I sat as the President on our Board for approximately 18 months. I was the first President and sat on several meetings during the transfer of the community from the builder/developer to the HOA. The best advice I can give you is the HOA needs to hire an attorney who is very familiar with this type of law. The builder/developer definitely has an attorney on their staff somewhere; after all any paperwork that is signed is going to be generated by him, for him and looking at for his best interests. The HOA will eventually have to bear the cost of an attorney regardless, because there will be circumstances that arise where an attorney will be required (late fees, non-compliance, refusal to adhere to Covenants, etc.). You might as well bring one on board now and get them familiar with things. The few hundred that the HOA spends now, they will be way ahead of the curve when the attorney is really needed.
The Covenants that were formulated before the start of the development is the best and really only place to begin looking at what the developer was required to provide and how the turn-over process is supposed to go. This documents which is recorded at the County recordation level will include the necessary plats and other pertinent information.
Another good thing to have on your side is a management firm to handle the business end of the HOA. They would record meeting minutes, collect HOA fees, issue citations and warning to owners not complying to the requirements, etc. As President of the HOA, the last thing you want to do is be the signature on a letter going to your neighbor telling him that he has too many cars, the wrong color front door, or didn’t get approval to install a screen door… The management firm that our association hired ran I think $90 a month.
I’m guessing that right now the builder/developer is holding all of the funds collected through construction for the HOA. You should be able to access these funds through some type of agreement that the builder pay for things associated with this turn-over from these funds. This will get you access to the money needed to begin hiring a management firm and an attorney.
Something else that should be conducted is an audit of the books from the collection of fees. Depending how long the builder has been running things, this can be an easy task or one that takes weeks… One thing you don’t want to do is find out later that an error in accounting was made prior to the turn-over. Also, I can guarantee it that now, or sometime in the future, you will get an accountant or a want-to-be accountant who will ask the question if a balancing of the books took place before the turn-over.
I may think of some other things later. If I do, I’ll revisit the thread and add them.