We already have a capital reserve fund. It is called the Amenity Reserve Fund and it is funded by our monthly assessment fee.
Therefore, instead of creating another capital fund, why not increase the monthly assessment fee? The POA Board can tell the property owners that they are increasing the Amenity Reserve Fund to cover future capital needs.
To read more about this current/existing Big Canoe capital fund, read Mr. Jim Owens’ Smoke Signals Article in the March 2008 issue, Page 45A.
or visit:
http://bigcanoenews.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=888&Itemid=78
As the LTFC said in their FAQ in the post below:
“The POA in years past has attempted to create a capital reserve fund but has never had the money to properly fund one. Often times the amenity reserve has been confused with a capital reserve.”
As Mr. Owners (an ex-POA Board Director) said in the closing of his article:
“Straight talk about the real situation is all that most property owners want. Such is our right. Let’s quit playing games and live within our means! Remember, the audience may know more than the actors think they do, so act accordingly.”
Would the POA Board, please be truthful with the property owners?
3 users commented in " Why do we need to create the new Capital Initiation Fee Fund? "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI am 100 per cent against a selective type of fee which places payment on the few who are either buying or selling property.
I note that Big Canoe’s share of assessed value of property in Pickens County is over 478,000,000 representing 16 percent of the total value in the County. Dawson County probably has a similar hare value. Taking the tax digest for both counties and applying a mill number to these values, say 1/2 of 1 percent($0.005) would produce $239,000 annually from Pickens alone and probably the same from Dawson County. On a House assessed at 300,000
this would be $150. Since the tax rolls are ublic info this info should be easily obtainable.
There is no fairness in giving the great majority of BC residents a bye on building up a CIF in the manner proposed. If so done unfairly, then values will head downhill fast and buyers will shy away from Big Canoe.
One or two of our BC directors should get with the County governments to see if this can be automatically incorporated into the County tax digest in order that we could write it off as a real estate tax item. This has been done in Lee County in Florida where I used to live.
I agree with Don Wyeth comment. I strongly disagree with the fee. It is not the time to make the homes harder to sell, as we have an inventory of homes now on the market larger than we have ever had. With just the homes now available it is estimated to take a minimum of 34 Months to return back to normal most likely even longer. This will decrease all the home values for years to come.
Heard from Big Canoe insider:
“The great “hidden rabbit” effort the POA Board is attempting to pull off is their access to the amenity reserve fund [existing fund] for virtually any capital reserve project including consolidated debt–capital and operating.
Our prediction in 1999 of the growth of the amenity fund to $1,000,000 came true in 2007, and after this depressed market, the fund will again produce millions of dollars over the years for the POA’s unfettered use.
Therefore it is not surprising to me that the Board doesn’t discuss the amenity reserve fund. It’s the Board’s little cookie jar.”