The short answer: if a contract or project will likely cross the statutory threshold — commonly discussed as $50,000 — plan for a competitive bid, and have your association's attorney confirm the exact figure and how it's counted for your situation.
Why "we're small" doesn't mean "we're exempt"
The bid requirement attaches to the size of the contract, not the size of the association. A 16-unit townhome association replacing its roofs can cross the threshold as easily as a 400-unit high-rise — a full reroof on even a small property routinely runs six figures. Being self-managed doesn't change the duty either; it just means the board itself carries every step of it.
This is exactly the squeeze small self-managed boards are feeling: big-HOA legal duties without big-HOA staff. The duty is real, but it's also learnable — most of it is process discipline, not law degrees.
The three ways boards get surprised by the line
- Multi-year contracts that add up. A "small" $15,000-a-year landscaping or maintenance contract that renews for four years is a $60,000 relationship. How multi-year totals count toward the threshold is one of the specific questions your attorney should answer — but plan on the conservative reading.
- Change orders that push a project over. A $45,000 project that grows a $10,000 change order mid-job didn't stay under the line. Watch projects that start near the threshold — they rarely shrink.
- Splitting one project into pieces. Turning one $80,000 roofing project into two $40,000 "phases" to duck the bid requirement is the pattern that looks worst in hindsight — to an auditor, an angry owner, or opposing counsel, it reads as intent. If the work is really one project, bid it as one project.
What to do this month
You don't need to solve this in one meeting. You need three things moving:
- One list of every contract the association has — amount, term, renewal date. This is Step 2 of the step-by-step walkthrough, and it's the master document everything else runs from.
- Flags on everything near the line — over the threshold, or capable of crossing it through renewals or change orders.
- Renewal dates on the board calendar — a contract that must be bid at renewal shouldn't ambush you thirty days out.
The free compliance checklist covers all three, in order, as one printable page your whole board can work through.
One more wrinkle: who runs the bid matters too
Crossing the threshold triggers more than paperwork. Under SF 1750, the person administering your bid shouldn't be someone who profits from the outcome — which is exactly the arrangement many associations have when their manager runs the bids on a percentage-of-project fee. That's the conflict the law targets, and it's why boards bring in an independent bid administrator: someone who can't bid the work has nothing to steer.
General information, not legal advice — confirm the specifics with your association's attorney. Back to the full SF 1750 guide →