Falls Church, Va., Sept. 14, 2023 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — A regularly applied maintenance plan and program are essential parts of a community association’s responsibility to its homeowners, according to Best Practices: Community Association Maintenance, a new report published by the Foundation for Community Association Research. Combined with a properly prepared and funded reserve study, community association board members, developers, managers, and business partners who adhere to maintenance protocols can help ensure their communities are safe, desirable, and financially secure. 

Following the Champlain Towers South condominium collapse and tragic death of 98 people in June 2021 in Surfside, Fla., the Foundation and Community Associations Institute (CAI) recognized that greater clarity was required about the role of maintenance planning and programming in communities around the world. Community associations, also known as condominium communities, homeowners associations, and housing cooperatives, and their elected volunteer board members have a mandate to preserve, protect, and enhance their properties. 

“The new report published by the Foundation provides detailed tools, resources, and guidance to help community association board members succeed in fulfilling their obligations related to maintenance in their community,” says Dawn M. Bauman, CAE, executive director of the Foundation and CAI’s chief strategy officer. “The planned application of maintenance through an ongoing maintenance program is the best way for boards to achieve the goal of preserving, protecting, and enhancing their communities.” 

Best Practices: Community Association Maintenance highlights building maintenance programs, the roles and responsibilities of the developer and homeowners, the intersection of reserve studies and maintenance, sample maintenance checklists, and more. 

“If a board fails to maintain its community, it will quickly fall into disrepair and begin a downward spiral that is hard to reverse. The usual outcome is special assessments, board recalls, bank borrowing, and political upheaval leading to more chaos,” says J. David Rauch, one of the new report’s authors and the president and CEO of ProTec Building Services in San Diego. “If maintenance is applied intelligently with a maintenance plan and a maintenance program accompanied by a properly prepared and funded reserve study, the community will enjoy desirable common areas and thrive at reasonable expense.”

The Foundation offers function-specific Best Practices Reports on select topics to document criteria, detail case studies of community association success, and develop a showcase of community excellence. Community Association Maintenance is the organization’s 12th report. Other reports cover transition from developer control, reserve studies, strategic planning, natural disasters, financial operations, governance, security, and more. 

Community Association Maintenance is available as a free digital book and download. A printed version is available for sale through the CAI Press bookstore. 

Community Association Maintenance is proudly sponsored by Associa and Avalon Management Group. 

The new report is part of the Foundation’s and CAI’s commitment to improving condominium safety and developing structurally sound and fiscally responsible communities. View more information and resources related to condominium safety at www.condosafety.com

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Media Contact:
Daniel Brannigan
Senior Director of Publishing
dbrannigan@caionline.org | (703) 970-9233

Dawn M. Bauman, CAE
Chief Strategy Officer, CAI | Executive Director, Foundation for Community Association Research
dbauman@caionline.org | (703) 867-5588

About the Foundation for Community Association Research

Our mission—with your support—is to provide research-based information for homeowners, community association board members, community managers, developers, and other stakeholders. Since the Foundation’s inception in 1975, we’ve built a solid reputation for producing accurate, insightful, and timely information, and we continue to build on that legacy. Visit foundation.caionline.org.

About Community Associations Institute 
Since 1973, Community Associations Institute (CAI) has been the leading provider of resources and information for homeowners, volunteer board leaders, professional managers, and business professionals in the more than 358,000 homeowners associations, condominiums, and housing cooperatives in the United States and millions of communities worldwide. With more than 45,000 members, CAI works in partnership with 36 legislative action committees and 64 affiliated chapters within the U.S., Canada, South Africa, and the United Arab Emirates as well as with housing leaders in several other countries, including Australia, Spain, and the United Kingdom. A global nonprofit 501(c)(6) organization, CAI is the foremost authority in community association management, governance, education, and advocacy. Our mission is to inspire professionalism, effective leadership, and responsible citizenship—ideals reflected in community associations that are preferred places to call home. Visit us at www.caionline.org, and follow us on Twitter and Facebook @CAISocial.

• Best Practices: Community Association Maintenance