll [at] gmail.com> wrote:

> I am the bookkeeper here at Mosaic Commons.  Whenever discussion comes up
> that involves whether we should charge money for this, that or the other, I
> groan, because more charges = more work for me...and often the amount of
> money is so trivial that it would be frustrating to have to spend my time
> on it.

We've also discovered this with group purchases but we don't run these through 
our condo fee collection. One person has coordinated purchase of blinds when we 
moved in, another storm doors, another HVAC service. The savings for group 
purchases might be 10%. Possibly more. But unless we can save hundreds of 
dollars, it's too much work to coordinate and collect. 

The one time it did work well was the installation of Toto toilets. The 
technology for low flow toilets was not great when we moved in so after 8 years 
many of us installed new toilets. They were much cheaper online and had free 
shipping but we wanted to deal with someone locally. We took the online price 
to a dealer and he accepted it with a cash payment. We bought 12 toilets and 
hired a plumber to install all of them in one day. The person who coordinated 
it then divided the cost per toilet (some had 3 installed) and collected. I 
think he actually collected before hand.

That worked very well because it was a huge savings and worth the time. We had 
each household pay $50 to have their front door painted and it was a nightmare 
collecting. We finally put the last few on the condo fees account as a special 
charge.

People's lives are too complicated, and people are too complicated, to make 
small amounts worth it for anyone.

With TV in the common house we did something else. Only a few people wanted 
cable TV in the commonhouse so they agreed to pay for it themselves. One person 
collected the fee monthly from a handful of people. it took three years before 
people agreed to include it in the condo fees.

We have always had the condo fees and expenses handled by a management company. 
The treasurer works with the company to handle reimbursement requests and 
proper assignment to accounts. He oversees them to be sure bills are paid, etc. 
Paper always slips through the tracks. That is enough work for one person.




Sharon
----
Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org





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