Condo Association Management Blog

I'm going to play devils advocate. 
How do you know the board was aware of what the manager was doing? It's very possible they were clueless on on how to run a board and they put 100% faith into what the manager said and done.  
 
Vic

If you got rid of the Property Manager and not the company she works for, you are still going to have problems as that is what happened with our condo. I have been told the PM was removed from our community by her husband because he otherwise would lose our account. Removing only the PM didn't solve any problems here as the same corrupt board members exist and, of course, they make new board members go against anyone that can prove they did dishonest things. We voted the present president out of office only to have his friend remove the person we voted in and put this man back in office who is now the president again. The management company owner who keeps his marriage a secret from everyone is looking out for his wife, himself, the HOA corrupt board members and the condo attorney who he has used for his personal benefit instead of having his own lawyer. Our association has paid for all the management co. mistakes, paid for all the lawyer cost when he is representing the mgm. co. also. Our association has also paid for other contractors to repair the shoddy contractors work.  
 
The 4 owners involved in having items on their condo replaced, received a letter from the PM stating that we would have to pay $450 each for the replacement items which is 50% of their cost as they would be $700 to $900 items. The contractor put in $200 items but we were all billed for the $700 to $900 ones. I never paid for my 7 because I never received the ones we were told we were getting, the items caused damage to my furniture that the PM didn't want to hear of, the $200 items are against our bylaws and all 7 of the items installed in my condo are defective. The HOA has told the new PM not to repair anything in my condo. The old removed PM was told to remove all the fines by the past president which she never did because I questioned her. I can't use any of the amenitied because she didn't do what the past president told her to do and the new HOA president is corrupt and doesn't want to do any maintenance on my condo.  
 
You need to get the entire board removed and that can be done with a petition and you can see how to do that in the New Jersey Condo Act or your bylaws. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL THIS IS INVESTIGATED BY THE POLICE and you can get the petition signed and remove them immediately. You will need to get other condo owners there to take the place of the board members that are removed. If any of the old board members say they didn't know anything, they should be removed also as they should have known what was going on.  
 
Please let me know how you got the police involved and to listen to you. I can't get anyone to help me and the other two widows involved are not up to taking on this corruption. The honest people here have been told such lies about everything and the board members have decent jobs and on paper look good.  
 
Because I refused to pay for the wrong items that are defective and against the bylaws, the HOA authorized a lien on my condo for way more than what the defective items are worth. No one even looked at my items and the twp. okayed this project without looking at it once before it was finished. The HOA also had a summons sent to me and my daughter informing us we could speak to any of the contractors. There was nothing attached to the summons that was revelant except those that were made up to make the summons look legitimate. You cannot believe what these corrupt people have caused me to live through and this harassment has made my condition so bad I almost never leave my home.  
 
I certainly hope everything works out for your community.  
 

Comment for Vic.............. 
 
You do not run for office of a condo board unless you plan to investigate how to do the job you are running for. You as a board member are responsible to find out what has to be done and you either have to be involved or not run. Finding out how an honest board is run is like taking at least two college courses so it you do not want to take the time to do that, don't run and resign if you are a board members. The whole board is responsible for all decisions even if a corrupt president made the decisions on his own so board members have to be careful as they can be sued easily and if any project was done for the wrong purpose, then the insurance won't even cover the expenses involved but the board member will have to come up with the money for the settlement. A board member is not allowed to have his position if he is just going to trust the property manager who may be corrupt. I keep on wondering if I can sue the real estate person who typed up the resume for someone she sold a condo to in our community as it was that person who has done a lot of corrupt things that have caused condo owners here a lot of problems and all condo owners a lot of assessments over the years since that horrible person bought the condo from that real estate person.  
 
We have a new board member who thinks he doesn't have to take care of anything that happened before he was a board members and is allowing the board to get away with ruining others' condos and not repairing anything because it was before he was on the board. I almost believe this board member is worse than the corrupt ones. I bet if his condo was ruined he would be involved. He should not be on the board and should be totally ashamed of himself for saying what he did. I tried to ask him for help and he blocked me from writing to him and I just happen to be honest and a victim of the corruption that has taken place in our condo. I don't know why this man refused to help me but I do know that any negative done to me by him is his now which I hate to see but it was his choice. That last comment was something Oprah said and I have seen it happen.

Chilly 
 
I had to fight my board. The President, manager and lawyer ran the board while the board members were clueless. They thought they were doing the right thing. I would talk to the board members and and back it up with facts and those people didn't believe me. I was knew to condos at the time so I had to take time to educate myself. My biggest problem was they had a built in lawyer, which they used. I eventually got people in the association riled up and after a few years we changed the board and have a new property manager. 
 
Your in NJ and so am I. If you want to email me about specifics maybe I can give you some advice. my email is victor six six at p t d dot net use numbers for the six 
 
Vic

As with most questions here the answer is in your governing documents. I am sure there is a recall method spelled out in them. Be sure of your facts before you go down that path. 
 
I have found there are two kinds of volunteers: the kind that volunteer to do the work and serve and the kind that volunteer to criticize the work they do..

I believe the company managing our HOA is skimming money. I have tried for months to get some straight answers about our fees but cannot get any answers. But management company told me I cannot take copies of financials because I might show them to someone. We send our regime fees to a PO Box in another city. I was told it was going to a bank but when I asked for the name of the bank I get a blank stare. I did run for the board but was told not enough members voted so the board just retained same board members. In order to have a paper trail I asked for specfics in writing with a 30 day responce--and nothing. This is my first HOA so I have read our by laws as well as our state laws and also the law for non profit groups. I did the math and when gave my findings of a 18.99% increase the property manager told me that it was only a 5% increase and their figures were different from mine. This is the kind of double talk. I was told by our state ombudsman this is a civil case. If everything is honest then why can't our HOA or management company explain our fees? An audit is supposed to be done every year but I was told those records are lost. And this years hasn't been finalized. Even though by laws state audit must be done by April 15th. It appears someone has something to hide. All comments welcome. I would like to know what I need to do now? This is a 55 and over community and have lost several people this year so the manageent company feels the majority are not interested.

Chilly to answer a couple of your questions. First your trying to use good logic to ascertain how Condo boards should be run. Throw out the good logic and look at the reality you have. You wouldn't be posting if good logic dictated your situation. 
 
Anyone and I mean anyone can be on the board regardless of education. You might speak some other language while everyone speaks only English and only have graduated Kindergarten and if that person is voted on the board its legal.  
 
As someone stated look at your bylaws they should tell you what should be done but again that doesn't mean the bad board will follow the bylaws. They will use the bylaws against opponents though. Getting a bad board off is sometimes very difficult to do. 
 
Not everyone on the board is libel. According to NJ law the officers are libel. I'm sure that could be debated in court.  
 
Some bad boards ONLY trust and rely on the property manager to do everything. If you have a property manager then its the board duty to over see what that person does.  
 
You also have to prove corruption. Can you prove corruption? 
 
Victor

Marilyn please post a new thread as your comments are confusing the original subject matter which is a condo in NJ. 
 
If you make a new post people will answer you!

Our HOA is controlled by the bank that took over wnen the developer went bankrupt .The manager who was hired by the bank put in his contract that he can charge $250 per hour for his legal services. He then calls the HOA attorney for whatever he wants to talk about, the HOA pays $360 an hour to the attorney for his time and another $250 an hour to the manager for his time on these calls. The board refuses to do anything about this practice and the banker who is the HOA HOA president just get angry when we bring up things like this. He will not even listen to our attorney when he complains. Depite owners asking for a new manager the banker keeps saying he will not make any changes until there is a sale. Any ideas of what to do?  
 

meeting continues where it left off. If a new vote was called for then all the members of the assn should have had the opportunity to vote, not just the ones who voted "no" or didn't vote. A vote cannot be suspended midway by recessing the meeting and trying to get more "yes" votes. In fact how would you know