What happens to our data if we leave a Management Company?

Ask before you sign, because the answer after you give notice is rarely favorable. Associations routinely discover that owner ledgers, violation history, architectural approvals, and vendor records live inside the outgoing company's platform and come back as a PDF dump or not at all.

Get it in the agreement: the association owns its records, a full export is provided in a usable format within a stated number of days of termination, and any charge for it is stated up front rather than set at the time.

The transition-out fee and the data question are the two exit terms most likely to be negotiated away if you raise them before signing.

Be specific about format, because this is where agreements that look fine fail. A PDF of a ledger is not a ledger. Ask for owner records, transaction history, violation history and architectural files in a structured file — CSV or an equivalent — and have the incoming company confirm it can load them before the outgoing one is gone.

Ask how far back the export runs, too. Current balances with no transaction history behind them will not survive the first owner who disputes a charge from three years ago.