What is a Community Association?

Some residents think homeowners and condominium associations (generally called community associations) exist just to tell them what to do – or not do. Actually, the association is more like a housing management or service-delivery organization that provides three types of services to all residents – owners and renters alike.

  • Community services – these can include securing trash collection, publishing newsletters, orienting new owners, holding community-wide information meetings, and scheduling recreational and social functions.
  • Governance services – these can include ensuring that residents are complying with the association’s governing documents, that the association is adhering to local, state, and federal statutes (like fair housing laws), enforcing community rules and policies, administering design review policies, and recruiting new volunteer leaders.
  • Business services – these can include operating the common property efficiently, bidding maintenance work competitively, investing reserve funds wisely, developing long-range plans, and equitably and efficiently collecting assessments.

The board and manager make every effort to deliver these services fairly and effectively to protect and enhance the value of our homes – and the lenders’ interests in our homes.  They also strive, through collective participation and mutual decision making to preserve that intrinsic value called “quality of life” that is at the heart of the community association concept.