Quorum Case Files

In January 2014, New Jersey came closer than any state ever has to licensing HOA and community association managers. Bill A2658 passed the Assembly and the Senate by landslides — bipartisan sponsors, training and exam requirements, employee-dishonesty insurance, a segregated bank account for every association's money — and the state's own fiscal analysts certified the program self-funding. It needed one signature before the session ended. It never came. No veto message. No explanation. A pocket veto, by silence.

Inside the licensing law that almost was: what it required of community managers, who carried it, how it cleared every gate — and what condo and HOA boards can borrow from a bill that died unsigned. Governance lessons from the communities that lived them — from Quorum Press.

California — the largest community association market in America — looked at HOA manager licensing head-on for three years and chose something else entirely: it regulated a word. A real licensing bill was gutted mid-session into a mortgage bill. A mandatory industry-run registry with criminal penalties passed the Assembly — until homeowner groups killed it, arguing, per the committee record, that it would create a monopoly by statute. What survived in 2002 was title protection: it is an unfair business practice to call yourself a "certified common interest development manager" without 30 hours of coursework and an exam — or to claim the government licenses you at all. The "interim" answer is still the law today.

What "certified" legally means in California, what it does not, the gut-and-amend that erased a bill and its author, and the disclosure checklist every condo and HOA board can borrow no matter the state. Governance lessons from the communities that lived them — from Quorum Press.

The community association industry says it cannot find or keep managers — 97% of management company executives report a shortage. So what actually burns managers out? The industry's own survey of 524 community managers has the answer, and it is not the paycheck: inadequate pay sits eighth on the dissatisfaction chart, at 24% — behind unreasonable homeowner demands (55%), board micromanagement (52%), unreasonable board demands (50%), long meetings, and even night meetings. And then there is the number the industry has never published in any year: its own turnover rate.

What the data means for HOA and condo boards (you are on that chart three times), for management company executives (the cheapest fix on the list is administrative support, not salary), and for managers (ask for the assistant before you ask for the raise) — plus the trade-press mislabel we caught in our own published article and fixed on the record. Governance lessons from the communities that lived them — from Quorum Press.

The community association industry's trade group has spent decades telling legislatures that HOA and condo manager education is essential — and lobbying, sincerely, to mandate it. This episode asks a narrower question: has anyone ever measured whether the training works? We read the licensing white papers, the surveys, the best-practices reports, and the entire research catalog, cover to cover. The evidence offered is a satisfaction poll with no credential variable. The licensed-versus-unlicensed comparison is assembled in the industry's own tables — and never run. The only credential outcome ever measured is the manager's salary.

Not a takedown — a missing feature. Why measurement is the upgrade community association manager credentials deserve, what boards should ask about the letters after a manager's name, and how managers can build the evidence file no institution keeps. Governance lessons from the communities that lived them — from Quorum Press.

Series 4 of Quorum Case Files — "The Person in the Seat" — opens with the only licensing experiment in American history for HOA and condo community association managers. In 2015, Colorado required a license to manage a common interest community: 1,413 managers, an exam, a complaint window, a regulator. The state's own 2017 sunset review measured the complaints, counted the discipline, and recommended five more years. A Senate committee said no. A revival passed both chambers — and was vetoed. Then the record itself was destroyed, one February at a time.

What the only measured test of HOA manager licensing reveals about community association governance, board oversight, and the vacuum every other state still lives in. Governance lessons from the communities that lived them — from Quorum Press.

Season finale. Aina Nalu is a 189-unit, hotel-zoned condominium in Lahaina where tourists sheltered in the pool on August 8, 2023 while both buildings burned. The association's master policy, as reported, is built around partial damage and carries about twenty percent of a rebuild estimated above two hundred million dollars. Three years on, the pool is empty, owners face fee demands on units that no longer exist, and the Hawaii Supreme Court has decided who gets paid first from the four billion dollar settlement. Then Honolulu, where a hurricane that has not happened is already costing condo owners their mortgages: 375 to 390 buildings renew under 100 percent hurricane coverage, Fannie Mae's 100 percent rule kicks in, banks keep a blacklist, and Waikiki sales fall 48 percent. Then the turn: Act 296 and the state's hurricane relief fund writing condo policies, rates reported down 40 to 50 percent. Ian and Chris close the season with the verdict on all eight counts for HOA and community association board members, community managers and anyone who signs an insurance renewal.

Two twin townhouse complexes on Palisades Drive burn on the same night in January 2025. Upper Woodies, forty-six units, carries a private master policy reported at up to thirty-six million dollars. Lower Woodies, thirty-six units, has been dropped by its carrier and sits on the California FAIR Plan at the twenty-million-dollar cap. One year later, one HOA is rebuilding and the other has voted, eighty-nine percent, to sell the land for about a third of what the homes were worth, and then learns the sale trips the city's mansion tax. Ian and Chris read the declarations page: what each board thought it had bought, what a cap is, what a private carrier's non-renewal takes away from a condo board's options, and how a one-billion-dollar FAIR Plan assessment travels around the state. No blame on either board. Both did what the market allowed. For HOA and condo board members, community managers and community association insurance professionals: the renewal vote is the only board decision that survives the fire. Next: Lahaina, Honolulu, and when the market leaves, who insures.

After Hurricane Irma, a Naples condominium association files a roof claim and its carrier sends a check for thirty-two thousand five hundred sixty-eight dollars and twenty-three cents. The board reads the back of the policy, demands appraisal, and the carrier refuses. Seven years later the Eleventh Circuit affirms a judgment of more than six million dollars plus a million in interest and tells the insurer the result came from its own policy language and its own handling of the claim. Then Ian and Chris cross the country to Colorado, where a townhome association's hail award of more than ten million dollars is vacated because the appraiser the board picked was not impartial and an earlier fee contract was concealed. Same clause, both ways. In between, a ninety-second stop in Orlando, where owners at Dockside at Ventura are paying a twelve-year special assessment while the insurance fight runs. For HOA and condo board members, community managers and anyone on a community association insurance committee. Not legal advice.

Hurricane Ida breaks a rooftop water pipe at Metairie Towers, a two-hundred-eleven-unit condo tower in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. One hundred eighty-one units are damaged and every resident is ordered out. Then the strange part: the insurance pays. The community association collects roughly forty-three million dollars from a stack of insurers. Yet in April 2023 the owners get a notice saying the thirteen million left will not restore their units. Ian and Chris read the only record there is, a Louisiana appeals court ruling that lets the owners sue their board members, their community manager, their public adjuster and ten insurers as a class, and follow the money from a fifty-three million dollar estimate to a reported twenty-four million dollar sale. Along the way: four hundred thousand dollars allegedly wired to a "cyber pirate," a sell-or-assess vote, and a sixty-second detour on why Louisiana's guaranty fund treats a condo very differently from Florida's. For HOA and condo board members and community managers who will one day hold the insurance check. Not legal advice.

September 2004. Two hurricanes, Frances and Jeanne, hit a forty-three story oceanfront condo tower on Singer Island, Florida, weeks apart. The community association's windstorm policy carries a limit of about fifty million dollars, and the board members ask the one question that matters: is that per storm, or total? Their broker says per storm. The board spends more than one hundred million dollars on remediation. Then the insurer says the limit was fifty million, once. Ian and Chris read the two court opinions that follow: the Florida Supreme Court decision that lets a condo association sue its insurance broker for negligence by limiting the state's economic loss rule to products cases, and the federal ruling that recognizes an enhanced duty of care when a broker has a special relationship with its client. The Declarations Page segment is literally about a declarations page this time: what per occurrence and aggregate mean for the ear, and why asking the broker is not the same as reading the policy. For HOA and condo board members and community managers who sign off on an insurance renewal every year. Not legal advice.