PMA Module # 3 Housekeeping Documents

To keep the PMA short, easy to get the owner to sign, and easy to defend in court you must keep all operational issues out of it. By including only legal issues you can shorten the agreement to six pages and make it easy to defend. However, there are some critical operational issues you’ll want every owner to understand and embrace during the onboarding process to protect yourself and prevent future litigation. For two decades Monica called these “Housekeeping Documents”. These documents are initiated by the owner to make sure they’ve read them and embraced them, yet, are not attached to the PMA (as an exhibit) from a contractual perspective. The protection for you is … you don’t sign them. Only the owner signs them so they are NOT part of the PMA or an exhibit or addendum. Yet, if there is litigation, they carry a ton of credibility in the courtroom. The language in them doesn’t need to clutter up the PMA document, yet, just above the owner’s signature it says “I’ve read this and agree to embrace it while under management with XXXXXXXXXX.” Like a lead-based paint disclosure they are simply housekeeping documents and expand on the legal protections already in the PMA.

At Crown, over the last two decades, we developed our Housekeeping Documents and have them in word format in this download (View the list). Your model is obviously different from ours so your final bundle of Housekeeping Documents will be different than ours. Your experience will make you hypersensitive to issues we’ve had no experience with like show removal, solar panels and pools. You’ll add and subtract to these documents over time as your model requires. The key reason you don’t want them tied to your PMA is ‘operation issues change frequently.’ You want a PMA that won’t need changes for many years to come yet have Housekeeping Documents you can change as you get smarter and things change in the business. The message is ‘stop tweaking your PMA’ and set yourself up to change operational issues whenever you like without cluttering up the PMA with minutiae.

Note: One of the benefits of using Housekeeping Documents is you can address fees and costs in them without having to clutter up the PMA. You get to spread out the fees by using this Housekeeping Documents strategy. Remember: you are not required to disclose all fees in the PMA. You are simply required to disclose them. It can be done in a Housekeeping Document because THEY acknowledge that document with their initials and therefore acknowledge the fees disclosed in that document.

What you get in Module #3

• Housekeeping Documents that can be downloaded in word format so you can add your company’s name and tweak them as you need to match your management model. View the list of HouseKeeping Documents here

These documents were drafted, and been tweaked, by attorney Monica Gilroy and Robert Locke RMP, MPM and are usable in all states primarily because they are not legal documents. Since you don’t sign them they are simply Housekeeping Documents the owner initials. Always run legal documents by your local attorney before you use them.