Emergency powers of an HOA's property management company. Featured

micky · 2021-11-02T12:59:55+00:00

It seems to me that our HOA's management company only has "emergencypowers" when it can't contact the president, or another board member, ora majority of the board. Is that true? In Maryland. (The phrase "emergency powers" doesn't appear anywhere but emergencydoes.) Our townhouse n'hood, which has an HOA and a property managementcompany, had a tree fall down most of the way, so that 15' of the trunkis lying on the ground, on a hill, and the rest of the tree is aboveground (because at the top of the hill, the land is level, but the treecontinues at an angle, getting higher, and getting its small branches upto 20 feet above the ground.) It didn't hit the house but it's rightnext to it and the thought that it might have hit probably scares theowner. But now it sits there, causing no problem afaict. We asked the property management agent to get bids to have the treedisposed of. At least 2 weeks ago, maybe more. 8 days ago she gotone bid from a known, very expensive tree company, for $2,350. Ourpresident continued to ask for 2 more bids. Separately today, I got onefor $650 from someone who is, he says, licensed and insured, whoadvertises that his company cuts down trees, and who has donelandscaping work for the HOA president, to her satisfaction. The property agent has pressured us to sign a contract with the treecompany and yesterday she did that, on her own. Under "emergencypowers"!This is what she wrote to us: While waiting for two more proposals for this tree removal, the treehas again shifted, placing more danger of damages to [the address] === But I looked at it 4 days ago and again today (that is, yesterday).It had not shifted during that time, and I don't think there is anydanger except maybe a small branch will blow in the wind and brush thesiding, maybe scuff it a little bit. Only the family that lives therehas access. === She continues: Because of the danger, I must refer to the Management Agreement toexercise sections 4 and 5,...

Nov 02, 2021 Last reply: 4 years ago 45 Replies

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gfretwell 4 years ago

They may do it old school on foot or just "inspect" it out the window of the truck. You saw them playing with a new toy.

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micky 4 years ago

I'm tempted to blame it on the fact that Baltimore is almost 400 years old, older than any city near you, but almost all of Baltimore County was built up in the 1900's, and this part after 1975. (and of course they're supposed to convert the old record when they put in the new system.)

That would be nice. I'm forwarding this to the county!

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gfretwell 4 years ago

There is still no reason that they haven't put in a 21st century computer system to make these public records available to the public. I looked at the PG County system trying to research something for my family after my BIL's death and they are just as archaic. I do understand it was a pretty big undertaking scanning and categorizing all of the records here IBM was part of that process but the man hours it has saved since makes that effort pale by comparison.

As a side note, they are further modernizing our DMV process which is already pretty good by putting kiosks in grocery stores where you can renew tags and such.

25 years ago our tax collector had mobile offices (RVs) that drove around the county and set up in parking lots around the county on specific days. for all of those services. They really make it easy to get your money ;-)

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trader_4 4 years ago

You're assuming that the portion on his side required a tree service. It was just the top ten feet or so of this large tree, so it was just branches, no trunk, stump, etc. I think he probably had his lawn service people cut it up and drag it to the street where the township was picking up wood from Sandy. It was like 5 percent work on his side, 95 on mine. IDK though, I never met the people.

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