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Welcome to the Podcast Amanda!
13 Plays1 month ago
🎧 Welcome to Thoughts For Rent — the podcast where real estate gets real (and local)!
Hosted by Jenni McKenna, a Las Vegas born and raised seasoned broker, and Owner of McKenna Property Management, this show is your inside look at what’s really happening in the Vegas property management and real estate world. With over 20 years of experience herself - Jenni brings not just knowledge, but heart to the conversation.
Whether we’re talking market trends, property tips, community happenings, or just the everyday quirks of Vegas living, this podcast is all about keeping you in the know.
💬 Real talk. Local stories. Professional insight – provided from a company who has their boots on the ground and hearts in the community.
In this episode, we’re meeting Amanda one of Jenni's associates at McKenna PM! We get the inside scoop on what her day might look like and how she stays busy with all her HOA duties.
McKenna Property Management, proudly managing Las Vegas homes since 2005 (and loving every minute of it).
Hit subscribe and comment down below to join the conversation! 💛
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Instagram: @mckennapropertymanagement
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Website: McKennaPropertyManagement.com
Phone: 702-434-HOME (4663)
Owner/Broker: Jenni McKenna B.29819
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Transcript
Introduction to Amanda and HOAs
00:00:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, welcome to Thoughts for Rent, Realtors Keeping It Real. And today we have a super fun episode that we're going to do because we have a team member that has joined me so that we could talk a little bit about what she specializes in and give some give everybody an idea ah about just a little insight. I like to say, let's pull the curtain on this department.
00:00:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
So Amanda, why don't you tell everybody about yourself and what you do?
Benefits of HOAs
00:00:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
First of all, I'm so excited to be on here today and share my knowledge on HOAs with you um I work for McKenna Property Management. I am the HOA coordinator. i help homeowners and residents and HOAs all communicate with each other.
00:01:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I'm kind of the liaison. and i What is an HOA? An HOA is a homeowners association. and do we like them? Yes and no.
00:01:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
Okay. Tell me why you like them and why you don't like them. So the benefit of having an HOA they keep the community looking good. And that's
Understanding HOA Rules and CC&Rs
00:01:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
like the whole purpose is to make sure that a community is uniform and everybody's following the rules and they try to keep it as fair and hold everybody to the same accountability, which I think is good because then when you're living in an h a your neighbor can't just paint their house green or blue. i like green houses. I'm just joking.
00:01:50
Irelynn Zurflueh
mean, it can be kind of fun sometimes having those colored homes, but when your house is ah tan brown and then your neighbor goes and paints it a neon green, those are going to clash. So HOA just makes sure is that everything is in uniform People are following the rules. They keep the communities looking good and they just hold everybody to ah accountability. And those rules and regulations, they're well defined at the time that the owner buys the house, correct? It's
Participation in HOA Boards
00:02:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
not like yeah you buy the house and then all of a sudden a month later you find out, oh crap, there's a bunch of rules here.
00:02:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. So when you purchase the home, ah homeowners receive their CC&Rs, which is covenant conditions and regulations. And it's a cute,
00:02:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
thick packet that's about 50 to 150 pages and it breaks down how the board works, how the rules within the community works, how the budgeting works, um ARC applications, and it just breaks down everything for you. So when you purchase the home, you are provided that packet so you have every information about the community.
00:02:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
And I think that at least they used to do this whenever you would become a new homeowner for any property in an HOA community, they encourage the homeowner to become part of the board.
00:03:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
So board members, um so the actual owners within the community become members of the board. Is that correct? That is correct, yeah. um I believe it is a once a year thing within HOAs where they go through and they do voting for board members.
00:03:26
Irelynn Zurflueh
um I do receive those. However, unfortunately, renters can't become board members. It has to be homeowners. So they do definitely encourage that homeowners get on the board and participate within the community. and And have a say because they are, they have the investment within that community.
Role of HOA Coordinator
00:03:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
So get them to talk about what needs to be done.
00:03:47
Irelynn Zurflueh
So that's a little bit about the HOA and what do you do for McKenna property management under the HOA department? ah What I do is I am the messenger.
00:03:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
cat Get shot, basically, because everybody thinks I am the HOA. That is like a little saying, right? The saying is true. Don't shoot the messenger. Don't shoot Amanda. They get me every single day.
00:04:12
Irelynn Zurflueh
i um and i'm a communicator between HOA homeowners and residents because by law, the HOAs cannot speak to renters.
00:04:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
They can only speak to homeowners or home or representatives legal representatives of homeowners. And as the property manager, we're considered a legal representative of a homeowner. So if... And what are some of the things that you're going to be a messenger for?
00:04:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
um If our resident receives an HOA violation, I communicate to the resident and let them know that they have this HOA violation They need to correct it. This is how they correct it. And this is the date they need it corrected by along with sending me photos.
00:04:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
And from there, once I get the photos, I then send it to the HOA and I communicate with the HOA. This violation
Case Study: Payment Method Change and Legal Fees
00:05:01
Irelynn Zurflueh
has been corrected. Here's the photo proving that it's been corrected. And I get that um violation closed out.
00:05:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
Or sometimes we have owner violations and I contact the owner and I let the owner know, same gist, you have this violation, this date, and then I send the ah correction photos to the HOA to get that closed out.
00:05:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
um Other things that I help facilitate with HOAs is the dues. So sometimes we have issues with HOAs where they'll change banking or management companies and maybe the homeowners weren't made aware of that.
00:05:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
So then their auto pays end up um defaulting and not working. So the HOA will then send me a notice letting me know that our homeowners have defaulted their dues. supposed to send you notice. They're supposed to send me a notice, yes. This is a very open wound for me right now as we talk about this. completely understandable seeing as we had an incident this week. Should we share our incident?
Legal Complexities of HOA Collections
00:06:06
Irelynn Zurflueh
I think we should. I think it was a really good learning curve and it does show the shady side of HOAs.
00:06:13
Irelynn Zurflueh
In this case, it definitely shows shady side. Yeah, I definitely agree. i mean, I hate to think that. HOAs aren't doing their part because we rely on them. the homeowners that have bought in the community rely on that HOA and then the management of that HOA. But in this case, I agree with you, Amanda, it was pretty shady.
00:06:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yes. So this is long story short, yeah we have a wonderful owner, client, um has multiple properties with us.
00:06:45
Irelynn Zurflueh
Actually has a background in finance, so is very much educated in making payments, keeping um you know keeping everything in line that of what he owes, he pays.
00:06:58
Irelynn Zurflueh
He had set his HOA payment up on an auto pay. An ACH is what they called it. yep And it just so happened that the HOA management decided they no longer wanted to accept ACH payments and stopped in January of 2025.
00:07:21
Irelynn Zurflueh
However, our owner client, love him, he didn't get any of this notification. We, as the property manager, did not get any of this notification.
00:07:34
Irelynn Zurflueh
And so on Monday 4 o'clock p.m., we got what, Amanda? I
HOA Power and Homeowner Disputes
00:07:42
Irelynn Zurflueh
got a lovely notice from a lawyer company letting us know that the owner has been sent to collection or yeah has been sent to collections and lien was placed on his home due to the HOA dues not being paid. Because January through May, he thought, owner,
00:08:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
thought that because it was coming out of his bank like it did for five previous years, he didn't think anything about it. And so therefore, January, February, March, and April and May were all default. They were all delinquent for the HOA payments.
00:08:22
Irelynn Zurflueh
And the lovely HOA decided The management of the HOA decided to send our owner to collections, which immediately is about a $1,500 cost. Yeah. that's hard cost.
00:08:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
yeah so that's they have Yeah, they have what's called hard costs. So once that file goes over to a collection agency, which is usually hosted by an attorney, It's an attorney firm where usually one attorney will take care of all the collections.
00:08:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
There is no way, at least we've never been able to, get any of the attorneys to waive those fees? I have once. You have? I have. Okay. Because I was able to provide multiple documentation showing that we had paid and I couldn't understand why we were sent to collections and come to find out the HOA was um putting the checks on the wrong property. Oh, different unit number or something like that. So the HOA did actually have to eat the fees of that one.
00:09:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
That warms my heart because most of the time the attorney's office will not waive fees. Well, in that case, ah the attorney office didn't waive the fee. The HOA management company had to eat the fee.
00:09:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Yeah. They had to eat. So that my point still proven that the HOA, that whoever is doing the collection. So that law firm does not waive those fees. No.
00:09:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
So we have this situation where the owner absolutely understands as he goes back and looks at his bank account, he did not notice that he didn't pay the HOAs and the HOA assessment. So he is in delinquent.
00:10:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
I mean, he's, he should have paid. And now you've got it sent to an attorney And the attorney jumps that ah to $1,500. So his HOAs and late fees of $25 per month turned out to be a little bit over $1,000.
Communication Challenges with HOAs
00:10:19
Irelynn Zurflueh
ah thousand dollars But the check that had to be written to the attorney office in order to get the lien released was like close to $2,500. $1,500 money spent that so yeah fifteen hundred dollars of money spent they is just a ridiculous fee. So lesson, moral, let's get the moral of the story.
00:10:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
And it could be a lesson. Just because you think money is coming out of your bank account to pay HOA, it is not to be assumed.
00:10:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
You are to check it. You are to call the HOA because the power that the HOAs have here in Nevada can literally foreclose on your property. So when I was having and this conversation with my owner, who I love,
00:11:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
He said, I am not going to pay that $1,500. I am not going to do this. I'm just not going to do it. And I had to have the heart to heart that said, if you don't do it, they are going to foreclose on you and they're going to take your property that's in the ballpark of $450,000, no mortgage on it, $450,000. They sell it.
00:11:25
Irelynn Zurflueh
no mortgage on it four hundred And they will and then they will pay off all of the debt first And then they will have the property and they can do whatever they want with it.
00:11:38
Irelynn Zurflueh
So it sucks, but it is what it is. So besides the fact that we heard about this non-payment of HOAs and what happens when they do lean the property because they have that much power, what are some other things that get a little frustrating with the HOA?
00:11:55
Irelynn Zurflueh
Communication. okay um Trying to communicate with HOAs. I think in just my experience and what I've heard from other people is because they hold so much power and everything like that they see themselves above.
00:12:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
everybody else, or at least that's how it feels. So my day-to-day life, I am constantly calling HOAs, following up with HOAs, putting in tickets, emails, basically fighting for my life, trying to get them on the phone to talk to me. um They communicate at their own leisure and come around when they have the convenience to do so. They're in no
Legal Limitations in Contesting HOA Actions
00:12:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
rush ever.
00:12:44
Irelynn Zurflueh
to get anything done, but expect you to rush and get your violations closed out, or they're going to start charging you $100 fine per week. um And that's another thing is sometimes when you send these correction photos,
00:12:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
you really have to follow up with the HOA multiple times to get that verification that the violation's been closed because sometimes they'll ignore it or delete it, um file it away and not close out that violation. And then you end up accumulating fines for something that you did correct. Yeah.
00:13:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
and And the thing is, is at least in Nevada, because I can't speak to anywhere else outside of Nevada, because this is where I've practiced real estate. They're governed by the ombudsman, which is really frustrating because if somebody is doing something wrong to you,
00:13:31
Irelynn Zurflueh
I like small claims court. I like the people's court. I call that the people's court. So if you've got something that is less than $10,000 and you feel like you've been damaged, you can go to small claims court. You can plead your case to the judge or even get it ah mitigated if you if you so choose. But you will have a voice. You will be heard.
00:13:51
Irelynn Zurflueh
And then, of course, the other side's going to have their voice and they'll be heard. And then there will be a judgment. And then it'll be closed and it'll be done, right? And if there's monies that... were damages and the judge award awards that, uh, that those monies to you, it's a judgment. You can hold it up.
00:14:08
Irelynn Zurflueh
Wow. Interesting enough, the HOA, even though in the case scenario we talked about, did not follow the NRS 116 section 113 about how you have to notify the person or the address on record, which happened to be our address, our office address, with some form of certificate mail to prove that.
00:14:33
Irelynn Zurflueh
of mailing. They didn't do it. They also said they sent out five emails to the owner, which they cannot prove that they actually did. I would like to be able to take that HOA management company to court because they caused $1,500 worth of damage, right? Yep.
00:14:53
Irelynn Zurflueh
Can't. Monies will not be discussed under an HOA board or an HOA management company in small claims court. They will kick it out. You have to go to the ombudsman.
00:15:05
Irelynn Zurflueh
You have to have a hearing. And then from there, depending on how that hearing goes, then you can move forward. Now, Amanda, who in their right mind has time to do all of that over $1,500? Nobody. So they $1,500.
00:15:17
Irelynn Zurflueh
nobody so they win Just because they make sure that they have that that opportunity of of making it to where nobody wants to fight that battle.
00:15:30
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. And it's not just the $1,500. If you were to take them to court, you have to kind of hope and pray that your lawyer fees are covered as well if you were to win.
00:15:41
Irelynn Zurflueh
And that's if you were to win. And in this case, unfortunately, listeners, because my owner did not pay his required association fee, which is documented at the time that you close escrow.
00:15:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
So it is absolutely a fee that you should be making sure you're paying. The judge more than likely would not have awarded attorney fees for us because our owner was in the wrong.
00:16:11
Irelynn Zurflueh
Now, did the HOA not handle it correctly? Yes. But as far as going to court to get that $1,500 removed from the attorney, we would have lost more than likely.
00:16:23
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. And that's the really unfortunate part is that HOAs aren't being held as accountable as they should be. I agree. they have this ombudsman that's supposed to hold the HOAs accountable and make sure that they're doing the proper protocol.
00:16:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
But they find loopholes around it, such as your owner didn't pay his dues, so he's in the wrong. And how many HOAs are in Las Vegas that the Ombudsman's have to supervise? I mean, it's just too much. It's too big of an entity for one little group over here yeah to make sure that they're following the rules and regulations.
Staying Compliant with HOA Regulations
00:16:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
Vegas is definitely a HOA-friendly city. Yeah.
00:17:02
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah, absolutely. So... Well, I love it when we, yeah as a messenger, yeah you message to the ah resident, hey, your garbage cans have been left out longer than they should.
00:17:16
Irelynn Zurflueh
And why in heaven's name do they not learn from that mistake? Why is it month after month after month that you have to continue to be a messenger for them? You know, accidents happen. And I definitely realize that with HOAs. There are some where you can't make excuses for them because their garbage cans are on the side of their house and they're clear as day.
00:17:39
Irelynn Zurflueh
You could see them from the street. But I understand that like sometimes people get busy and say, because you have a 12 hour period be on garbage day. Okay. you can put your garbage cans out twelve hours prior sir and they have to be back in twelve hours post okay garbage pickup so i do understand that sometimes people get busy you might go out for food or something after work and you just can't get back to your garbage cans right away And the HOA, they come by, especially on garbage day. Well, and let's be honest. It's not the HOA manager that walks the neighborhood.
00:18:15
Irelynn Zurflueh
It's usually a board member. It's one of your neighbors that is walking the neighborhood. And they take a picture and they email it right over to the HOA. Yeah.
00:18:27
Irelynn Zurflueh
Well, this is interesting. So our HOA is ah it's a very important part of property management.
Importance of Written Communication with HOAs
00:18:32
Irelynn Zurflueh
And for those of you that are self-managing, you want to make sure that you are on top of your HOA, that you're on top of making sure that if there are any violations,
00:18:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
You get them closed, exactly how Amanda talked um about making sure that you've got that proof, send in the photos, get that, you know, closing, what's it called? a The clo violation closure notice or something like that? Confirmation.
00:18:57
Irelynn Zurflueh
Confirmation of closing. So it's just one of those things that you think is not that big of a deal, but trust me, It is. And if you are planning on interviewing property management companies, one of the things that I would make sure that they are on top of is your HOA.
00:19:14
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Amanda happens to be amazing for McKenna Property Management. We love everything that she does for HOAs. I never worry about it because she's always on top of it. But there you want to make sure that the managed company understands the importance of HOAs.
00:19:29
Irelynn Zurflueh
Definitely. And you want to make sure that you always have things in writing with the HOA. That is the biggest thing is don't do it over the phone because then it becomes a he said, she said, and the HOAs will win every single time.
00:19:43
Irelynn Zurflueh
You want to make sure that you have things in writing with HOAs. Cover your butt. That's what I like to say. I think that's the lesson of HOAs is make sure that your butt is covered yeah in all aspects when it comes to them because they, though they're supposed to protect your community, they are definitely for themselves.
Final Thoughts on HOA Compliance
00:20:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yep.
00:20:04
Irelynn Zurflueh
I agree. Well, we kept it real today, didn't we, Amanda? I think we did. i mean, unfortunately, it's not the pretty side that people want with HOAs. Though your community looks beautiful, um there's a lot of underlying shady things that go on within it.
00:20:20
Irelynn Zurflueh
But the way to stay away from the shady things is pay your HOA on time. Pay your HOA on time. Pull your weeds. Put your trash cans away. a good neighbor. Yeah. Be a good neighbor. let your Let your property stand out to be a nice, well-cared-for property, more than likely your HOA will stay off your butt.
00:20:37
Irelynn Zurflueh
Yeah. Okay, cool. Well, that is our show today. Thank you, Amanda, for being on it. Of course. Thanks for having me. You are very welcome. And this is Thoughts for Rent.
00:20:48
Irelynn Zurflueh
If you have any suggestions or you want us to talk about certain things, please feel free to let us know. We are always open for suggestions. And that's about it for today. Have a great day.
00:20:59
Irelynn Zurflueh
Have a good one.