Utah's HOA Management Company

A Realtor called and one of our staff transferred them to our resale team. The part of that conversation I heard was rather odd.

The Realtor called back and asked questions differently to another person, hoping for a different result.

The Realtor then went to our website and asked the questions, acting as if it was their first time contacting us. She said she called the City and they said they do not issue business licenses to HOA's and she was shocked, as she had never heard that before. She believes she needs a business license for the HOA, as I address below.

I replied to the online request:

"Thank you for the message. I overheard a couple of our staff trying their best to understand what was being asked of them, and providing the best answer they could think of, as it is not something we would deal with. Here’s why:

In that scenario, my assumption is that you manage a rental for a landlord (homeowner), and the tenant is needing something to show where the funds for the HOA assessments are going, as a legitimate expense. Legally, assessments are the responsibility of the homeowner, not the tenant. In the case where a rental contract says the tenant will pay the HOA fees, that is an agreement between those two parties (landlord and tenant). However, the HOA would have nothing to do with that agreement, as the HOA’s contract via the governing documents is only with owners/members of the Homeowner’s Association. In fact, regardless what such a rental contract says, if a tenant were to not pay the assessments, the HOA would seek collections from the homeowner, not the tenant.

In other words, if the tenant would need anything related to such payments, in all reality, they should get it from the landlord. The tenant should actually pay that amount to the landlord and the landlord pay the assessments. I know that’s not how it is frequently done, but that’s how it should be done, based on who is liable for what.

However, if you need information about the Association, you can find it by searching on Google for “Utah Business Entity Search” and then searching in there for “Name of the Association” or click on the tab that says “NUMBER” and entering XXXXXXXX in the first box and then XXXX in the second box. That will bring up their listing as a Utah Non-Profit, which is the closest thing to a business license that would be available."