Daniel,

The current conflict of interest laws for these communities are extremely weak, but do not address in any way the type of issue that you mentioned. Any homeowner can solicit an attorney to represent their interest in any issue and pay for that service out of their personal accounts. If what you are stating in your question is that a board member is using the same attorney that represents the association to represent an issue unrelated to the association or community, then they are no issues whatsoever on that arrangement. The attorney cannot represent the association and an individual board member on an issue involving the community. That would be a conflict for the attorney.

Dennis

To set the record straight on this string. I’m not an attorney and have never claimed to be. The advice I give in e-mail or in post on this web site is based on my experience and knowledge of previous court decisions on the issues presented. I however cannot read minds and can respond based only on the facts as presented to me. There are always two sides to every issue, and I’m mostly asked based on only one side of the problem. For example, in this string the initiating individual claimed that the previous record request was supplied by the association, but the homeowner was not satisfied and repeated the request for 2023. What was not stated is that the association left out in their submittal the vital piece of information actually requested by the homeowner. So, in fact the original request was never actually complied with.

I run into this problem all the time. The homeowner submits a records request, and the association only provides half the information requested. When the homeowner pursues the request over and over again the association cuts of communication with the homeowner claiming harassment. The homeowner gets a cease-and-desist letter from the attorney and the threats fly. The problem is caused by the resistance of the association to provide access to the financial records requested in the first place.

Let me be perfectly clear in these communities the normal corporation rules for records access do not apply. These are not normal corporations that earn their income from the sale of their goods or services. The communities get every dime of their income from the homeowners and as such the laws governing records request assure access to those financial records to provide the transparency on the financial transactions of the association using the homeowner’s money. You have an unequivocal right to access to any financial record of the community. The association does not have to create a report or summary document but if a report existed and was used at any time by the association board it is a record of the community subject to records request without reason or justification.

While I stand on my prior guidance that homeowner need to be reasonable on these requests so that the association support staff is not consumed with detailed compellation and assembly of the minute details of every check or payment made over extended periods of time. I will always recommend to homeowners to first look to monthly financial reports provided by the community manager, CPA or board treasurer to the board for their review and approval along with corresponding monthly bank statements. From there, if you would like to see details of individual expenditures for a particular month or category than a supplemental request could be added. Every single homeowner has the right to request to see each of these reports at any time. If the association is being inundated with individual request, they can always post those reports on their secure web site that every homeowner has access to. With full transparent Trust will be developed and request will diminish. If board spent more time doing the right thing less time trying to work around the law and providing the transparency to their financial actions their overall job will become easier and the community will become a better place to live.

I fully understand that while some board purposefully deny access to records, some homeowner purposely also harasses the boards and community manager with endless records request for no reason other than harassment. I will oppose the abuse of power by the boards and homeowners equally, to protect the fundamental right or the majority of both that try to comply with the law.

Dennis

Justin
Could you please send me a copy of your bylaws as what you explained in your post is totally unbelievable and unusual. Use my email address on the top of this page. Through all my experience with communities have I ever seen such a complicated and confusing process for board election. How many board positions do you have and how many are actually filled by elected board members or appointed board members. You mentioned that three board members resigned if that is a quorum then any remaining board members must call for a special election to fill the vacant board positions for the remaining terms of each vacancy. Once elections are held the elected board takes position immediately. Officers are elected by the board and not appointed by anyone.
I cannot respond to your question because I cannot relate to or understand what you are describing.
Dennis

So I misread a section of our bylaws that I originally thought only applied to the original transition from the builder. I couldn’t figure out how to edit my original post, so hopefully you’ll see this first.

Our bylaws state that 3 groups of up to 2 directors each serve 3 year terms, for a max total of 5 directors across all groups. Each group was staggered originally so only a single group’s term renewed each year. Our previous boards may have been trying to follow this by having elections for all open terms across all 3 groups every year, depending on which were open, and assigning them based on number of votes each.

Thank you the clarification. Our HOA is in chaos. The 2nd board member is refusing to act without legal counsel. The other is the one 1/2 of the neighborhood wants to recall. The 3rd member is pushing this forward to the best of her ability. However, the board member who isn’t being recalled is failing to take action to set up the meeting within the 30 days and now the management company who currently only handles our financials is stating we also need to involve legal counsel. Is it necessary that we involve counsel to recall?

What steps are required to recall a board member?

Daniel,

As of October 30th of this year, the entire board is removed as a matter of law at midnight on the 31st day. This would apply to any special meeting to recall one or more directors where the 30 day clock expires after October 30th of this year. If the 30 day clock expired prior to October 30th of this year, then resubmit the same petition and the same signatures on November 1st, to start a new clock on November 1.

Dennis

Rhonda,

Not likely ever. You have a right to access of those records on request, it is a totally different thing to mandate that these communities provide those reports to everyone. I will say that many associations already do this voluntarily by posting those reports on their secure web sites monthly. It is totally unlikely that we would ever get a bill passed that mandated all associations to provide information to everyone that did not care if they got that information or not. Somebody would have to pay for that and as with everything in an HOA the homeowners, pay for everything and I will never support any legislation that requires the homeowner to pay more money for something that they don’t need or want.

Dennis

CarlaVala,

Absolutely, you are entitled to your freedom of speech the same way anyone else in your community or in this country is. The only thing that you have to be careful about is saying anything that could be considered by the other individual as approval from the board. Any Board member can and is encouraged to speak to all members in the community about any issue especially about community issues. You just have to be careful about how what you say can be interpreted by whomever you are speaking too. There may be people in any community that approaches board members and tries to get them to say something that they will record and then try and use that against you. So please feel free to talk to your community members just be careful about what you say and how you say it. Be very explicit that you are not speaking for the board but only as a fellow homeowner.
At no time can you share any information discussed by the board in executive session that is protected or confidential.

Dennis

This is what I thought you would say! Thank you!

Rhonda,

NEVER CONSIDER FOR ONE MINUTE THAT NOT PAYING ASSESSMENTS IS EVEN AN OPTION FOR YOU OR ANYONE. Every homeowner is unconditionally obligated to pay their assessments as charged. If you want to challenge the validity of your assessments, you are free to do so in a court of law after the fact. But you must pay your assessments first. The ability of the association to collect that debt is practically unlimited and you could very easily owe more that 10 times the delinquent assessment in no time at all.

If you are unhappy with the way the associations board is handling your finances and the upkeep of your community the most impactful way to address that is to respectfully raise your concerns to the board at either your annual members meeting or any board meeting during the year. The more you have other people in the community express similar concerns the more likely that the board act on those comments. If they refuse to act to address your concerns, then initiate and circulate a petition to recall the entire board. That usually gets their attention, but not always. Work to organize and inform your community of your concerns and of the need to replace the board to finally get action. For any recall effort make sure that you have viable candidates to fill the board positions if you are attempting to recall a majority or more of the board.

Dennis