Blog

By Laura Ravazza, PCAM, CCAM-PM, CAI BayCen Director

Several of our CAI Bay Area and Central Board of Directors and volunteer leaders attended this year’s LeadHERship Conference on February 26 and 27, 2020 in Westlake Village, California. This year’s theme was “Finding the Balance: Mind, Body, Self.

CAI BayCen attendees included: Laura Ravazza, PCAM, CCAM-PM with HMC Property Management Co., Mandi Begley-Newton, VP of Marketing and Business Development at Varsity Painting, and Janet Quinn Dennis with Quinn Dennis Mediation and Consulting and Pro Solutions, Betina Hunt with HMC Property Management Co., and Betina’s daughter, Molly Schessow.

Balancing the demands of a rapidly changing business environment and a hectic personal life requires nerves of steel – and a strong set of business skills. Yet many leaders, especially women, find themselves juggling multiple responsibilities without the professional experience, self-confidence or organizational...

By William S. Erlanger, CPA
Levy, Erlanger & Company LLP, CPAs 
(This article was previously printed in The Communicator, Volume 12, Issue 3) 

Not all homeowner associations file the same federal or state income and/or information returns. A homeowner association might be filing its federal income taxes on a Form 1120, Form 1120-H, Form 1120-H as a timeshare, Form 1120-C, Form 990 and/or Form 990-T. If that is not confusing enough, California also has different returns that a homeowner association might be using: Form 100, Form 199, and Form 109. 

California requires that homeowner associations electronically file all returns, while the IRS permits electronic filing, but only for certain returns. Oddly enough, while it requires electronic filing of returns, the state does allow mailing of checks for balance due or estimated taxes. The IRS, however, requires that almost all payments be made electronically.

Since Congress set about to tax corporations back in the...

Thank you to everyone who attended our 007 Awards Dinner: Secret Agents. It was a wonderful evening celebrating industry members and recognizing Nick Berg, incoming CAI Agent......we mean, President!

A special thank you to our Annual Dinner Committee and to all our sponsors for an exceptional 2019 holiday party. 

Cheers to our Annual Awards winners and to our 2020 team! Please join us in congratulating all our 2019 Annual Awards winners. You can view and download our event photos on Flickr here or click on our album below.

 2019 Annual Awards Winners

Management Company of the Year: Associa Northern California

Rising Star: Elliott Harwell, CMCA, AMS, Homeowners Management Company

Portfolio Manager: Tracy Richardson, CMCA, AMS, PCAM, Common Interest Management

Best Sponsor Video: Socher Insurance Agency

Chapter Volunteer of the Year: Betina Hunt, Homeowners Management Co, LLC

Homeowner Leader of the Year: Ann Marquis Fisher, Deer Oaks Association

On-Site Manager of...

The CAI Bay Area & Central CA and CAI Northern CA Chapters hosted the Second Annual CAI Legal Forum NorCAL on September 12-13, 2019 at the Oakland Marriott City Center. 

This two day event provided community managers with up to 7 hours of continuing education credit towards re-certification for their CAI Professional Credentials (including PCAM). There was truly something for everyone with 17 topics presented by 40 Industry Professionals and Homeowners.

Thank you to our sponsors, engaging speakers, and business partners for an outstanding exposition that took attendees "Up & Away" on Flight 2019 with Connections to Education, Networking and Fun!

Click below to view all our photos from the event. Please feel free to download and share. We're looking forward to seeing everyone next year! 

Thank you to all our sponsors and our Chapter members for joining us at the seventh Annual Texas Hold'em Tournament this week on August 29, 2019 at the Crow Canyon Country Club in Danville!

We hope everyone had a blast and enjoyed the Caddy Shack fun filled night with Blackjack, a DJ & Dancing, Cigar Bar, Raffle Prizes and more! Here are a few of our favorite photos from the evening. 

The CAI Bay Area & Central CA Chapter was thrilled to attend this year's Community Associations Institute (CAI's) Annual Conference “Community Now” in Florida on May 15-17, 2019. 

With more than 700 attendees, the conference was a great way to reconnect with colleagues and friends while participants earn continuing education (CE) credits toward CAI certifications. Fun fact: one conference has enough CE credits to renew a Professional Community Association Manager (PCAM) certification!

The CAI BayCen Chapter was honored to witness multiple chapter members receive their PCAM credential. A big heartfelt congratulations to: Doreen Tejeda of Associa Northern California, Laura Ravazza of Homeowners Management Company, Sonia Lopez of Associa Northern California and John Caffall, Associal Northern California.

Congratulations to our fellow California chapter members on receiving several awards. We hope you heard us cheering you on!

We encourage anyone who has not...

Thank you to our sponsors and CAI BayCen members who joined us in a spectacular game of golf as we hosted our XXIV Annual Golf Classic "18 Hole Carnival" on Friday, June 14, 2019 at Hiddenbrooke Golf Club. It was a beautiful day for golf and we hope everyone had a wonderful time. Here are some of our favorite photos. We look forward to seeing everyone again next year. 

By Jordan O’Brien

 

GODSHUTTER/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE Sections 895, et seq. are commonly referred to collectively as "SB800," after the California Senate Bill number, or by builders as the "Right to Repair Act." As acknowledged in its published legislative history, SB800 was the product of extensive negotiations and lobbying between consumer protection and builders’ interest groups, among others.

To most people familiar with the SB800 process, this is readily apparent. SB800 is less of a holistic overhaul of the construction defect claims process than a hodgepodge that is often not an interlocking, comprehensive or even intelligible whole. SB800 abrogated a prior legal requirement in California that a plaintiff or claimant show damage and/or destruction of a building, improvement, component, unit, etc. in order to recover for defective construction of that...

Does your association and the board have a duty to investigate and bring appropriate claims for defects?

By Ritchie Lipson, Esq. Senior Counsel Kasdan LippSmith Weber Turner LLP

 

ZIMMYTWS/SHUTTERSTOCK.COM

THE MARYLAND COURT of Special Appeals recently issued an opinion in Greenstein v. Council of Unit Owners of Avalon Court Six Condominium, Inc. finding that an association can be sued by its unit owner members if it fails to take timely legal action against a developer for defects.

In the case of first impression concerning duties of board members when confronted with construction issues within the common elements of a condominium, the court held that the board has a duty to initiate litigation against the developer for construction defects, and its failure to do so within the statute of limitations can result in liability to the individual owners.

The Maryland court held: "The duty to maintain, repair and replace the common elements creates a concomitant obligation...

By Michael T. Kennedy, Jr., Berding & Weil, LLP and Lisa Esposito, ACT Construction

INEVITABLY, EVERY MANAGER and every condominium community will face some large scale repair/reconstruction project of common areas. Whether the association is repairing construction defects or reconstructing deteriorated building components in an aging community, the board, with the manger’s guidance, can make decisions and select partners that can either make the process much easier or much harder. Each project has its own unique challenges, but many of the best practices and pitfalls are similar, whether the manager and board are facing repairs after resolving a construction defect claim on a newer building; long planned repairs which have been planned for (saved for) in reserves; or newly discovered dry rot or other issues caused by deferred maintenance, lack of previous inspections or simply previous boards that procrastinated necessary repairs.

WHEN IS IT TIME TO TAKE ON THIS...