HOA Doctor, Phoenix, AZ (2026)

08/21/2026

GREAT PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANIES SHOULD WANT MORE REVIEWS — NOT FEWER.

A homeowner complaint after a contract is lost is too late.

A review six months earlier can save the relationship.

The best PMCs should be asking:

What are homeowners experiencing right now?

Communication.
Maintenance.
Financial confidence.
Responsiveness.
Trust.

And just as importantly:

Is the problem the PMC — or the Board?

HOA Doctor measures them separately.

That matters because a management company should not be blamed for every unpopular Board decision.

And a Board should not have to guess how homeowners are experiencing management.

A consistent review and feedback loop can help a PMC:

See the problem early.
Show the Board.
Fix what can be fixed.
Prove homeowners noticed the improvement.

That turns ratings and reviews from a reputation issue into a performance intelligence tool.

Great PMCs do not need perfect scores.

They need the ability to improve performance, strengthen boards, retain communities and prove they got better.

SEE IT → FIX IT → PROVE IT.

08/20/2026

WHAT IF HOA FINANCIAL TRANSPARENCY WERE AS SIMPLE AS A FOOD LABEL?

HOA Doctor® Invites CAI to Co-Brand the HOA Financial Transparency Label™

Instead of making homeowners search state filings, contracts, disclosures, or board records, put the information where they actually touch the financial relationship:

On the invoice.

If a material financial relationship exists, banking benefits, insurance commissions, vendor incentives, referral fees, administrative markups, preferred-vendor economics, or other financial benefits, disclose it clearly.

If none exist, say None. If they do exist, disclose them clearly.

That is the breakthrough: transparency comes to the homeowner.

Many of these relationships may be completely legitimate and may create real value. This is not about assuming otherwise. It is about making the economics visible, simple, and standardized.

CAI has the national reach, education programs, professional standards, and industry relationships to help turn this into a national standard.

CAI, we invite you to co-brand it with HOA Doctor® and help build the standard together.

Truth in packaging changed the way consumers understand products. Maybe it is time to bring the same clarity to HOA finances.

If homeowners are being asked to pay the bill, the disclosure should be on the bill.

Community association managers and community leaders: if you believe this would strengthen trust in the HOA industry, give this a 👍.

08/19/2026

WHAT IF TRANSPARENCY ISN’T BAD FOR PMC REVENUE?

Great PMCs can create value beyond the management fee.

Insurance.
Banking.
Projects.
Maintenance.
Technology.
Other services.

Additional revenue isn’t inherently the problem.

Hidden economics are.

If a management company or affiliate benefits from a transaction, make the economics understandable:

Who benefits?
How?
Approximately how much?

Then let the board and the homeowners judge whether the arrangement creates value.

The companies that do this best may discover something important:

Transparency doesn’t prevent additional revenue.
It differentiates the companies that deserve it.

Would you be more likely to buy an additional service from a management company that voluntarily disclosed exactly how it benefits? One that welcomes rating and reviews?

YES or NO?

08/17/2026

THE COMMUNITY ASSOCIATIONS INSTITUTE (CAI) HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TO SHOW STRONG LEADERSHIP.

The FDA requires standardized labels so consumers know what’s in the products they buy.
So why are HOA financial relationships still so opaque?

Banking benefits. Insurance commissions. Vendor incentives. Referral fees. Administrative markups. Preferred-vendor economics.

Not all payments are improper, but homeowners and boards should still be able to answer:

What exists? Who gets paid? Who benefits?

Imagine a standardized HOA Management Financial Ingredients Label:

Included with every management agreement.
Summarized on monthly homeowner statements.
Updated when financial relationships change.

No buried disclosures. No confusion. Just clarity.

This is what leadership could look like:

Set the standard.
Put the label on statements.
Make disclosure simple.
Rebuild trust.

Would you support a standardized HOA Management Financial Ingredients Label on every homeowner statement?

Homeowners, board members, managers, and industry leaders, I’d like to hear your thoughts.

08/17/2026

IF BRINGING HOAs TOGETHER CREATES MORE VALUE, WHO SHOULD GET IT?

Something I heard in federal court this week keeps coming back to me.

One HOA has its own bank accounts and purchasing needs. By itself, it may have limited bargaining power. Bring the bank deposits or purchasing needs of hundreds or thousands of HOAs together, and that combined business becomes much more valuable to a bank, insurer, vendor or other company. That company may be willing to pay more, charge less or provide other financial benefits to win the larger amount of business. That is the value created by aggregation.

Now start from first principles. The homeowners supplied the money. The HOAs supplied the business. The management company brought them together.

WHO SHOULD RECEIVE THE EXTRA VALUE CREATED BY BRINGING THEM TOGETHER?

The management company? The HOAs? Some combination of both? And just as important: who should know exactly how much value was created and where it went?

This may be a much bigger question than banking. There is nothing wrong with bringing HOAs together to create more buying power. In fact, it can create real value.

WHO SHOULD THAT VALUE SERVE?

08/14/2026

WILL THE GREAT PROPERTY MANAGEMENT COMPANIES PLEASE STAND UP?

After several days talking about banking, transparency and financial relationships, I want to make something clear: HOA Doctor is not anti-property management. We are pro-great property management — and we want to help great management get even better.

Great community management is hard. Property managers deal with emergencies, maintenance, vendors, budgets, homeowner complaints and volunteer boards with very different levels of experience. Frontline managers also shouldn’t be blamed for corporate financial arrangements negotiated above them that they may know nothing about.

The best PMCs do something that often gets overlooked: they listen to homeowners and help volunteer boards become better boards.

That is where HOA Doctor can help. Because we measure the Board and Property Management Company separately, we can help identify whether homeowners are asking the management company to improve, the board to improve — or both.

For a great PMC, the feedback loop is simple:

See the problem early → Show the board → Improve it → Measure whether homeowners noticed.

That gives property managers better information to coach boards, focus on what homeowners actually care about and demonstrate measurable improvement.

Transparency shouldn’t scare a great PMC. It should be a competitive advantage.

We don’t want to replace great property managers. We want to give them better information, help the boards they serve improve, and make great performance visible.

Great property management listens to homeowners and helps boards improve.

Will the great property management companies please stand up?

We intend to make sure everyone can see them.

08/13/2026

PROPERTY MANAGEMENT: WHAT SHOULD FIDUCIARY RESPONSIBILITY REQUIRE?

Think about what an HOA gives its management company access to or influence over: bank accounts, vendors, insurance, contracts and millions of dollars in homeowner assessments.

Riva has put one banking practice under a microscope. But banking may only be one part of a much larger question. What about insurance, vendors, landscaping, payments, affiliates, referral fees and revenue sharing?

Making money isn’t the problem.

The bigger question is what fiduciary responsibility should require when a property management company can influence where HOA money is deposited, which insurance is recommended, which vendors get the work, or which affiliates benefit.

So let’s get back to first principles. Is disclosure enough? Should the board approve the arrangement before the management company gets paid? If the HOA’s money or buying power creates the value, should the HOA receive that value? And should homeowners be able to see who gets paid, how much, and why?

Courts will decide what the law requires in Riva. CAI and other industry leaders don’t have to wait for the courts to decide what good practice should require.

So here is the larger question:

What should fiduciary responsibility require in modern property management?

A good deal should get better when everyone can see it.

Maybe fiduciary isn’t an old-fashioned word after all.

08/11/2026

HOW DID WE GET HERE?

BACKGROUND
I walked into federal court today thinking this was about one HOA, one management company and banking.

I walked out thinking about the whole industry.

The Management Trust is employee-owned through an ESOP with about 965 plan participants. Many of those employees, including frontline property managers, may know nothing about the banking arrangements at issue. Yet their company is the one in court.

THE PROBLEM
Plaintiff’s counsel repeatedly used the word “kickbacks” for payments tied to HOA bank deposits. The Management Trust argued that the money belonged to the “aggregator” the management company that brought the HOA deposits together.

Then came the statement that changed the story:

Roughly 90% of the large property management companies were said in court to have these types of banking relationships.

If that number is right, The Management Trust may be taking a very public hit for what was described as a common industry practice.

That does not make it right or wrong. The court will decide that. But how did this become normal?

Bad practices rarely become normal overnight. One company does it. Others follow. People get used to it. Eventually, “everybody does it” becomes the explanation.

FIRST PRINCIPLES
Forget what the industry has always done. Start with the HOA’s money.

The HOA supplies the deposits. The management company brings the deposits together. The bank pays the management company because those deposits have value to the bank.

Who should get that money? Who should be told? Who should be able to see it?

Today it is banking. Tomorrow, will we ask the same questions about insurance, vendor referrals and revenue sharing?

The Management Trust is the defendant today.

But the bigger question may be what the HOA industry has accepted as normal and whether homeowners ever agreed that it should be.

08/11/2026

A management company is allowed to make a profit.

The HOA hires it to do a job. What the management company earns from doing that job is generally its business.

But there is a different question when the HOA’s own money creates an extra financial benefit.

If HOA deposits create money, credits, or other financial benefits for someone else, should the board and homeowners have the right to know?

And then comes the harder question:

If the HOA’s money made the money, who should get it?

That is the line I’m listening for in court today.

This is not about stopping banks or management companies from making money.

It is about knowing when the HOA’s money creates money for someone else.

08/10/2026

Tomorrow, I’ll be attending a federal court hearing in Riva on the River Homeowners Association v. The Management Trust, a case involving allegations about financial benefits tied to banking relationships involving HOA funds.

The case raises a much bigger question than one lawsuit: If an HOA’s money makes money, who should get that money? And should homeowners be able to see who benefits and why?

I’m not going to California to decide who’s right. That’s the court’s job. I’m going because this case raises questions at the heart of why we built HOA Doctor.

Homeowners pay the bills, and those bills have skyrocketed. If an HOA’s bank accounts, insurance, vendors or buying power make money for someone, homeowners and boards should be able to see where that money goes.

That money could help lower HOA costs, build reserves, pay for repairs or reduce special assessments.

HOA Doctor is building a national transparency platform to make these financial relationships easier to see and understand.

Telling homeowners about a financial relationship is important. But the bigger question may be: who should get the money it creates?

Homeowners should not need a lawsuit to get that answer.

HOA Doctor

08/21/2026

08/20/2026

08/19/2026

08/17/2026

08/17/2026

08/14/2026

08/13/2026

08/11/2026

08/11/2026

08/10/2026

Address

Website

Alerts

Contact The Business

Shortcuts

Share

Category

Listing takedown request