I was nominated and elected to the 5-member condo board soon after I bought my unit. I was a member of the board for five years. We have a small complex so there aren’t many people willing or able to serve. The condo is in California. The president is very much in charge and I realized soon after I joined that what she wanted was four rubber stamps for everything she wanted to do. I am not a rubber stamp kind of person and I disagreed on several occasions with her suggestions. I was never aggressive and just explained my position. Occasionally I voted against her suggestions though my opposing vote never made any difference because she had three other board members who always voted with her. At one point I spoke up about her plans to have the exteriors of all the buildings painted. I worried that it was costing too much and left almost nothing for emergencies. I was outvoted and the painting proceeded. There was an emergency repair and it left our reserves depleted so it was decided to impose a special assessment. I voted against this, too, but to no avail. It passed. Meanwhile a new owner arrived who wanted to be on the board. When the nomination forms went out, I never received one and I had no contact from the president or management. Finally the manager contacted me and said they had not received my nomination and asked if I still wanted to run for a place on the board. I said I did but that I had never received a nomination form and did not know they had been mailed out. Then she called back within hours and said the deadline had passed and I couldn’t run and that there were five nominations already. So I was off the board with no recourse. I know the president wanted me off the board because she didn’t like any opposition and she finally had an opportunity for someone else to fill the slot. I doubt that any nomination form was ever mailed to me and it was deliberate. What can an owner do who is manipulated like this? Not that I want to sit on a board that is run so badly where everyone is expected to vote the way the president wants. It looks to me like bad business. For the first time I want to sell my unit and move on, preferably not to another condo.
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