Is our Board allowed to run a competitive bid while under contract?
Two practical cautions. Confirm nothing in your agreement restricts it — a right of first refusal clause occasionally does. And decide deliberately whether to tell your incumbent. Inviting them to bid is the cleanest way to find out whether you are priced correctly; running confidentially avoids a difficult year if you stay.
Work backwards from your notice window rather than forwards from today. If the agreement auto-renews sixty days before a December anniversary, a search that has to finish by late October needs to start in August. Boards that discover the deadline in November end up choosing quickly or renewing by default, and both are worse than the search they meant to run.
Handle it as Board business throughout: a motion to run the process, the criteria recorded, and the comparison attached to the minutes. Diligence that is documented is diligence; diligence that lives in one director's inbox is not.
General information for Board members, not legal advice. State law and your governing documents control, and both vary.
More on running the search
- What should an HOA management RFP include?
- How many management companies should we invite to bid?
- Should we tell our current company we are getting other proposals?
- Can homeowners attend the meetings where we discuss management proposals?
- Do we need a Board vote to change management companies?
- When is the best time of year to switch management companies?
The RFP template, scope checklist, interview scorecard, notice calendar and transition checklist your Board would otherwise build from scratch. No email address, no signup, nothing sent to you afterwards.