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A tree on association property belongs to everybody and nobody at the same time. It is over a shared walkway, a carport, a mailbox cluster or somebody's bedroom window, the work has to be scheduled around residents who did not ask for it, and the board needs a paper trail for the file. Our ISA Certified Arborists work with HOA and condominium boards, community managers and apartment owners across the South Puget Sound — single-site communities, scattered-site portfolios, and multi-building complexes where the same species is planted forty times over.
Free on-site assessment · Certificate of insurance and W-9 on request · 24/7 emergency response available
Most communities use two or three of these in a year, and the useful version of the work is planned across the whole property rather than one tree at a time.
Every tree on the common areas walked, tagged, located and rated, with the defects, the recommended work, and a priority order the board can budget against. ISA's Best Management Practices: Tree Inventories names homeowners associations as an intended setting for exactly this. It is the document that turns twelve separate emergencies into a three-year plan.
A TRAQ-qualified assessment focused on the trees that actually have something under them — parking, play areas, entry drives, unit envelopes. TRAQ is issued by the International Society of Arboriculture, and the written rating is what documents that the board acted on professional advice. See our arborist reports and consultations.
Deadwood over walkways and parking, limbs into siding, roofs, gutters and light fixtures, and sight-line clearance at entrances and intersections. Done to ANSI A300 standards, which TCIA publishes and which name property managers among their intended users. See tree pruning.
Failing trees come out in sections with rigging, or by crane when the only drop zone is a drive aisle that cannot be closed. Stumps are ground out so the area can be restored, and storm work runs 24/7. See tree removal and stump grinding.
Mixed-use, retail or office property in the same portfolio? That work is on our commercial tree services page.
We walk the common areas with the manager or a board member, look at every tree with a target under it, and separate what is urgent from what is maintenance and what can wait a season.
One document, line-itemed by building or zone so the board can approve part of it, phase the rest, and carry the remainder into next year's budget without asking for a new bid.
Certificate of insurance with the association named as additional insured, W-9, and our L&I contractor registration go to the manager or the vendor-compliance portal before we are on the calendar. Boards approve at a meeting; managers usually approve inside their spending authority.
Before the crew arrives we agree on notice wording, which stalls need to be vacated and when, and how pedestrian routes get held. Cleared parking is the single thing that keeps a multi-building job on schedule.
Drop zones and pedestrian control are set daily, hardscape is protected, brush is chipped and hauled, and the site is broom-clean at the end of each day. You get a completion record for the association file, and photos when the work was risk-driven.
Two questions decide almost every association tree project: whose obligation is it, and which budget pays for it. Washington statute answers the first one directly and shapes the second. The panels below are the version of this that is actually useful in a board meeting — we are arborists, not your attorney or your reserve analyst, so confirm anything consequential with them.
Trees in the common areas are the association's to maintain. Under the Washington Uniform Common Interest Ownership Act, RCW 64.90.440 provides that the association must maintain, repair, and replace the common elements, including limited common elements. Older communities land in the predecessor chapters: condominiums under RCW 64.34.328 (upkeep of condominium), and homeowners associations under RCW 64.38.020(6), which gives the association the power to maintain common areas.
Which chapter applies to you
| Community | Governing chapter |
|---|---|
| Created on or after July 1, 2018 | WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.360 |
| Created earlier, amended to elect WUCIOA | WUCIOA, by election |
| Created earlier, no election | Predecessor chapter — but the budget and reserve-study sections of WUCIOA already reach you under RCW 64.90.365 |
| Every community, from January 1, 2028 | WUCIOA; chapters 64.32, 64.34 and 64.38 are repealed as of that date |
Worth saying plainly: no Washington statute requires an association to inventory or inspect its trees. What the statutes create is a maintenance obligation, and a budgeting process that works far better when somebody has written down what is out there.
Routine tree work — pruning cycles, clearance, small removals — is normally an operating expense. Reserve-study practice generally treats grounds work as too variable for the reserve component list, with one useful exception: a known, recurring program on a fixed cycle can be worked into a reserve study case by case, and reserve analysts have published that position using a periodic pruning program as the example (Reserve Advisors).
The reserve rules themselves are worth knowing. RCW 64.90.545 sets the reserve-study cadence — updated annually, with a study or update prepared by a reserve study professional including a visual site inspection in the initial year and every third year after. RCW 64.90.550 sets what the study must contain, including a component list built around items costing more than one percent of the annual budget, and a thirty-year funding plan. Reserve accounts are governed by RCW 64.90.535.
When a large removal shows up unbudgeted, the mechanism is usually a special assessment under RCW 64.90.525, which requires the board to deliver the proposed budget or assessment summary within thirty days of adoption and to hold a ratification meeting between fourteen and fifty days after delivery. If you would rather not run that process in February, the answer is a written condition report and a phased proposal in the summer.
Association budgets are built on a fixed calendar, and tree bids that arrive late simply do not make it in. The Community Associations Institute's budgeting guidance puts requests for proposals out around June 15, allows thirty days for proposals and sixty to select, sets goals in August, integrates the reserve study and balances a draft in September, distributes the draft to owners in October, and approves the final budget in mid-November (CAI, Budgeting Basics).
Practically: a walkthrough between June and August gets your tree line item into the operating budget for the following year. October is late. February is a special assessment. We are happy to do the assessment on the association's schedule rather than ours, and the assessment itself costs nothing.
Washington's floor for a registered contractor is low: L&I registration requires a $30,000 general bond and general liability of $200,000 public liability and $50,000 property damage, or a $250,000 combined single limit (Washington State Department of Labor & Industries). Association vendor packets routinely ask for $1,000,000 per occurrence with a $2,000,000 aggregate, an additional-insured endorsement, and a waiver of subrogation — several times the state minimum. That gap is why the certificate matters more than the license number.
We carry $1,000,000 in liability coverage and hold Washington L&I contractor registration PACIFA*813KG and WSDA pesticide license #109480 for plant health care work. Certificate of insurance naming the association as additional insured, W-9, and licensing documentation go over on request, and we will file directly in whatever vendor-compliance portal your management company uses.
We do not perform line clearance — energized conductor work belongs to the utility or its line-clearance contractor. We do work on trees adjacent to lines, and on a multifamily property that distinction comes up constantly, because service drops run to every building.
On a walkthrough we will tell you which trees are the utility's problem and which are the association's, so the board is not paying to solve something Puget Sound Energy will handle, and is not waiting on a utility that was never going to come.
The association is. Under WUCIOA, RCW 64.90.440 makes the association responsible for maintaining, repairing and replacing the common elements, including limited common elements. Condominiums still under the older chapter have the same duty through RCW 64.34.328, and homeowners associations through RCW 64.38.020(6). A tree inside a patio or another area the declaration assigns to a single unit is a different question, and that one is answered by your declaration, not by us.
No. No Washington statute requires an association to inventory or inspect its trees, and we are not going to tell you otherwise. What the statutes require is that the common elements be maintained and that budgets and reserves be prepared on a schedule. An inventory is simply the most efficient way to do both without guessing — ISA publishes Best Management Practices: Tree Inventories, which names homeowners associations among its intended settings. Boards that have one stop approving emergency work at the worst possible time of year.
Ask for the walkthrough in early summer. On the CAI budget calendar, proposals go out mid-June and the final budget is approved in mid-November (CAI, Budgeting Basics), so a written condition report in June, July or August lands inside the operating budget for the following year. A phased proposal helps here: approve the urgent trees now, carry the rest as a known number.
Sometimes, and that is a call for your reserve analyst rather than your arborist. Grounds work is usually treated as an operating expense because it is unpredictable, but a known program on a fixed cycle can be included in a reserve study case by case (Reserve Advisors). Reserve component lists are built around items costing more than one percent of the annual budget under RCW 64.90.550. Where a removal is unbudgeted, boards commonly use a special assessment under RCW 64.90.525.
A certificate of insurance naming the association as additional insured, our W-9, and Washington L&I contractor registration PACIFA*813KG. We carry $1,000,000 in liability coverage, and for plant health care work we hold WSDA pesticide license #109480. If your management company runs a vendor-compliance portal, send the invitation and we will file in it directly.
We work on trees adjacent to power lines. We do not perform line clearance on energized conductors — that work belongs to the utility or its line-clearance contractor. On a walkthrough we will tell you which trees the utility is responsible for and which ones are the association’s, which on a property with a service drop to every building saves a real amount of money.
They can call, and we will look at it, but nothing gets scheduled on association property without the manager’s or the board’s authorization. What we will do is put the tree in writing — condition, risk rating, recommended work and cost — so the request arrives at the board as a document instead of an argument.
It is bid by the tree and the site, because access, targets underneath and how the debris leaves the property drive the price more than the species does. Our minimum for tree service booked as a standalone visit is $500, and stump grinding starts at $250; smaller pruning is usually carried as an add-on to a larger project. Written arborist reports start at $400 for residential and right-of-way work and $800 for commercial and development work; a report is not a permit and does not commit a city to approving the work. Published ranges by tree size are on our tree removal cost page.
Pacific Arboriculture works across south King County and north Pierce County from our shop in Auburn. These are the 21 communities we serve and the ZIP codes they cover.
King County
Pierce County
Several of these communities share a ZIP code with a neighbor, so seeing the same number twice is normal. Puyallup includes South Hill, and the Tacoma list covers the Midland, Summit and Parkland areas. Not sure whether you are in range? Call (206) 909-2170 with your address and you will get a straight answer. City-by-city detail is on the areas we serve page.
A trunk across the entry drive, a limb through a carport roof, a failure blocking the only fire lane. Call it in and we will tell you what we can be there with and when, what has to be made safe tonight, and what can wait for daylight. We work directly with managers on after-hours authorization so nobody is waiting on a board vote at 11 p.m.
Every job is bid on the tree and the site, not from a menu. On association property the cost drivers are access, what is underneath, and whether the crew can reach the tree without closing the drive aisle. Two identical firs price differently when one stands in an open island and the other is wedged between two buildings with a ten-foot gap.
| Item | Approximate starting point |
|---|---|
| Tree service booked as a standalone visit | $500 minimum |
| Stump grinding | $250 minimum |
| Written arborist report — residential or right-of-way | from $400 |
| Written arborist report — commercial or development | from $800 |
Approximate figures, not a quote. Smaller pruning is normally carried as an add-on to a larger project rather than a separate trip. An arborist report is not a permit and does not commit a city to approving the work. Published ranges by tree size and species are on our tree removal cost page, and development-scale reporting is on development arborist reports.
Every certification number below links to that arborist’s credential record with the International Society of Arboriculture, so you can verify it before anyone sets foot on your property.
Washington L&I Contractor License PACIFA*813KG · WSDA Pesticide Applicator #109480 · $1M liability insured
Send the property address and what has you concerned — a specific tree, a whole phase, or a budget line you need a real number for. An ISA Certified Arborist walks the common areas, and you get a written, itemized proposal you can take to the board. The assessment is free, and the summer is the right time to ask for it.
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