As part of the process of creating an insurance proposal, I read through the CC&Rs for the community to confirm what insurance coverage is required. Lately, I’ve twice been asked by an underwriter if the CC&Rs copy that I had was the actual, recorded copy. Wait – what??

I started in the industry working at a management company. We all know how it works – you get a new client, the historical paperwork (digital or literal paper) is transferred over from the previous manager and we assume the governing documents are accurate. I think only once we had to request the recorded copy from the county because it was completely missing. Most times, though, you just accept the documents as they are received, right? But what if they are wrong? How would you even know?

The questions came up because one document had a sentence where the font and size were different than the rest of the document. When the manager was asked if they knew if it was an addition or part of the recorded document, no one knew. Another CC&R had a page or two missing from the document.

Thus began the process of requesting recorded documents from two different counties. I originally was going to report on the process and how long it took, but we have yet to receive the documents. In the meantime, the proposal for the community who had the “rogue” paragraph is on hold because it would change the coverage requirements for the community significantly. We have recently learned, however, that attorney firms have subscription access to instantly download recorded documents from county records. While you will still need to pay for the attorney service, it may be less expensive and is certainly faster than going through the county.

What is your company protocol when getting a new account? Do you order the recorded documents so you have a “fresh” copy? Remember that these documents are included in lender requests, so if the management company is providing a copy that isn’t recorded, there could be issues. And with insurance often difficult to get, we don’t want ANY additional reasons to stall the process.