Condo Association Management Blog

Get a copy of your Association's governing documents (declaration and bylaws) in order to determine what is required to remove Board members. You should have received this when you purchased your condo. If not these would have been recorded in your county when the condo was built. If you can find nothing there, check state law by doing an internet search under NJ Condominium Act and read what your state law says. Our Association has on four different occasions in the last six or seven years removed Board members only to get an even worse Board in its place. What I have learned from this is that not only do Associations deal with individual Board members, they also deal with an established Board culture that may need to be changed as well so that history does not repeat itself as it has in my condominium. 
 
I wish you the best in transforming your Association.

Lynn's advice is quite correct. I would offer the following suggestion. None of us are born with the understanding of how to properly conduct a meeting. Most associations use Roberts Rules and I recommend that you adopt the abbreciated version for use in conducting your meetings. But critical to using these rules is some yrainig in their application foer board members and also for those owners who attend the meetings of the board. A grasp of these rules by the board and attendees will transform your meetings and make attendance a pleasure for the board and owners.In Florida such training for new board members is required by their state law. 
 

If you have 70% on your side you should be able to get an attorney. $100 each is a very good start. My guess is that $300-500 would get the job done and it would be a bargain.

Thank you Lynn, Charles and Mike for your comments, 
We are still waiting for a response from the Board, hopping that they will accept our offer to commit "HOAkiri" (resign). We have the Master Deed, and by-laws. We can send a formal request to the current Board to call a special meeting, and we are obligated to specify the reason. The Board, except for trying to manipulate time/place of such a meeting, has ability to influence majority (50% + 1 vote) of votes of member in the good standing status. We don't know who lost this status, so we don't know the arithmetic of this voting. They can discard some votes on this basis. Can we demand a list of members who are NOT in good standing status ? The Board can pull the Privacy Protection weapon. (Nothing in our book) If we fail to remove them in this attempt, by-laws allow voting it again not earlier than in 12 month (?!). I don't hesitate to call (few exceptions) those "voluntary" owners associations nothing else but legalized, organized extortion. As we speak two countries in Europe are very close to implement the law scrapping those associations completely. 

Mark, 
 
 
 
Your bylaws, or perhaps state law, should tell you the exact procedure to follow to recall board members. Usually a petition signed by a certain % of the members must first be submitted to the board asking for a special meeting to recall. The board then has a certain number of days to call the meeting. The required quorum and the requred number of votes should also be outlined in the bylaws or state law. As for the % of votes required, pay close attention to whether it says "of all members" or "of all members eligible to vote" (only those in good standing)as they may be a big difference between the two. 
 
 
 
Good luck!

What do you do in a case of when the majority of the condos are owned by one person. For example we are a 6 condo association and one of the 3 owners own's 4 leaving the other 2 as 1 vote only. 
 
How would you handle that? Because the other owner has the other 4 condos.

Terry, 
 
 
 
So you only have 3 members in the assn, right? I would assume that they all are board members. Board members only get one vote on board issues. However on any matters that are voted on by the member this particular member would have the controlling votes since he can cast one vote for each unit owned. This means he does not have the controlling vote on the board but he does on any issues voted on by the members.

The board and the members are one and the same. So if we had issues with property repairs and I suggested doing things to improve it and the person with the most votes says no is there anything I can do.

It depends upom whether to do the repairs is a board issue or a member issue. The person with the majority has only one vote on board issues. On the other hand, if your community docs say the members must vote on repairs then he would have the majority vote. Because your community documents say you get one vote for each property owned, there is nothing you can do if he exercises this right.

This guy rents out his 4 condo units and is just taking advantage of us (the other 2 owners who ownes 1 unit each) and is just running the place into the ground. Not careing about how it looks or anything. I think it's time to get code enforcement involved if I can. What do you think? Any ideas?

Terry, 
 
 
 
You and the other owner should not allow him to make all the decisions. The 2of you are the majority. He cannothave more than 1 vote on board issues and it's the board that manages the assn. not the individual members. 
 
With regard to code enforcement; yes I certainlky would go that route if he is violating city code.

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I live in a fairly old condominum complex. Each tenant pays $162.00 each month in condo fees. The place is falling apart and looks terrible. Six weeks ago I sent a letter to the Condo Association asking that the fence around my A/C be fixed, the numbers on the individual parking spots be repainted so you can read them, and the railroad ties that are the main stucture around my patio be replaced as they are rotting. Other than being told that I cannot "deface" their property therefore, cannot fix any of these things myself, I have not heard from anyone at the assoction regarding my letter. I have paid my condo fee, on time, every month since I've lived there.  
 
Any idea what recourse I have? 
 
Thank you for any help you can give me. 
 
Lark

Lark, 
 
 
 
Abount the only thing you can do is to keep bugging them until they do the repairs. Check around with your friends and neighbors to see if they are having the same problems with the board. If so get a group together and confront the board at their next board meeting. Demand that they start being responsible by fixing up the place. Of course it could be that there is no money for these needed repairs. Your condo fees sound terribly low for a condo complex. 
 
I'm sorry to say that the only recourse you have is at the ballot box; don't reelect them to the BOD.

Thank you very much for the prompt reply.  
 
I will keep bugging them. :) 
 
Lark