How to run an apartment owners’ association professionally?
An apartment owners’ association has many number of people and can be run peacefully only with the co-ordination and co-operation of the society members. A string of problems arouse when there is lack of participation and involvement, personality smashes, petty political problems and an inability to come together to address solve problems effectively.
Every apartment owners’ association has such type of problems and lot of strategies are required to tackle such problems. Apart from just these issues there are also inter personal issues amongst the managing members which apparently leads to chaos.
What should be done in such cases?
An apartment owners’ association can be run effectively and professionally by leveraging technology to overcome all the hurdles. Having the apt tools to manage a society will be more than beneficial to every apartment owners’ association. Doing this will help them manage their apartment in an efficient, effective and transparent way.
Why is there a need for an organised method while managing an apartment association?
With an increase in urbanisation, more and more apartments are coming up in every city and this apparently has led to a situation wherein more number of people consider it as a norm to stay in an apartment.
Various cities like Bangalore and Mumbai are acquiring an experience by living together in a close community sharing resources significantly. This in turn requires a formal body to manage the shared resources.
Every apartment buildings and other housing structures are managed by the registrar of societies of the concerned states. Various amenities like electricity, water, general maintenance, garden etc. should be taken care in an organised way.
Guidelines to run an apartment owners’ association in an efficient way:
Have a precise and regular way of communicating with the members:
Most of the apartments face issues due to lack of proper communication among members. In order to communicate in a better way, there are various tools which are created online by firms like CommonFloor and others. These platforms allow all the members to unite, manage and share their opinions.
Transparency:
This is one of the most important aspects while managing an apartment owners’ association. The platform should allow all the members of the society to view and share all the information at any place. Easy access should be given to members to know the details of the entire managing committee.
Other updates like the broadcast notifications through email should be sent to all members or subset of members. Also there should be alerts sent through SMS as well.
Maintaining a formal action item register:
Every apartment should have a record of all the actions and should maintain the items/issues/suggestions/complaints in a central place assigned to relevant members. Doing this will help the apartment progress and solve the issues efficiently. This also increases the transparency among all the members.
Maintain a Balance sheet for the managing committee results:
There should be an organised maintenance of a balanced sheet of all the issues resolved by the committee members. Apart from just this, the categories, the expenses and the number of defaulters should also be mentioned in the list. This enables all the members to showcase their work as well as make them aware of all the details dealt with.
