Got HOA?
What Home Owners Associations can Do for You
A big portion of Santa Clarita residents pay HOA dues - and for a lot of us, those bills are substantial. Well-managed HOAs know how to stretch those dollars though, covering everything from community-pool maintenance to the building of neighborhood parks and quality landscaping.
Painting and exterior maintenance is also a common line item in the HOA annual budget. Many SCV HOAs are responsible for exterior residential building upkeep on top of maintaining common shared spaces like club houses, gazebos, public restroom facilities near parks and pools and more.
What some homeowners don't know is that they have a right to ask their HOA to prioritize this type of maintenance in the annual budget. After last year's severe storms, many condominium and homeowners found that their exterior stucco and wood trim sustained damage. They also noticed that exterior paint had flaked, chipped or faded.
If that sounds familiar, now's the time to attend your community's HOA meeting. This time of year, many HOAs are determining their annual budget allocations and your feedback as an HOA-paying resident is vital in these conversations.
Paint and exterior repair not only protect your home from sustaining damage in inclement weather, these improvements can increase your property values and pride of ownership. There's something wonderful about driving home through your community and seeing everything freshly painted!
The ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING team are HOA specialists and have served Santa Clarita HOA organizations for over 35 years, often painting over 100 homes in a single community. Not sure your HOA can afford exterior paint and repair this year? ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING offers complimentary consultations.
ALLBRiGHT 1-800-PAINTING allbrightpainting.com

Yes, Probate Really is Bad
Probate is the court-managed process of settling a deceased person's affairs. Before heirs can receive their inheritance, the probate process is applied to ensure that certain people and groups are notified, creditors have a chance to file claims and other issues of the deceased are settled. Even when the family is not fighting, or there is only a single heir, the court will require the estate to go through each step.
Almost everything that goes through the court becomes a matter of public record. This means the affairs of the deceased and the family, including any family or financial information, could be viewed by anyone. Most people prefer to keep this information private.
Probate can be expensive. The cost to probate an average single-family home in Santa Clarita is more than $20,000. The cost only goes up if there are creditor claims, family disputes or other expenses.
But by far, the time to complete a probate is the most complained about aspect. To complete a probate in Los Angeles County, it takes more than a year, often 18 to 22 months, even for simple estates. A large part of the delay is the result of backed-up courtrooms.
Fortunately, a little preplanning can avoid probate altogether. Estate planning documents, such as trusts, can be used to keep property out of probate court. Beneficiary designations on bank accounts can give funds directly to heirs who are adults and capable of managing their own affairs. Although there is some time and costs involved, it is much less than those involved in the simplest of probates.
Law Attorney Michael Yeager 471-2177

courtesy of Shutterstock

Talk Business on the Virtual Golf Course of your Dreams
Wish you could close that big deal on the golf course of your dreams? With Club Golf Valencia, transport your team and clients to the world's most celebrated courses for a state-of-the-art golfing experience that measures your ball speed, side and back spin, launch angle, flight time, carry, run and much more. It's all the fun and excitement of golf - in an air-conditioned luxury space that can accommodate your catering and event needs, too.
Club Golf Valencia 417-8002

Wellness Mobile IV Drip gets You Rehydrated & Re-Energized Faster & Offers $50 Off First Treatment for New Patients
Cold, flu and covid season are just around the corner - and with kids heading back to school, those bugs most of us were able to avoid over the summer are about to spread wildly again. If you don't want illness or dehydration from the lasting summer heat to slow you down, consider using IV nutrition as a preventative and overall wellness measure for your body - or a way to get back on your feet faster. Wellness Mobile IV, headquartered in Santa Clarita, is a mobile IV vitamin therapy company that also offers white-glove customized IV drips and nutrition IM shots in the comfort of your own home. Patients choose IV drip therapy because the treatment introduces highly-concentrated vitamins, minerals and antioxidants directly into your bloodstream, reducing potential damage to your liver that over-the-counter pills may cause. IV drips also help with weight loss, skin and brain clarity, hangover symptoms and getting you in your best shape while giving your body exactly what it needs, almost immediately.
Right now, take $50 off your first IV as a new patient, plus get a free B-12 shot and a free gift when you're one of the first 20 patients to book in August. You'll also get a complimentary Vitamin IV when you host an IV Spa Party
Wellness Mobile IV Drip wwellness.co


More than a Dealership, it's a Friendship
When Don and Cheri Fleming opened the doors of Valencia Acura in 1997, they instilled a culture throughout the dealership to treat guests the same way they would want to be treated. Valencia Acura customers are not just customers - they are friends. The relationships developed with buyers run deeper than sales. As a family-owned and operated car dealership, owner Don Fleming makes certain the friendship doesn't end when a customer drives off the lot. It only begins. The signature friendship experience extends into the award-winning Service and Parts departments, with its highly-skilled staff earning high marks in industry expertise and training. Acura has earned a gold-standard reputation for precision performance, crafted style and affordable luxury. At Valencia Acura, the team works to make the dream of owning an Acura a reality while providing the very best car buying experience possible. Valencia Acura was recently voted Best New Car Dealership by The Signal. This marks the 19th year for a "Best of SCV" recognition. Valencia Acura thanks its friends and customers for helping them earn such high honors.
Valencia Acura 255-3000


The "Married Single Mom" Trend on Social Media is having a Back to School Moment
by Denise Lite
If you even casually use social media, you've seen the "married single mom" content that is reflecting a current cultural conversation surrounding the distribution of domestic labor.
And now that attention is also leaning to "back to school," this phenomenon is gaining even more traction.
Moms are taking to social to talk about who's filling out the dozens of school forms, doing the clothing and supply shopping, researching enrichment options, planning the carpools, making the appointments to get the required medical forms, signing up for snack time rotation, fulfilling teacher supply requests and more. The summary: this labor is disproportionately falling on married women.
Numerous studies show that women married to men, on average, spend more time on housework and childcare than single moms - even women who work full time and women who out-earn their spouse.
This labor divide is frequently cited as one of the major reasons that the woman in the relationship files for divorce about 70 percent of the time. In my practice, I'm seeing more and more women who "make the bacon, cook it, too - and have decided it'll be easier to do it on their own."
If you're feeling like a "married single mom," know that you're not alone. And if your spouse is using that phrase to describe her reality, it's time to pay attention and work together to find a more equitable distribution of labor.
Denise Lite, Esq. 877-317-8080