Background and Timeline
1) November 30, 2023: HOA board of directors election to elect three directors from the current homeowners replacing Brightland (formerly known as Gehan Homes).
2) December 04, 2023: New board (Dutt Tarigoppula, Ammar Bhaisaheb, and Ian Mackinnon) were elected as the new board of directors, and started functioning.
3) December 06, 2023 – First draft of the 2024 budget was presented to the board by PS Property Management (PSP). The budget was drawn-up by Brightland and the high-level gist of the budget is as follows:
4) December 06, 2023 – It was immediately clear that the developer contribution of $35,493 which was available during 2023 will no longer be available in 2024, and that Brightland arbitrarily reduced expenses on the various heads to present a balanced budget for 2024.
5) December 06 – 12, 2023 – There was a significant discussion with PS Property Management and the new board, and it was clear to the board that the budgeted revenue will not be enough to cover the 2024 expenses leading to a budget shortfall
6) December 12 – 15, 2023: Since there was no time for the new board members to make a detailed study and revise the budget, PS Property Management recommended that the budget be adopted as-is, and to cover the anticipated shortfall with the mid-year assessment.
7) December 21, 2023: Board asked Brightland for either one of the following, however they did not agree to either of them:
- Make final contribution to Homestead HOA to increase the 2024 revenue so as to cover the likely shortfall
- Pay November and December 2023 bills
8) December 23, 2023: At this point, the board had the following two options
- First option was to arbitrarily increase the annual assessment for 2024 as there was not enough time left (before Jan 1st due date) to make an informed decision, or
- Second option was to adopt the budget as-is without making any increases in assessment and seek funds by way of a special assessment later in the year
9) December 23, 2023: Board decided to go with the second option, but made sure that the community was notified immediately. On the same day a detailed message was posted on WhatsApp and Facebook groups explaining the situation. The community was told to expect a mid-year assessment. This was the message that was posted – https://homestead.rocks/transition/
For additional details and the background on this topic, below is the snippet from the minutes of the recent board meeting on 09/05/24;
In conclusion, 2024 budget handed over to us by Brightland during the transition was incorrect, to say the least. We expect to resolve the issue with this one-time special assessment of $200 per homeowner (due 11/01/2024).