We’re sending this to our owners immediately to advise you of a new development.
In April CAMCO, our Association Management company, cancelled our contract, with a 60-day lead time. Since then we have been working with them to determine if we could resolve issues and renegotiate a new contract. During this period CAMCO has continued to work diligently to provide us with the services we require. They have just informed us that they do not wish to retain the Boulders Condominium Association as a client, and have asked us to find another Association Manager as soon as possible.
There are a few key reasons for their unwillingness to keep the Boulders as a client:
- Our property has many times more maintenance issues to address than any of their other properties. In this environment where suppliers and contractors are difficult to secure, this is causing them to require far more management and maintenance resources than their other clients. On some days they have all of their property managers and maintenance people working on Boulders issues to the detriment of their other clients. This severely strains their capability of delivering the quality work that they wish to.
- CAMCO prides itself on offering personal contact with their clients. While this gives us a level of confidence we didn’t have with our prior association manager and their property managers, the in-person communication with CAMCO from a segment of our owners has become abusive to the extent that it has caused CAMCO’s employees to threaten to quit. While I understand that there is sometimes another side to the story, we nevertheless need to treat our property managers respectfully, and expect the same from them in return.
- Because of the shortage of available contractors, the need to have two-way communication about owner requests and expected timing of results has become more challenging, and therefore more important. The current system (place a repair request and wait for results) was ideal when contractors were easy to find on a moment’s notice. Unfortunately, that’s no longer true and the current system is lacking.
We have begun a search for another Association Management company. This may be difficult given the scarcity of such companies in the Tahoe area. We’d like to be able to transition by the time we begin budgeting for next year. Given the feedback from CAMCO (and to some extent from our previous association manager), we will be looking for a company that provides (among many other things):
- All of the required administrative functions in an efficient and timely manner
- A property manager dedicated at least 50% of his/her time to the Boulders
- A maintenance person dedicated at least 50% to the Boulders
- A ticketing system that allows the owner to submit a request and be able to follow progress or receive updates
CAMCO will continue to fully support us during this time. This transition will likely not be easy and we will continue to ask for your patience as we find and move to a new association management company. These will be challenging times.
While we value your input and wish to remain transparent, if you choose to reply we can benefit most from positive solutions or recommendations.
Thanks,
Boulders Board of Directors