Transparent building finances

Ilia Sotonin, founder of Unitify, ran a residential management company for about 20,000 residents in which every building had its own bank account and residents could see its income and expenses live, from 2014 on. He then built doma.ai, the platform used by 10,000 management companies across more than 5 million apartments. His position is simple: when residents can see where their money goes, they trust the people running the building, and they pay.

The question every resident asks

Residents pay every month into something they never see. Sooner or later they ask what they are paying for, and if the answer is a once-a-year summary, they assume the worst. In 2018, when we put a page for every building on our website, I described its purpose like this: "We answer the two main questions residents have: 1. What does the management company actually do? 2. What is the building's money spent on?"

Those two questions are the whole job of financial transparency. A management company that cannot answer them quickly and with evidence is asking residents for blind trust. Blind trust does not last.

One building, one account

At the management company I ran, we opened a separate bank account for every building. Money from one building never paid for another. In 2016 I wrote: "The money that arrives in that account is not the management company's money. That is important to understand."

A year earlier I had called it "our real breakthrough, even though the idea couldn't be simpler." The point was not only honesty. It was making dishonesty impossible: "With this system, even if we suddenly wanted to cheat someone and take residents' money, we couldn't."

Then we connected the accounts to a live report. I described the idea as if the building had its own bank card, and every resident could see what the building had paid for with it. When it launched, I wrote: "Counterparties, payment purposes, figures — we showed everything!"

Why transparency changes behavior

Transparency is not a reporting courtesy. It changes what residents are willing to do. In 2017 I put it this way: "It is the understanding of where and on what the money is spent, and how much money the building has at all, that lets people agree to improvements. The feeling of 'whatever you give, half of it will be stolen anyway' goes away."

Most residents rarely open the report. That does not matter. Knowing they can check at any moment is enough to stop the suspicion that nothing is visible because something is hidden. It also changes who residents become. As I wrote back then, the owner appears in a building at the moment there is control over the money.

The same logic applies to collections. In the book I co-authored, Developer and Property Management Company, we treat unpaid charges as a communication problem first and a legal problem last. Most late payers respond to clear information and convenient ways to pay. People who know what the money is for, and can pay in a place they already use, pay on time more often.

What it did at Ande Tower

The clearest current proof is Ande Tower in Batumi. After moving to Unitify, where residents see their charges clearly and pay without friction, collections rose from 40% to 80% over six months.

At Avant Park in Azerbaijan we watched a related effect: the share of payments made through the resident app went from 19% in June 2026 to 37% in July and 74% in August. That is the share of payments made through the app, not a collection rate. My summary of what happened there: we did not create demand, we removed a trip.

What I recommend

• Keep each building's money separate — its own account, or at minimum its own ledger that residents can see.
• Publish income and expenses continuously, not once a year.
• Send a short monthly report: what was done, what is planned, the financial position, and the work on arrears.
• Explain the fee line by line and agree it with the board. A fee people understand holds up better than a low fee they suspect.
• Thank people who pay on time. Remind late payers in a friendly tone before any pressure.

Questions people ask

How can an HOA make its finances transparent? Give the building its own account and show every incoming payment and every expense to residents as it happens, with the counterparty and the purpose. At the management company I ran, we did exactly this from 2014 on, and the live report did more for trust than any meeting. Add a short monthly summary so residents who never open the report still know what happened.

Does financial transparency really increase HOA fee collections? In my experience, yes, when it comes together with an easy way to pay. At Ande Tower in Batumi, collections rose from 40% to 80% over six months after residents could clearly see their charges and pay in the app. Transparency removes the reason to delay; convenience removes the effort.

Should every building have its own bank account? I believe so. A separate account per building means one building's money can never quietly cover another's costs, and it makes the reporting honest by construction. We called it our real breakthrough, and the idea could not be simpler.

What should a monthly report to residents include? What was done this month, what is planned next, income and expenses, and the status of arrears. Publish it where residents already look, not only in a portal they rarely open. If you do not report first, residents start asking, and by then the conversation is already hostile.

Ilia Sotonin is open to conversations on this topic: [email protected]