MONEY IN THE BANK A Brief Q&A Session with a Professional Reserve Analyst By Andrew Hay, CCAM-ND.PM
The primary purpose of a homeowners association is to protect, preserve and enhance property values. In California, the legislature understands the importance of this and requires that a reserve study be prepared every three years to help boards identify their largest liabilities – the major components they are obligated to repair, replace, restore or maintain. As managers, it is our fiduciary duty to understand the reserve study enough to help our clients with the budget decisions they make each year. I sat down with professional reserve analyst Ryan Leptien of The Helsing Group, Inc., ACMB to find out what managers are doing well, what we need to do better and what tools we can use to help our clients avoid dangers they might not even realize exist.
34
Vision Fall/Winter 2017 | www.cacm.org
During the reserve study process, what do managers do consistently well? Managers consistently stress to their clients the importance of a reserve study being prepared in accordance with the timelines required by law and to continue to make annual updates to the study in years a site inspection is not required. It is more common in self-managed associations for boards, through their own naivete, to not fulfill even the minimum legal requirement to have a study completed or fail to come back in the years a full study is not prepared to update to ensure accurate budgeting.
