September Manager's Notes

My full report on the state of the Association was presented to the Board at their meeting May 29th, and is included in the minutes.

An Association's 'Declaration of Unit Ownership' outlines which elements of the Association are owned "in common" by all owners (see Section 2.3 Common Elements in Wildflower II's Declaration), and which are held individually. Each Association has a different collection of Common Elements.

Members of the Association, through their dues, pay collectively for the maintenance and repair of all Common Elements, while each owner is responsible individually for those parts of his unit that are not held in common by all owners.

In reviewing the Wildflower II Declarations, the Board and I identified the fact that in this Association, the maintenance of doors, windows and chimneys is the responsibility of each individual owner. However, in the case of chimneys in particular, a lack of maintenance on the part of one owner could contribute an increased fire hazard for many or all owners.

Some owners have installed gas fireplaces, whose chimneys do not need cleaning. Some owners do not rent their units and do not use their fireplaces. However, all chimneys need regular inspection, with cleaning following as needed.

To protect against fire hazard to all owners, then, the Board decided that the Association should contract for chimney inspection and cleaning, thus insuring that it is done on a regularly-scheduled, biennial basis, with the individual unit cost billed back to each unit owner. This decision was reported in my notes along with the June 2009 newsletter.

And now I must apologize. A majority of Wildflower II units are managed by Sunriver Resort. The Resort also cleans chimneys regularly. It seemed logical and convenient, since both the Resort and I use the same chimney-cleaning service, who charges us each identically, that I should ask the Resort to inspect/clean the chimneys of the units that they manage, while I oversaw only the remainder.

What I did not realize was that the Resort applies a 15% handling charge to services that they contract on behalf of unit owners. I, your Association property manager, do not apply such a charge.

Over the summer, I received many complaints from owners whose units' chimneys were cleaned by the Resort. Not only were they surprised to be billed for the service, but they were distressed to be surcharged the extra 15%.

I, too, was distressed to learn of the surcharge. Please accept my assurance that in future years, the Association, through me, your manager, will contract directly for inspections and any necessary chimney cleaning. Any charges will be forwarded to each unit owner for reimbursement without any surcharge.