I can’t hold it in any longer.  I must tell someone.  I have been less than honest with the readers of this blog and the listeners to the Condo Craze and HOAs Radio Show.  I’m a fake and a fraud.

The truth is…………despite the fact that I urge all of you out there to get involved in your community, to run for the Board, scrutinize the finances and stay on top of everything…I MUST CONFESS.  I live in my homeowner’s association for 18 years and  I have never been to a single board of directors meeting.  I never submitted my name to be a candidate for the board and I may have sent in my proxy once or twice.

Now that I have come clean….I feel better.  Do as I say, not as I do.

I am lucky.  I live in an HOA that truly has a hands off policy.  Keep your house looking decent, remember to occasionally take in your garbage cans timely, and we’ll stay off your back.  In the interim, as a Board we will continue to keep the community looking great and we won’t raise your monthly assessments.  In fact, they were raised once in 18 years.

I think that’s the way it works in most communities.  Board members get upset when members of the community don’t show up for meetings.  They shouldn’t.  It really is a vote of confidence when owners don’t show up for a meeting.  What Boards don’t like is when a unit owner who never attended a meeting suddenly shows up to their first meeting, second guessing everything the Board has ever done.  That is clearly understandable.  Don’t be a Monday morning quarterback.

Besides loving the community that I live in, and being truly appreciative that there are members in my community that serve on the Board without complaint or compensation there’s an even more important, philosophical, concerning and deep seeded reason why I haven’t become a member of my own board, and it even concerns my physical safety.  In a word, MY WIFE WOULD KILL ME.