What Are Special Assessments?

Today when buying a home you have many choices availble to you...The market has been favoring buyers for the past few years and it looks like that trend will continue into next year. So, besides deciding on what to buy or where to buy you need to look at the community HOA. One thing that most people are not aware of is special assessments. Special assessments are additional dues that a homeowners association can charge each homeowner individually (though the amount is equal to all homeowners) to offset additional expenses in the community. Generally in a community made up of single family homes this is not common...However; I did run across one the other day where their poor financial planning forced the HOA to assess the members an additional amount of money... This additional fee was equal to the HOA fees they were paying a month at that time and was for a period of one year. More common is you will find these in townhome or condo communities. When you purchase a townhome or condo you basically own the four walls of your condo and the homeowners association takes care of maintianing the exterior of your place including the roof. Condos/townhomes tends to have special assessments when it comes time to replace roofs. Generally they are all built around the same time and the roofs lifespans make them come do at the same time....Without proper planning this can be a nightmare expense. In addition if the exterior of the building is in need of repair then the homeowers association is resposnible for that repair as well..depending on the type of structure it is (wood, vinyl or brick) the cost can be expensive as well.... I always ask if there is an assessment scheduled or for a copy of the minutes from the last few months of meetings...That way you can see fi the discussion of repairs have come up and if you can expect a special assessment in the near future or not. The last thing most people want to do is move into a home and find out a few months alter that they are being billed an additional expense they were not anticipating..... Dave diCecco Realtor/Broker www.davedicecco.com