Cohousing-L Mailing List: RE: management companies

[Rowenahc (rowenahc]

What Eileen reports from Oak Creek Commons is very much the way we use a
managment company at Cambridge Cohousing.  It is particularly important to
get professional assistance in handling money - sending out bills,
collections, making sure the taxes and the utilities are paid, etc.  You
will find that no one in the community wants to be the one to dun the late
payers!  A good management company will have automated systems for taking
care of all this stuff.

You can negotiate just how much you want the company to do.  For instance,
we chose to do our own trash and recycling chores, landscaping and snow
removal on internal paths.  The managment company takes care of minor chores
automatically but when there are major expenditures to be made these are
discussed in the regular monthly meeting the company representative has with
our Managing Board, which in turn gets consensus from the residents.  You
can work out your own mix.

The management company has no business being involved in establishing rules
and regulations!