I joined my communities HOA board to find board meetings very long and topics repetitive. Since I was new, I thought is would improve.
Over a year later, it became apparent that our Shaben community manager wanted to run things her way, and not as the board wants. This included her making our requests for competitive bids on large jobs very painful and not following up on projects (some taking 6-12 months to complete). Our board may be very particular on things, but I strove to be a voice of understanding and discovered a wall of resistance with Shaben in the end.
Shaben terminated our agreement over something very surprising. We were upset that our manager didn't call or text the board when a police investigator needed access to our clubhouse cameras. Instead, Shaben's manager told the police that we were not responsive (she only emailed us once), and so the police issued a search warrant. I hate to think we burdened the system for this, access was always there..
So, a board member emailed Shaben about how frustrating this was (we were embarrassed the police had to issue a warrant), and Shaben replied to us with a 30-day termination notice. But it get's worse.
We found a new management company, and I told Shaben that we wanted to make this transition as smooth as possible, so I set up a Gmail for Shaben to forward all non-financial questions/complaints/issues to so they can focus on gathering up our info for the new company and work with them on transition our community.
We signed with our new community management company with just over two full weeks for the transition. Shaben did hand the checks over for our accounts at that time, BUT THAT WAS IT.
Shaben made the new company wait until the final day of the contract, then handed over all of our information. And I don't mean digital and paper, only PAPER. Shaben did not provide recent budgets, reports, or other details, nor did they help clarify or be willing to correspond on anything going forward.
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