Finance & Legal minutes: 2015-02-23

Agenda:

Jobs for Spring Work Season
Accounts Receivable
CH Assessment Proposals
Insurance issues
Renaming one of the financial reports
Garages
Audi
Bylaws Section pertaining to owner responsibility following a leak
F&L's Cooler Document

Minutes:

Finance & Legal Committee Meeting

Minutes of 2-23-15 Meeting

Present: Becky G., Becky H., Debbi, Amy

MONKEYS:

Debbi: Send Keith an e-mail about the Spring work season. Reword the
shorter CH Assessment proposals and background document based on feedback
received at the 2/16/15 community meeting. Send updated background doc to
Amy. Send Amy updated details about the two units in arrears in
preparation for placing liens.

Amy: Talk to Mary about her Special Projects job (CH Assessment and
Reserve Study), and whether to add more time in the Spring work season.
Send Keast our list of questions about the CH Assessment, together with the
CH Assessment background document. She will run the cover e-mail by the
group before sending it.

Becky H.: Talk with Syndallas about the Garages Special Projects job and
whether she needs more time in the Spring work season.

Keith: Show Mary the report on Paul Conahan's site visit to see if she has
additions or changes, then share the report with F&L.


1. Jobs for Spring Work Season

Bookkeeper-- Becky G is committed to another full year. At some point
we'll need to identify someone in the community who's interested, and have
them come on as a trainer.

Counted Members--Debbi and Becky H. will stay on as counted members.
Debbi will send Keith an e-mail to check on his interest.

Convener--Amy will stay on to provide continuity

Check Depositor--Kathy B. will continue

Special Projects--Garages - Becky H. will ask Syndallas if she needs
another season of work credit

Special Projects--Reserve Study and CH Assessment--Amy will check in
with Mary King about these.

Concurrent with finishing the CH Assessment work, we'll be soon be working
on the Reserve, and then the Audit. Continuity is important.

2. Accounts Receivable

a. CH Offices

The State of Michigan Library buys numerous databases for the use of
citizens, including databases of legal documents. Debbi recommends that we
give the "Notice of Default on Commercial Lease" to the Common House
Committee to deliver to office renter Matthew Cooke, who is in arrears by
about $1700. This needs to have proof of delivery. If he doesn't respond,
an eviction notice would similarly need to be served with proof of
receipt. Debbi also found an Agreement for Payment of Unpaid Rent in case
he responds. She also found instructions on how to go to Small Claims
Court in case we need to. Debbi will follow up with the CH Committee
Convener, Elph, and will ask him to keep us in the loop.

Debbi left a voice mail message for Matthew Cooke on 2/18/15 to alert him
that he needs to pay his back rent, or we will need to take legal steps.

No news on the other office in arrears.

b. Households

No news. We are standing by to obtain information from our attorney with
regard to the CH Assessments and how this should apply to the two
households seriously in arrears. Once we have that information, we'll move
forward with updating one lien and placing the other.


c. Credit due

The Oppenheimers are due a small credit of about $30. They would like to
donate the funds to GO. Becky has been working with CPA Len Pytlak and his
assistant Susan on this for some time. Now that Susan is back from
maternity leave, Becky hopes to get resolution soon.

3. CH Assessment Proposals

a. Feedback from community at 2/16/15 business meeting regarding the
two "small" proposals that will come back at the 3/16/15 business meeting.
Any changes or research needed?

There was a suggestion not to include the number of units that still have
CH assessment balances in the proposal. It's confusing because two of the
units were foreclosures, one was a short sale, and one person owns two
units. Debbi will reword this.

There was a request that we define the difference between a loan and an
assessment. We are in the process of asking our attorney to clarify and
will make this change when we have the information.

b. Discuss the questions for attorney David Keast

Becky G., Debbi, and Amy worked on these in an ad hoc meeting and then
Debbi edited them further today. We decided to send the background
document to him, rather than any proposal drafts, because we don't want him
to translate the proposals into legal language. Debbi will update the
background document and send it to Amy.

Do we still want to break the questions up into separate e-mails with
different subject lines to help us search for the info in the future?
We'll send all the CH Assessment information in one message. We decided to
move the question about indemnity for officers to the discussion about
insurance and the question about officers' access to bank accounts to the
audit.

Amy will send Keast our list of questions about the CH Assessment, together
with the CH Assessment background document. She will run the cover e-mail
by the group before sending it. Our goal is to get it out by the end of
the week, or on the weekend.

4. Insurance issues

We want to find out what our indemnity insurance covers. The document we
have on the Important Documents site is not the full document of our
insurance policy. Debbi called State Farm about this and they will send us
a full copy of our master condo insurance policy. Debbi will put the full
document up on the web site when it comes.

F&L is checking our insurance policy and Bylaws to see if there are legal
or financial implications to the recent announcement that one of our
neighbors is renting a unit via Airbnb. For example, if someone renting
via Air bnb falls and is injured on GO property, is that different than if
a guest falls? In addition, the community may want to discuss other
concerns.

5. Renaming one of the financial reports

Becky G. recommended that we rename the "Budget to Actuals" report because
this title implies that it only presents budgeted items. The committee
unanimously supported Becky's recommendation to call it "Great Oak Income &
Expenses - Budgeted, Reserve & Savings."

6. Garages

Syndallas is waiting on one homeowner to respond to her request for
information about garages. She has turned up a couple of discrepancies
with the list on the WIKI. She is fine with the Committee's recommendation
that we separate the communications with the attorney about garages from
other topics.

7. Audit

Debbi learned that in January 2014 it became Michigan State law that we
have to have an annual audit by a CPA. We can opt out on an annual basis
by an affirmative vote of a majority of the members. Given this, we need
to prepare a proposal to agree not to have done an audit in 2014. Amy
added this to the F&L Cooler list. We are planning to do an Audit in 2015,
once the CH Assessment issue is wrapped up. Debbi is willing to write this
up.

8. Bylaws Section pertaining to owner responsibility following a leak

Becky answered Ann's question on e-mail incorrectly. She will send out a
correction based on information in the Bylaws.


9. F&L's Cooler Document

Amy & Becky G. updated F&L's Agenda Cooler document but the committee
didn't have time to discuss and prioritize the list. It will be on the
next agenda.

10. Next meeting

Monday, March 9 @ 7 pm in the CH Sitting Room