proposed HOA formation

If the idea is to use the money to pay Mike and maybe to pay others to do various beneficial projects, it could get complicated.

For one thing, there are the questions above about "who" is paying Mike, is he then an employee, is he covered by Workers Comp if he gets injured while working, who is responsible if he damages something or injures someone else while working, etc.

Then, there's the question of what happens if you keep it "informal" where various people contribute? If two or more people get together, put up money, and pay someone to do things, what they have created is a General Partnership -- even though it is not registered anywhere as a partnership. With a General Partnership, each and every one of the people who put up money is 100% personally responsible for any and all debts or liabilities of the partnership. That one act of contributing toward this informal group that hires people to do things exposes each and every contributor to the possibilty of being sued individually and having to pay for their own individual defense in any lawsuit.

On the other hand, if you decide to have some type of civic organization or group where people contribute money, and want to use that money toward doing a public good and maybe paying people like Mike to do things, you should NOT keep it informal. Just form a small nonprofit corporation. Then people can pay dues or give money to the corporation and the CORPORATION, not the individuals, can pay out money to Mike or whoever and pay to have things planted, etc. Then, if something happens, it is the corporation, not the individuals that will be exposed to whatever liability there may be.

It's a tad more complicated than that, but by and large, that's the way it works.

You can buy a book through Nolo Press (

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) called How to Form a Nonprofit Corporation and get the whole low-down.

Reply to
RonABC
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That's OK with me. I do this kind of stuff already for people identified by my church.

In that case, they'll probably get Steve. If I'd known it was a neighbor doing the work, I'd've been helping anyway.

The city owns the streets here.

Reply to
SteveBell

The city owns the land. The existing two-lane road was originally a farm road, but there's room set aside for a median and more lanes on our side. That's the part Mike's maintaining.

They do, but only a few times a year.

That's a good point. I don't mind if I plant some bushes and lose the money and effort, but I'd hate to have to pay the cable company to repair a cut line. I cut my own cable once, long ago, and they charged almost $100 for a simple splice. Luckily I now know how to do waterproof splices. ;-)

Reply to
SteveBell

I like your approach. I believe that's the one I'll follow if anything "official" gets started.

Reply to
SteveBell

And if you go away on vacation, the bushes get overgrown, someone pulls out of the subdivision because they (didn't look or didn't see or whatever scheme one desires) and is killed, who are the survivors going to come after? You planted stuff on city right of way, city gets sued, and then............

Better for the whole gang to call the township or city and complain. Call it a hazard. I would not mess with someone else's property. Period. I also have had a number of very cordial relationships in condo life that turned ice cold when benefits of friendship were exhausted.

Reply to
Norminn

This is you, and can't be transferred to every HOA situation... never mind, you are the OP.

Anyhow, I was also going to say that when I lived in suburban INdianapolois, we also also lived an a main but two-lane road and the county owned 10 or 15 feet on our side of the road to be used for widening it.

About half of the neighbors put their bushes in on their own land, so they wouldn't be cut down later. (It also meant when they backed out of the driveway, they could see if anyone was coming. Every driveway had a "turnaround" but I don't think anyone used them.)

And half put the bushes in a foot from the road, on public land. We bought the house used and the bushes were already close to the road.

I was back there a year ago, 51 years after we had bought the house, and they still haven't widened the road!! There are more houses, but the increased traffic is almost entirely on the main road, a half mile to the east.

My next door neighbor hired some guy who used the wrong tool and cut my phone line. He was going to do some shlock repair, but I did a good job. The neighbor himself said he woudl pay for the repair and I called the phone company and the repair was free, but it seemed they weren't going to do as good a job as I did. I soldered the wires and they were just going to use some jellied crimp connectors. I taped the connection with silicon tape and they were just going to use vinyl electric tape.

Reply to
mm

Long list of admirable accomplishments cut: I am really impressed with this community effort you've got going here. Bravo!

Reply to
KLS

If you do move to an HOA place, you don't want one where it is too hard to raise the dues. I think until a year ago, my dues were only

100 dollars a year, and before that for many years only 80/year and it's not enough. Because in addition to some lawnmowing, planting flowers, plowing snow, etc. every ten or 15 years we have to repave the roads and parking areas, for $50 or 100,000, from 110 homes. So we should take in 10,000 a year for that, or 100 dollars a year per home just for that.

The rules here made it very hard to raise the dues. I think they illegally raised hem last winter when I was out of town, but I don't complain, because the hoa needs the money more than I do. I wish they had raised them more.

If an HOA spends too litle money, the place looks run down and people lose thousands or 10's of thousands when they sell. Plus even before one wants to move, other houses are worth less and poorer people buy them, and resist raising the dues, especially if they plan to move in

5 years, or after their first or second kid is born.
Reply to
mm

Glad you like it! We do!

One of the fellows near us is a licensed 'tree cutter' who drops off an email for a cut rate to do the near streets each year. It's to keep from losing his own power ;-) Lots of trees here. He's slated for the communal tree Jim and I have at the part that hits near the power lines. (grows on the property line but center is about 6 inches into his yard, we treat it as a communal tree).

Reply to
cshenk

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