I sat on my condo board for a decade and was president for two years. My experience is that the board is not the problem - the non board sitting owners are. Our complex was comprised of 5 separate 3 story buildings. Three of those building had bad water leaking problems but when we tried to raise money for repairs - the people who weren't suffering any interior water damage wouldn't vote yes. Many buyers don't read the fine print or dig into the boards finances before they buy. We ultimately passes a special assessment but not without some serious "log-rolling" to get everyone on board.
Nobody wants to pay for what is a collective problem. Sometimes I think condo's shouldn't even be legal because of this. They should all be apartments with a central management company.
The solution is really tightening fiducial regulations on condo HOA's. There could easily be a formula of like 10% of annual dues need to be put in a rainy day fund or something... Banks have started to tighten their lending around condos and ask for more up front financial info.
Nobody wants to pay for what is a collective problem. Sometimes I think condo's shouldn't even be legal because of this. They should all be apartments with a central management company.
The solution is really tightening fiducial regulations on condo HOA's. There could easily be a formula of like 10% of annual dues need to be put in a rainy day fund or something... Banks have started to tighten their lending around condos and ask for more up front financial info.