C.T. from Hartford County writes:
Dear Mister Condo,
Thank you for being there to answer questions. What a grand resource!!!!
–How often should one change auditors for a large condo with a budget [excluding reserves] of over 3.5 M?
–Is there a standard/recommended amount of time to have the same auditor year after year?
–Also, the same question re a condo’s lawyer?
Mister Condo replies:
C.T., thank you for the kind words. Let me see if I can repay you with some kind advice.
Generally speaking, auditors are outside third parties that have no vested interest in the association, meaning they have an assignment of reviewing “the books” for the association and giving an opinion as to whether or not everything is in order. Unless there has been a problem of some sort with the auditor’s performance, I am not certain there is any need to change auditors. Keep in mind that your auditor also works for other associations and businesses. If there are no complaints against the auditor from any of these sources, I think I would keep the auditor. Of course, it is a two way street and if the auditor is showing signs that he or she is no longer interested in auditing your association’s records, then it is most definitely time for a new auditor. You need sharp eyes and keen business acumen to do a good job of auditing association records, especially the dollar volume of an association as large as yours.
Condominium lawyers are another story, in my opinion. Many condominium associations suffer from “institutional memory loss” as Boards change leadership and members over the years. Many times, the condo lawyer is one of the few constants for the association, which can be quite useful so the same mistakes are not made again and again by new Board members. That being said, if the association feels their attorney isn’t best serving it, there is no shortage of qualified community association attorneys that could be considered. However, to simply change attorney for the sake of changing attorneys makes no sense to me at all. In fact, it might even create duplicate work for the association if a new attorney were asked to help out with a legal matter a previous attorney had already handled for the association.
The bottom line is that these professionals are external to the association and have no vested interest as unit owners within the association might. If they are performing to the expectations of the association, I see no reason to change them simply for the sake of change. Good luck!
Originally posted at AskMisterCondo.com