HOA contracts: what the board's template asks for and what to push back on

The honest answer is that the board’s template was written by the association’s attorney, for the association, usually years ago, and most of it is fine. Limits, a certificate, workers’ comp, a waiver: sign those. Four clauses deserve a pushback before you do, and one of them changes depending on whether the community is in Denver, Aurora, or Fort Collins. We insure landscaping contractors and plow operators across Colorado, and we’ve signed our share of HOA paper for driveways and sidewalks above 9,000 feet. Here’s what the template asks for, what each line is really doing, and where to push.

Who you’re actually contracting with

Two things to keep straight. The association is the owner. The management firm is the owner’s agent, and it usually wrote the request for proposal, holds the certificate, and sends the instructions. The template will ask you to name both as additional insureds, and sometimes the board members individually.

That’s the first line to read closely. An additional insured isn’t a name on a certificate; it’s a party added to your general liability policy by endorsement, and it can tender a claim to your policy. The additional insured article has the two-paragraph version. Naming the association is normal and expected. Naming the manager means the manager’s own decisions, like telling you to skip the back walk to save money, can be pointed at your limits when a resident sues everyone in sight. A blanket endorsement typically covers both where the contract requires it. The push isn’t to refuse the manager. It’s to make sure the indemnity clause, below, doesn’t make you the manager’s insurer too.

Clause one: the hold harmless

Every template has one. The words vary: indemnify, defend, hold harmless, usually all three. What matters is the scope, and templates come in three widths.

The narrow version covers claims caused by your negligence. The middle version covers claims arising out of your work, whoever was at fault, except the association’s sole negligence. The wide version covers anything that happens on the property during the term, including the association’s own acts. Boards rarely know which one they have; the attorney who drafted it a decade ago did.

Your GL typically responds to indemnity you took on for your own work, through what most standard forms call contractual liability coverage for an insured contract. Whether it responds to indemnity for the association’s negligence depends on the form and the carrier’s read after the claim. Push the clause toward “to the extent caused by the negligence of the contractor.” Most managers will accept that edit or a version of it, because the template was never the hill.

Clause two: the snow indemnity and the written-restriction line

For a landscaper who also plows the community, the winter addendum carries its own indemnity clause, and this is where Colorado law says something. Colorado's Snow Removal Service Liability Limitation Act (C.R.S. 13-21-129, effective August 8, 2018) voids any snow-and-ice contract clause that requires one party to indemnify, hold harmless, or defend the other for the other party's own acts or omissions, but only where the service provider was prohibited, by the contract or in writing, from mitigating the specific snow or ice event at issue. (C.R.S. 13-21-129(3), (4); SB 18-062)

Plainly: if the board told you in writing not to put de-icer on the new pavers at the clubhouse, and a resident falls on those pavers, the clause that makes you pay for the board’s decision is void. If the board told you verbally at the fall walk-through, it isn’t. The statute doesn’t ban the clause and doesn’t touch indemnity for your own work. The indemnity law article has the whole thing.

The push here is one sentence, and it’s the most valuable edit in the contract: any instruction limiting plowing or de-icing has to be in writing to be effective. Add it to the scope. Confirm every verbal instruction by email the same day. Log it. Without that sentence the statute has nothing to attach to, and the landscape-in-summer, plow-in-winter article covers why the winter addendum needs to reach us before you sign it, not after.

Clause three: chemicals

Templates say something like “contractor is responsible for all damage arising from the application of fertilizers, herbicides, or pesticides.” That reads as harmless. It isn’t, because of a quirk in the statute.

Under C.R.S. 35-10-106(1)(a), a Colorado commercial pesticide applicator business must carry liability insurance of at least $400,000 (a policy with a pollution exclusion still qualifies) with ten days' cancellation notice to the Commissioner of Agriculture. (C.R.S. 35-10-106(1)(a); 8 CCR 1203-2) Read that again. The state minimum for a licensed applicator business is satisfied by a policy that excludes pollution, and under most standard GL forms herbicide drift is pollution. A licensed landscaper can be fully compliant with the Department of Agriculture and have zero coverage for the day the wind on the plains in Aurora carries a broadleaf spray across a fence line into a resident’s vegetable garden. The herbicide overspray article covers the gap; the pollution liability page covers the fix. The push on the contract is not to strike the clause. It’s to make sure the policy behind your signature can pay it.

Clause four: the sidewalk clock

Board templates set response times: sidewalks clear within so many hours of the storm ending, trigger depth, priority routes. Those hours didn’t come from the board. They came from the city’s sidewalk ordinance, which puts the clock on the property owner, and the association passed it down to you.

The clocks differ by city, and the template usually copied one of them.

• Denver. Denver requires businesses to begin clearing sidewalks immediately after snow stops and residences to clear by the next day; after a written notice, businesses get four hours and residences 24 hours before re-inspection and a possible $150 fine. (Denver DOTI Snow Removal page; DRMC § 49-551 (Cleaning sidewalks)) A community’s common-area walks are typically treated as business property, so the shorter clock is the one a Denver template will reach for.
• Aurora. Aurora City Code § 126-313 makes it unlawful to leave snow and ice on sidewalks more than 24 hours after every snowfall (48 hours after a declared snow emergency ends), with fines up to $100 for a first violation at single-family homes and up to $200 at multi-family or non-residential property. (Aurora City Code § 126-313 Time for removal; penalty) The 48-hour extension after a declared snow emergency is worth writing into your own response terms.
• Fort Collins. Fort Collins requires property owners and residents to clear snow and ice from sidewalks adjacent to their property within 24 hours after a snowfall. (City of Fort Collins, Snow Removal) The city page doesn’t publish a fine, so a template that names one for Fort Collins is quoting something else; ask where it came from.

Three pushes. First, the clock in your contract should start when the snowfall ends, not when it starts, and the contract should say who decides that. Second, the trigger depth and the response time have to be something your trucks can do at 2 a.m. across every property you serve; a Yanmar mini skid steer with a pusher box clears a lot of sidewalk, but it doesn’t clear two communities at once. Third, the fine is the small number. The template may pass a city fine down to you when your crew is late; the real exposure is the resident who falls on the walk during the hours the clock was running, and that’s a general liability claim with years of runway. The residential and HOA snow page covers what those communities typically claim.

What’s usually fine to sign

Limits of $1M per occurrence and $2M aggregate. A certificate naming the association. Workers’ comp with a waiver of subrogation. Commercial auto on the trucks. Proof of a pesticide applicator license if you spray. A reasonable term and a termination clause that runs both ways. If the template asks for a $5M umbrella for a 40-lot community, ask what the number is based on before you buy it, but the ask itself isn’t unusual for a large association with a lake or a clubhouse. The umbrella page covers sizing it to the contract instead of to a round number.

The template, clause by clause

Where to go from here

If an HOA template is in your inbox, send it through the certificates page with the certificate request, and we’ll mark each clause against the endorsements on your policy and tell you which of the four pushes applies. Already signed a few of these? The policy review reads your dec pages against the table above. The lawn care and maintenance page covers the summer side of the same community, and the national subcontract article is the bigger version of this exhibit, with a corporate portal instead of a board. If snow is a side business for you, the seasonal snow policy article explains why a winter-only policy usually isn’t the answer to the winter addendum. Freeze-thaw on a north-facing walk in Fort Collins doesn’t read contracts. Read yours before the first storm. No online quote, on purpose.

Serving businesses located in Colorado. Coverage is determined by the policy language and the carrier.