Condo Association Management Blog

When elected on the hoa board, does the CCr/bylaws or other legal papers to association state they cannot w/out paying membership vote? does the improvement make the property keep the value up or is this a project that was approved by a existing board and this board follow through- you need to state all the facts in this question or it is quessing game

read your association byl;aws and other documents for the answers to your questions. The Board must comply with the provisions that apply.

Good advice from Jim and Scott. 
 
 
 
In FL, generally, boards make decisions on spending without needing direct approval from members, with exceptions, and that is why you need to look at the governing documents to determine the limits of their authority to do so; there are some variations on spending rules also depending on if you are an HOA or Condo association. For both, if they are encumbering the association, like a loan, then the members have to vote their ok. For condos, spending from reserves are handled very strictly, while HOAs generally are more lenient on how reserves are set up, funded and used. Thanks for listening!

OK, here's the deal. 
Can they do what they did? Yes.  
Was it wrong. Yes. 
What are you going to do about it? 
 
My board tried to steal an election and they would have gotten away with it had we not something about it. 
 
Your board is sitting there thinking that nobody is going to actually do anything_and they are probably right_. 
 
It will cost you too much to fight them and unless you have a significant number of people on your side , you won't be able to do anything. 
 
In order to win and it not cost you an arm and a leg, you will have to get the board voted off and then use the association atty to go after the board members illegally. 
 
There's the truth. Hope you can deal with it.

We have had the same problem, to the tune of $250,000, with our "board" here at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort in Tennessee. They have repeatedly ignored our crystal clear language in our Master Deed and Bylaws that requires a 75% of all owners for "ANY alteration or improvement." When confronted with this, they just smugly say that they are in the "driver's seat" and will do what they damn well want to do. As a consequence of this, and many other violations of our regime documents, I have filed a lawsuit against all board members and the general manager. Details at http://DeerRidgeOwners.com and on YouTube at Channel DeerRidgeOwners. Tennessee desperately needs a state agency that would deal with these issues. The Assistant Attorney General for Tennessee told me he completely agrees since his office gets dozens of similar complaints a week about these kinds of HOA Board Abuse...but says his hands are tied until the legislature passes a law empowering them to deal with these problems. It is past time these laws get passed - in all states so abusive boards can no longer operate HOAs as their personal fiefdoms.

While state law and the governing documents of an Association state what a Board can do, and what needs owner approval, our Board like so many others does not even bother to read our governing documents, so it does what it pleases. I agree with Robert about state agencies. I recently retired and plan to do what I can do to create a state agency in my State (WA).

New Jersey also "desperately needs a state agency that would deal with these issues".  
 
ANY kind of external control will be helpful, ans State agencies aware of this problem. Why do you think nobody cares?  
 
I live in small condo (9 units)  
with one "superior" owner, who has 30% of votes on her side (3 units). 2 members never come to meetings. Using the support of one more owner our Superior owner assigned herself "President and Manager". She pays herself salary out of association money for her management services, and get herself a rise every 2 years (funny, yea? - isn't it a conflict of Interest?).  
 
Looking at our financial "documents" one can suspect how much more money stolen from association (personal checks for same people, every December, no invoices on what was done for this money, etc... A quarter of our budget just goes to someone, and we can't figure out what was done for this money in our 4-story condo... nothing that visible by eyes, but some water leak and other repairs. No meeting, no budgeting, no planning...) She rents her apartments to poor people (5-6 in 2-bedroom apartment), and keeps the building in the barely acceptable condition.  
 
We have tried to fight, we've been in Attorney General office, complained to State: nobody cares.  
 
She putted a lien on our apartment, and we brought our so called "board" in court. Yes lien has been removed, but everything else stayed the same. We tried to rise the "conflict of interest" issue, but our lawyer requested too much for the lawsuit, and we ended up with mediation, removing the lien, and getting paid for our lawyer.  
 
This is how it works: whatever happens in Associations is not considered a corruption, and unless you can afford an expensive lawsuit, you better close your eyes and ran away.  
 
This is very sad.  
 

After giving up on a group lawsuit because owners could not afford the endless bills, meeting with our state senator, trying to get the media involved, and countless other things we have tried, our HOA president, (the president of the bank that took over after the developers went bankrupt) continues to run our HOA in the best interests of the bank and the manager and not the owners. 
 
 
 
We have no power to make changes. The board and the manager know they can do as they please because owners cannot afford to sue and most give up eventually after trying to protest and getting no results.  
 
 
 
Check out the Beacon Pointe website and see what a beautiful place this would be to retire if educated owners could be in control of the homeowners association and not a banker and time share resort developer. 
 
 
 
Minnesota needs this state office badly before the "Land of 10,000 Lakes" allows more failing condo developments to turn into "fractional ownership" and becomes the " Land of 10,000 time shares.”  
 

Our new documents, which were voted on illegally carried no provision on spending limits. As a result our board and management co. can spend any amount on anything whithout association approval. We also have no state official to go to.