A homeowner in Aurora, Colorado, is facing an $8,000 special assessment due July 1. In fact, every unit in their townhouse community has been hit with the same charge, tied to a roof replacement project estimated at over $2 million. The homeowner took to Reddit looking for advice on how to proceed, where neighbors have shared concerns about the assessment in general.
According to the post, the bill is due in less than a month, an amount many residents say they just can’t pull together on short notice. The homeowner and others have questioned several parts of the process, including that the management company sought only one estimate, that absentee and non-votes were counted as yes votes, and that the bid included a roughly $200,000 oversight fee sent straight to the association. Residents have also said one board member told the meeting that the board wasn’t unanimous, but the project went ahead anyway.
The roof work stems from a claim tied to a 2024 hail storm, and the roofing contractor has said the community’s roofs are not up to code. Some residents who bought their homes after the storm say their own inspections found no problems, and several have reported that their insurers will not cover the assessment. A vote was held over a two-hour Zoom meeting, and the homeowner says residents were given only a few minutes to cast their votes in the chat.
The price tag is alarming, but the situation isn’t unique to this community. Across Colorado and beyond, high insurance costs have pushed homeowners associations into special assessments worth thousands of dollars per unit. Understanding how those assessments work and what coverage may help can make for an extremely confusing situation.
Why Are HOA Assessments Getting So Big?
HOA Issues resulting in $8000 assessment due in less than a month
by
u/HoraceTheMushyCat in
legaladvice
Insurance is one of the biggest deciding factors for these massive fees. After years of heavy hail and wind from storms, insurers have stopped offering homeowners associations fixed deductibles and switched to percentage-based ones. They’re usually around 5% of a property’s insured value. When a storm damages a whole community, the association files a claim on its master policy. It has to cover the deductible first, which can run into the hundreds of thousands.
That deductible gets divided among the unit owners as a special assessment. In Colorado, where these costs have hit especially hard, some communities have faced even steeper bills than this one. Residents of a Colorado Springs townhome community were recently assessed more than $20,000 each after a 2024 hail storm, a figure their association blamed squarely on the changed insurance market, according to KRDO.
What to Do If You’re Hit With a Special Assessment
Your first call should be to your own insurance company if you receive a notice for a special assessment. Some policies, known as HO-6 policies, include loss assessment coverage that can pay your share of an assessment. That’s why you need to send your insurer the assessment letter right away. Be aware that the default limit is often just $1,000 and that some policies cap what they pay specifically for deductible assessments, so it’s worth confirming your numbers and raising the limit in case you need it.
It also pays to read your documents and your state’s HOA laws closely, since they set the rules for assessments, voting, and how many estimates a board needs. Pay attention to how the vote went, because in some communities, an assessment passes unless enough owners vote it down. If you believe the board or management company broke its own bylaws, an attorney can often represent multiple owners simultaneously.