Omni Community Association Managers

I am truly sorry that *** feels the way she feels, but most of her complaint arises from a lack of knowledge, or lack of understanding, about her home, subdivision and Omni's role in her homeowners' association. First, Omni does not charge homeowners at all, her Association charges her for her share of the costs of the maintenance of common areas and operating costs of amenities, including a private swimming pool. The dues amount is established by the Board of Directors of the Association, not by Omni -- Omni simply processes the paperwork to mail the dues invoices on behalf of the Association. The dues amount in the community is $330 per year for a subdivision with multiple ponds with fountains, large open space areas that have to be mowed, and a swimming pool with a pool building that sits on a 7.5 acre site the Association maintains. The pool is large enough to require (by State Law) lifeguards on site any time the pool is open, and the budget for operating and maintaining the pool is over $60,000 per year all by itself. The large open spaces the Association has to maintain costs over $70,000 to maintain. The costs are regularly bid and are reviewed and approved by the Board (not by Omni), in an effort to keep dues as low as possible. For frame of reference, Omni manages several other communities that are close in proximity to her community, and without swimming pools or other amenities have annual dues that are in the same general range of what she has been charged (she benefits from there being many homes in the community among which the costs are divided and shared).

Regarding pool passes, for many years we mailed passes, only to receive many, many complaints that people were stealing passes from the mail or that the mailings weren't arriving or were damaged by Post Office equipment in processing. Approximately 2 or 3 years ago, Omni adopted the process by which passes are hand delivered to the subdivision. We send personnel on two different days for 4 hours time frames (and do not charge extra for the service of doing so), to ensure delivery of the passes. I regret that *** is apparently one of an incredibly small percentage of the owners in the community who can't find a way within 8 hours of opportunity on 2 days, to pick up her passes. The process we adopted has resulted in the successful delivery to 98%+ of the owners in the community of their passes, with minimal inconvenience to anyone but us. The process may not be "perfect" for "everyone," but *** is in a significant minority in finding it to be "incredibly hard to retrieve" passes. The vast majority of owners picking up their passes are a joy to interact with, and happy with the process.

Relative to the violation, pictures clearly show the side of ***'s house in need of maintenance. She has not been fined, but has received letters indicating that she needs to address the maintenance need AND TO COMMUNICATE WITH US UPON DOING SO. We have no record of contact from her on this matter (she did use our Help Desk system in 2016 to facilitate our hand delivery to her of her pool passes for 2016). We document calls and have the Help Desk site available 24/7, which she has used in the past, none of which shows any communication about the violation status. If she has removed the mold/mildew stains, we are grateful and there will be no further consequence.

Finally, regarding the charges incurred in connection with her sale of her home, we have communicated directly with *** to advise her that the lender in her sale transaction is requiring us to certify documents and information to facilitate her closing. We do not do the work necessary to make her closing a success, and expose ourselves to legal liability for her benefit, without charging for those services. Candidly, this is the normal condition in today's lending environment, the aberration in this case being that we (Omni) charge significantly less for the service than virtually all other association managers (note, part of the fee charged is to a third party, not Omni, for processing the lender's requests). Far from "stealing" from her, or "looking to bleed people dry", we have undertaken to save her money to provide exceptional service. This far, we're also willing to ignore the fact that she has publicly defamed us (libel, slander) as an outgrowth of her lack of understanding. Instead, we will professionally and efficiently do what we always do -- charge less than our competition to proved great service while saving the owners in our community money. I would welcome and encourage *** to come to our office, meet the hard working individuals at Omni, and form a genuine opinion of who we are and what we do. I'm confident she'll be impressed. We certainly hope and pray for her happiness in her next home.