Ideally, building or HOA boards and their managing agents or property managers work as a team, collaborating to carry out the administrative duties and make the decisions that keep their communities running from day to day. Management contracts typically spell out the manager’s role in the process in general terms, but there’s often more to a truly effective board/management partnership than what’s just on paper.

But there are various ways boards can more actively partner with their manager to improve not only their building/HOA’s bottom line, but community cohesiveness and quality of life as well.

Clarify Roles

Much has been written about the role of the manager and the role of a board member but it is easy to blur those lines. A good start would be to put those expectations in writing in order to avoid any future conflict. Only by having clear, concise written policy and procedures can the board expect the management company to effectively carry out their rules and regulations.

“The board is an executive committee that makes the decisions for the association,” says David Barrett, PCAM, the director of operations for Crowninshield Management Corp. in Peabody, Massachusetts. “The board sets the policy and the manager implements the policies. The manager facilitates and carries out the policies of the board.”

“The role of the property manager is fundamentally the same as a rule, of that of an attorney,” adds David Levy, PCAM, president of Sterling Services Inc. in Holliston, Massachusetts. “That is, to advise the client. The role of the client is to make a decision and the role of the property manager is to implement that decision with loyalty and skill.”

“The role is whatever is spelled out in the condo docs and negotiated between the manager and the board,” says Peter Milloy, board president of a Chicopee, Massachusetts condominium. “That is to say it may vary from one HOA to another. Clarity regarding roles is extremely important.”

Successful Partnerships

The manager and the board of trustees are a team, working together to operate the building in the most efficient, painless way possible. Like any team, the players must rely on one another and know what the other needs in order to work effectively. When this happens, managers, boards and residents reap the rewards of a successful partnership.

“It’s important to have mutual respect between the manager and the board members. You have to understand what each person’s role is and be respectful of their time,” says Barrett. “In other words, the manager is putting in a lot of time and the board’s expectations should be in line with the amount of work they are asking the manager to do and vice versa. In most cases board members are working individuals who are volunteers, so they have to make efficient decisions with limited time to invest in the process. The manager has to be organized and organize data in a way that the board has relevant information and can compare options. The manager has to respect the boards’ time.”

Levy agrees with Barrett on the importance of mutual respect between boards and property managers. “Another key characteristic of successful relationships is an understanding that this must be a long-term, win-win mutually productive relationship. There are so many benefits of a successful, harmonious board and property manager relationship,” he says. “On a macro level, the number one benefit is better results for both parties. Those better results are due to less friction in a relationship which allows a relationship to be more time efficient. The time spent in the relationship is focused on high friction transactions but on the long-term orientation to fixing the strategic level issues at the property.”

“There are many benefits of a harmonious board/manager relationship,” says Milloy. “There will be shorter meetings and confidence on the board’s part that the manager will fairly represent board decisions to other owners. The board has to respect the manager’s distinctive expertise and the manager has to respect the owners’ right to decide basic policy. There has to be sufficient mutual trust that the manager feels free to make suggestions without worrying that the board will accuse the manager of overstepping his/her bounds.”

On the flipside, Levy warns that non-successful relationships are generally caused by mistrusts and on a board that constantly change management companies.

“Most successful property management companies bidding on a new property are extremely concerned about starting a new relationship with a property with a long history of churning through prior property managers,” says Levy. “Therefore, having a property with a history of high-friction relationships with the property management company will preclude your property from getting bids in the future from the best property management companies and/or will produce higher bids for those future property managers.”

Things to Avoid

When opposition and strife occurs it’s important, vital even, to have an in-house policy for handling conflict. It’s never a good idea to let unhappiness fester under the surface and remain unresolved. Ultimately, when the board and management company experiences friction it is the community that suffers.

“The repercussions of a dysfunctional board and manager relationship affect the community in the sense that the board is making very difficult decisions on behalf of the association,” says Barrett. “If the ownership in the association feels that the board is divided or that there is conflict with the board and the manager, they lose confidence in some of the decisions that are made by the board. It also causes delays in getting physical work done, whether it is a construction project or a day-to-day activity because of the delays in being able to get a decision made and not synergizing as a team or a group. If they are not working as a team and people are working against each other, decisions don’t get made, maintenance gets deferred, projects get delayed and if the community senses that there is dysfunction on the board or manager level, residents will lose confidence in the decision making ability of the board.”

“The number one cause for breakups in relationships, business or personal is the high friction nature of the relationship,” says Levy. “In condominium management that means there’s a loss of institutional knowledge of the property manager and continued lost momentum. Too much of the volunteers’ efforts are focused on changing management companies instead of enhancing the results from the current management company.”

At the end of the day, board members and managers should look at themselves as a team, working for the advancement of the building. With a clear understanding of their roles and a resolution for conflicts when, and if they should arise.

“I think if board members and managers come into it thinking we are going to work together as a team and leave egos aside then it can be a very successful relationship, and that is even between board members,” says Barrett. “Most people that volunteer to be on the board want to do it to improve their communities and they have the best intentions at heart, but sometimes in the performance of those duties they don’t really look at it as a team. Everybody is trying to achieve the same goal, so if everyone develops more of a team attitude then it will be much more successful.”    

Christy Smith-Sloman is a staff writer for New England Condominium.