When new legislation is introduced to try to change the Maryland HOA Act, it’s usually in response to a problem at a much smaller homeowners association that does not have the kind of structure, professional management staff, or internal controls that CA does.
- One example is legislation that would have required HOAs to send a printed budget to every homeowner. For smaller associations, that might be 20 or 30 printed budgets, each no longer than a few pages. For CA, that would have meant printing and mailing 33,000 copies of a budget that is more than 400 pages long, a considerable and unnecessary expense. CA’s budget is already posted online, along with other financial reports, at ColumbiaAssociation.org/budget. Printed copies are provided to each of the 10 village community associations for community members to access.
- Because almost all HOAs in Maryland lack professional in-house staff like CA’s, there was a series of legislation that would impose licensing requirements on community managers. That would have meant several hundred CA employees would have been unnecessarily required to take exams, serve apprenticeships and obtain and renew licenses, at considerable cost to CA and to the detriment of our operations serving the community.
- Another piece of legislation would have required every HOA to register with the state and pay an annual fee based on its number of properties. While that fee would likely be insignificant in the case of an HOA with only a few dozen properties, even a fee of only $1 per property would have cost CA $33,000 annually.
These are just a few examples. At least 20 HOA Act amendments are introduced each year. The quantity seems to be increasing. CA regularly seeks amendments to or exemptions from this legislation, because they do not really apply to an organization like Columbia Association.
