Most boards think about records only when an owner asks to see them. The harder question is the one nobody asks until it is too late: does the association actually have its own records, and could it hand them over tomorrow? Start with what the law requires. Under M.G.L. c. 183A, section 10(c), the organization of unit owners or its managing agent must keep a complete copy of the master deed, the bylaws, the minute book to the extent minutes are kept, and the financial records. The financial records are spelled out: all receipts and expenditures, invoices and vouchers authorizing payments, receivables and bank statements; the replacement reserve fund and any other funds; audits, reviews, accounting statements and financial reports; contracts for work or services; and all current insurance policies. Those records must be kept up to date, kept within the Commonwealth, and made available for reasonable inspection by any unit owner, and by any mortgagee holding a recorded first mortgage on a unit, during regular business hours. The person asking may photocopy them at their own expense. Notice what the statute does not say. It does not set a retention period. It lists what to keep and who may see it, and stops there. Which means how long your association keeps anything is a board decision - and in most associations, nobody has made it. That gap produces two opposite failures. Some associations keep everything forever in a basement closet, which is how a burst pipe becomes a records crisis. Others keep whatever the current manager's system happens to hold, which works until the manager changes. That second one is the real risk, and boards consistently underestimate it. The records belong to the association. They do not belong to the management company, the accountant, or the treasurer who kept them on a laptop. But in practice, custody follows whoever does the work, and when that relationship ends - a manager is replaced, a self-managing treasurer steps down, a bookkeeper retires - the association discovers how much of its history was never actually in its own hands. Ten years of minutes in a former trustee's email. Bank statements available only through a portal the association has no login to. Contracts nobody can find.

In June we made the case for signing your snow contract early, while contractors have capacity and before the price conversation happens in November. This post is about the other half: what is actually in the contract you sign. Most association snow contracts are a page and a half long and say something like "snow plowing and sanding of driveway and parking areas as needed." That sentence is where most winter complaints, and a surprising number of claims, come from. Every item below is something that contract does not answer. HOW YOU PAY There are four common structures. A seasonal flat fee gives budget certainty and shifts heavy-winter risk to the contractor, but you pay the same in a light year. Per-push or per-event pricing tracks actual weather, but a bad winter can blow the budget. Tiered pricing by inch - one price up to four inches, another up to eight, another above - is fairer to both sides but only works if the contract defines how snowfall is measured and who measures it. Hourly equipment rates are the hardest for a board to control. Pick deliberately, and then make sure the budget line matches the structure you chose. A per-push contract budgeted like a seasonal fee is next spring's variance. WHEN THEY COME The trigger depth is the most important number in the contract, and it is often missing. Two inches is common. Write it down, and write down what happens below it: does a one-inch snow followed by freezing rain get treated, or does the lot become a rink because it never hit the trigger? Then response time. How many hours after snowfall stops, or after the trigger depth is reached, must the first pass be complete? Do they return during a long storm, and how often? WHAT THEY CLEAR, AND IN WHAT ORDER List it specifically: driveway and aisles, each parking area, fire lanes, hydrants, dumpster access, building entrances, walkways, steps, ramps, and any accessible routes. Sidewalks and stairs are the item most often assumed and least often included, because they are hand work and plow contractors frequently price them separately or not at all.

Ask a room of volunteer trustees whether their association pays taxes and most will say no. It is a nonprofit, isn't it? It usually is not, in the tax sense. A condominium association is generally a taxable entity that files a federal return every year. What keeps your owners' common fees from being taxed is not a status your association holds permanently. It is an election, and it is made one year at a time. Year-end planning starts now, so here is what the board needs to understand. THE ELECTION Most condominium associations file IRS Form 1120-H, which is how an association elects under section 528 to be treated as a homeowners association. That election is made separately for each tax year, generally by the return's due date including extensions. For a calendar-year association, the return is due the 15th day of the fourth month after year end - April 15. When the election applies, membership dues, fees and assessments from unit owners are exempt function income and are not taxed. THE TWO TESTS To qualify in a given year, the association has to pass two tests. At least 60 percent of gross income must be exempt function income - owners' dues, fees and assessments. At least 90 percent of expenditures must go to acquiring, building, managing, maintaining and caring for association property. There is also a rule that no private individual may profit from the association's net earnings, other than through the association acquiring, building, managing, maintaining or caring for its property, or rebating excess assessments. Most residential associations pass both tests easily. The ones that come close are associations with meaningful outside income - which brings us to what actually gets taxed. WHAT IS TAXED Income that is not exempt function income is taxable. For a typical association, that means interest earned on reserve and operating accounts, and income from sources other than owner assessments: a cell tower lease on the roof, laundry machine revenue, parking or storage rented to non-owners.