Cohousing-L Mailing List: HOA Dues and Accounting Practices

[Faria, Sheryl (sheryl.faria]

Dear Cohousing-L folks,

At Pleasant Hill Cohousing (eastern San Francisco Bay Area, CA) we are in
the process of setting up our HOA accounting system, and hope to gain the
benefit of other cohousing groups' experience in this task. 

I did attempt to search the Cohousing-L archives on the topic (tried various
wordings), but came up with very little that was to the point. Actually, my
search yielded very little at all on HOA accounting practices! Surely not
the most interesting stuff of cohousing. 
(BTW, thanks to all of you: I've had great success gleaning info from the
archives on CH tables and other CH design topics, kitchen details, work
expectations, sharing circles and their cousins, and I can't recall all the
other good stuff.)

We'd be much obliged if anyone could briefly offer their experience and/or
recommendations on any of the questions below, or any relevant burning
detail.


What policies do you have around HOA dues payments?

How do you collect HOA dues?
 - Do you send out bills?
 - Do people pay by coupon book, as is sometimes done with loan payments?
 - Do they just send their dues in by mail?
 - Perhaps they drop their checks in a common house payment box?
 - Maybe you use some other method we haven't thought of?

What has worked, what hasn't?

What do you use to record payment info (e.g., QuickBooks)?

Do you use an outside professional to do the accounting, or does a member
perform this task?

Do you have any difficulty getting dues paid on time?

What do you do if members are in arrears with their dues?


Thanks SO much for your help!

Sheryl Faria
Pleasant Hill Cohousing

Where we're hoping that construction will be done somewhere near on
schedule, and certificates of occupancy won't hold us up too awfully long,
and we get to move in September/October this year...  and where we're
looking forward to showing interested Cohousing Conference attendees around
our construction site this coming Sunday, 7/22.
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