Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: How to assess HOA fees?

[Henning Mortensen (hmortensen]

Hi Karen,
Our community, Prairie Spruce Commons Cohousing, also has a large
difference in unit sizes which means that using a square foot calculation
means a big variation in condo fees. In the end we ended up deciding that
some budget items be split by square foot and some items be shared equally.
Some of the things that we shared equally:
- Our membership in the Canadian Cohousing Network
- Internet fees which were offered at a price per unit
- Accounting fees which we argued were the same per unit
and some others.

In total we pay about 95% of our condo fees based on unit size and about 5%
based on equality. In our case there is still a huge difference between
what the studios pay and what the rest pay. Still there is also a
difference in the amount that the studios can afford to pay and what the
rest of the unit holders can afford to pay. I think our little compromise
made everyone feel better while not raising the studio condo fees more than
about 10$ a month.

Henning Mortensen

ps. I lived in bozeman in 1976. It was a beautiful little town with lovely
people living there.



On Sat, Oct 29, 2022 at 8:19 AM karen kitchen via Cohousing-L <
cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

> Hi All,
> Our community, Bozeman Cohousing, is in the process of deciding the best
> way to allocate HOA dues to each unit. We have heard that some communities
> base HOA dues on square footage while others have a flat rate for each unit.
> We are wondering what basis other Cohousing communities use to determine
> HOA dues? If you have reasons for choosing a certain method? And, if you
> have run into any problems with the way HOA dues are distributed between
> units?
> We will have 18 3-bedroom units, 22 2-bedroom units, and 3 studio units.
> The largest homes are about 1,450 sq ft. and the studios are under 600 sq
> ft.
> Thanks in advance for any insight into allocating HOA dues!
> Karen KitchenBozeman Cohousing
> _________________________________________________________________
> Cohousing-L mailing list -- Unsubscribe, archives and other info at:
> http://L.cohousing.org/info
>
>
>
>