We Fired Our Management Company. Now What?
You did the hard part. You looked at the fees, the slow replies, and the runaround when you asked to see your own records — and you gave notice. Now it’s quiet, and a different feeling sets in: now WE have to run this. Here’s the runbook.
By BoardPath · June 23, 2026 · 6 min read
First: breathe. This is more doable than it feels.
Roughly half of U.S. community associations are self-managed. Boards your size run their communities on a few hours a month and the right handful of tools. The panic you feel right now isn’t about the work — it’s about the unknown. So let’s make it known. Most of the first month is just an orderly handoff.
Week 1 — Lock down the essentials
Read your management contract and confirm the notice period and termination terms; send notice exactly as the contract requires (certified mail leaves a paper trail). Then get signing authority on the bank accounts transferred to your current officers, and find out where dues are being deposited so you can redirect it.
The single most important task of the whole transition: demand your records in a usable format. You’re legally entitled to them. Insist on the actual files — owner roster and ledgers, financials, governing documents and every amendment, minutes, contracts, and insurance certificates — not a flattened PDF dump. The horror story every self-managed board tells is the same one: “they take their data with them.” Don’t let that be you. Get it in writing, and get it before the end date.
Weeks 2–4 — Stand up your stack
You don’t replace a management company with one tool. You replace it with a small stack, each piece best at its one job:
Money → PayHOA or QuickBooks. Dues, payments, and the books. We recommend PayHOA for self-managed boards — it’s purpose-built and affordable, and it’s a job BoardPath doesn’t do. Governance → BoardPath. The scary part: what your documents actually require. The rest → an insurance broker, a reserve specialist when you need a study, and a community-association attorney for the few things that genuinely need one.
Then build a compliance calendar: meeting-notice windows, insurance renewal, reserve-study age, annual filings. A manager used to track these; now a calendar (and a tool that reminds you) does.
Weeks 5–12 — Do the first real work
Run your first board meeting with an agenda and recorded minutes. Handle the first architectural request and the first violation correctly — cited to your documents and applied consistently. Reconcile the books to the bank. Confirm insurance is in force under the new arrangement. By the end of the quarter, you’re not transitioning anymore — you’re running it.
The part you’re actually worried about
It’s not the meetings or the mail. It’s the governance: are we allowed to do this? what does our declaration say? did the last board adopt a rule that isn’t even in our documents? Boards reach for ChatGPT here and get burned, because it doesn’t know your documents or which one controls. This is exactly what BoardPath is built for — cited answers from your own CC&Rs, ranked by authority, with a confidence score, plus Steward, an advisor that tells you how experienced managers and treasurers typically handle whatever comes up. It works alongside your money tools; it never touches your bank account.
You’ll be fine — and you’ll save real money
The fees you escaped were real. The control and transparency you gained are real too. Take it one week at a time, keep good records, and lean on the right tools.
Get the Self-Managed Board Playbook.
The full transition guide — the clean exit, a records-request template, the stack, the first-90-days runbook, and the four mistakes that sink self-managed boards. Free.