You give $480 quarterly maintenance fees to our Homeowners Association, Garden Patio Villas. Where does it go? What does the Board of Directors do with it?!? This article will help you see where your money is spent!
Where does my money go at Garden Patio Villas?
We are going to address the fields of expenses by percentage. It’s not exact but a very close estimate so all owners know how we are spending our Association’s money. That is you! YOU are the Association. The Board of Directors makes these decisions trying to please as many Owners as possible. This is an average percent (without emergencies) where YOUR money goes and what gets done in our HOA. Over half of our budget (67%) goes towards water and lawn service!!
Take a look at our budget below:
39% of our budget pays for each owner’s water. Garden Patio Villas pays for your water in maintenance fees so you don’t have that utility bill! Yes, that is right! That is our biggest bill. Most Homeowners Associations don’t cover this. This is a lot of water!
27.5% of our budget goes to our lawn service. That is also a lot! With our new lawn company, we are beginning to see a difference and some improvement to the lawn and our bushes! This percent also includes other lawn care and repair.
10% of the Association’s budget goes towards typical repairs through out our retirement community. Remember! This community was built in 1976. Time wears things out. We want our 55+ community to look better!
4.5% of our budget goes toward insurance. Homeowners Associations are required by Florida statutes to have liability insurance on all the common areas as well as covering the Board of Directors.
4% of our budget goes toward trimming trees every other year to prepare for hurricane season. It also goes toward cutting down diseases trees and those needing to be removed. We can’t do it all at once because we don’t have it in our budget. Garden Patio Villas‘ trees have been around for nearly 45 years!
3.5% goes toward legal help. This includes but is not limited to Owners who don’t pay their maintenance fees or other association fees, court costs, anything pertaining to lawsuits and other legal paperwork.
3% of our budget pays FP&L. We use FP&L to pay for electrical for our recreational area, our lights and our heated pool.
3% of the budget goes toward pool maintenance. We have a beautifully clean and crystal clear blue pool for our owners at Garden Patio Villas!
2.5% of our budget goes towards compensation for a lot of work! Our By-laws include compensation for the Board of Directors.
2% of our budget goes for paying minimal costs to persons “in house” for work that needs to be done. These positions include a Maintenance Manager, Clubhouse Cleaner, and a Webmaster. Compensation of all three positions are minimal and practically volunteered!
0.5% of our budget goes toward maintaining our website! Our website helps Owners know what is going on in our community. It also helps others find out how to get to our retirement community in Margate, Florida. Another bonus for having a website is to help potential buyers and their realtors know if there are villas for sale in our Homeowners Association.
0.5% of our budget goes towards office supplies. We are required to send letters for annual meetings, print out legal information, inform owners when we have meetings and post information for those who do not use email on our bulletin boards.
We’ve used a maintenance company in past years but the financial cost was high and much less effective! Garden Patio Villas is trying to continue to self manage our property and community. Would you like to join the Board of Directors? It is a LOT of work and effort trying to keep everyone happy! Sign up to fill a position when they become available! We hope this article helps you to understand how much the Board of Directors is doing for each one of our community members at Garden Patio Villas.
