Property Mgt & Association Records

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? FL

For those that know of my long, ongoing dilemma with my HOA, I have access to our association's records again and am going to Property Mgt. to inspect & copy records. What is interesting compared to last year when I was there is the amount of missing records in boxes that were in those boxes last year.

Since there are now missing records that are computer generated, my question is aren't Property Mgt companies required keep these computer generated monthly & yearly records in databases stored somewhere, like on their computer or a data storage place?

Just like my Board-nots, these folks at Property Mgt are liars too. Property Mgt is also fudging our Association records. They are next.

The Condo Assn should have to keep records and make them available to you.
How long they have to keep those records is a good question. I'd say if your
governing documents state that records must be kept without any time frame
mentioned, then it's implied that those records never should be destroyed.

The Condo Assn
has to file a tax form with the IRS each year. Fact is the IRS can go back and audit the Condo Assn from it's beginning to the present. Right there, you have a good argument for all records constantly being kept for possible inspection.

Problem is you are dealing with crooked people who just try to make it so hard for you that they hope you will give up. I hope you expose these crooks for all the wrong they have done.

It's interesting that you copy records. How do you accomplish that? Do they let you use their copier and charge you so much for each copy or do you have another method? Please let me know as I may need to do the same in the future with my mgt. company.

Best of luck to you.

CondoIll said:

It's interesting that you copy records. How do you accomplish that? Do they let you use their copier and charge you so much for each copy or do you have another method? Please let me know as I may need to do the same in the future with my mgt. company.

Click to expand...

A digital camera would do the trick. Putting it on a tripod helps.

CondoIll said:

The Condo Assn should have to keep records and make them available to you.
How long they have to keep those records is a good question. I'd say if your
governing documents state that records must be kept without any time frame
mentioned, then it's implied that those records never should be destroyed.

The Condo Assn
has to file a tax form with the IRS each year. Fact is the IRS can go back and audit the Condo Assn from it's beginning to the present. Right there, you have a good argument for all records constantly being kept for possible inspection.

Problem is you are dealing with crooked people who just try to make it so hard for you that they hope you will give up. I hope you expose these crooks for all the wrong they have done.

It's interesting that you copy records. How do you accomplish that? Do they let you use their copier and charge you so much for each copy or do you have another method? Please let me know as I may need to do the same in the future with my mgt. company.

Best of luck to you.

Click to expand...

I sent a CRR to the BOD-nots (the last election was 1999) to inspect records back to 2002 because records have to be kept for 7 years. Property Mgt is in a different location and only do our bookkeeping & send notices to all owners.

I bring one of my own copiers to Property Mgt (the laser copier) with my own paper. At the last owners' meeting, I stated that I wanted to inspect the records that are not a property mgt. (invoices, contractor records, cash receipts, minutes, etc.)

Property Mgt has told me exactly what they have and don't have all recorded on my tape recorder in their plain sight knowing that they were being recorded.

Though the association stuff has to be sent yearly to an independent auditor, this has never been done as so stated and recorded. Heck, there were years where the taxes were done and not even sent in.

Records that I copied at property mgt last year are now missing. I was told that all they would do would look in the box to confirm that what I'm looking for is missing and that's it which begs the question about property mgt keeping all our accounting records they do on computer stored in a database or have a back up data base.

Stevef said:

A digital camera would do the trick. Putting it on a tripod helps.

Click to expand...

I'd need a digital camera with a brazillion G's of memory.

BlondiePB said:

I'd need a digital camera with a brazillion G's of memory.

Click to expand...

Not really. My 512MB card holds around 500 pictures. That's about the same as a ream of paper. For the equivalent of a case of copy paper, you would need five 4gb memory cards.

Note: I've never seen the images disappear off a ream of paper, but I HAVE seen images disappear off a memory card.

Stevef said:

Not really. My 512MB card holds around 500 pictures. That's about the same as a ream of paper. For the equivalent of a case of copy paper, you would need five 4gb memory cards.

Note: I've never seen the images disappear off a ream of paper, but I HAVE seen images disappear off a memory card.

Click to expand...

Well, having images disappear off a memory just won't do. Thus far from the previous records already copied and a spread sheet made of what were legitimate expenses from Hurricane Wilma, some folks have real serious 'splaining to do of over $365,000.00. We only have just over 40 units.

I like what I found yesterday on bank statements. Over $100,000.00 left one account, the accounting ledger from property mgt states it went to the operating account, and the operating bank account statement has no record of the money going there (original bank statements). I found another $100,000.00 disappear (a different month) from the operating account and go nowhere.

I'll probably being taking my laptop and another copier/scanner for some records, but that will take more time than just using my laser copier.

Edit: They can do all the lying they want, but original bank statements don't lie.

Stevef said:

Not really. My 512MB card holds around 500 pictures. That's about the same as a ream of paper. For the equivalent of a case of copy paper, you would need five 4gb memory cards.

Note: I've never seen the images disappear off a ream of paper, but I HAVE seen images disappear off a memory card.

Click to expand...

What you do with the memory card is get a multi card reader (usb is best and usually is the norm) and take the pics off the memory card and put them on your computer. That way they are safe. You can keep the memory cards also if you want to have the original proof. I have been using all different types of memory cards for years and have never lost anything. If you don't have a lot of storage space on your computer, after you put them on your computer you can put them on a usb drive and keep them on there. My husband uses these all the time and never loses any data. After you put them on the drive, you can delete them off your computer.

Wow, good technical advice.