Empty Board seats

Started by NameW • 3 replies • 1441 views

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NameW (Virginia)
Posts: 74

Posted:

Take a 5-20 year old HOA. There are 200 units. The original owners have all died off or sold, or moved to another state. No one left gives a fig about the HOA. You are one of the two Board members left standing. Your By-Laws and Covenants say you should have 7 members. A 66% vote of the 200 units is required to make any change in those documents.

You have been fiscally responsible and have collected the assessments you should. To the greatest degree possible you have tried to follow the By-Laws and the Covenants. There are contracts awarded without kickbacks to companies that actually do the work they bill you for so the grass is mowed, the parking lots and even the playground look good. Your Treasury is in good shape with a Reserve Fund in place.

It is hard to find the time, but still you manage to get out newsletters, you have annual and monthly meetings and keep records of them, but it has been over a year since anyone except you and the other person ever show up. You two have had to let some things go in order to accomplish the more important things. There are some unkempt backyards, a few garden sheds not accompanied by Architectural Committee requests, and there are tenants instead of owners in 75% of the properties.

You have personally visited as many of the owners you could and appealed to them to join the HOA's BOD. None have. Although your By-Laws do allow a non-member to sit on the Board, even the local real estate property managers of some of the rental units in your HOA aren't interested in joining and devoting their time to the HOA.

What do you do to increase the numbers of the Board of Directors?

SheliaH (Indiana)
Posts: 6,964

Posted:

Do you live in my HOA (oh, wait, you're in Virginia.)

I'm not sure if I'd be comfortable with a non-owner sitting on the board - we also have a lot of tenants, but if it's worked for you in the past, hats off to you.

Anyway, look around this site and you'll see dozens of HOAs with this problem - unfortunately, there is no easy answer to this and it won't get fixed overnight. One suggestion that has been made is to hire vendors to do the work the Board should do - and increase fees accordingly to pay for it.

When the owners squawk, tell them there are only 2 board members and despite your talking to other owners, no one stepped up to help out. The tasks still have to be done, so you've hired people to do it. This will continue as long as the other owners sit on their ass and do nothing. That puts the next move on them - if they still squawk, but do nothing, they get what they deserve.

We also have a 7 member board. It used to be 9, but when we amended the Bylaws, the number was reduced to 7, mostly for the same reasons you've stated. Of course, we then developed a problem keeping people on the board and this year, we got fed up and I wrote an article in the newsletter about receivership, warning that would be the Board's next move if we didn't get more help by next year's annual meeting. (I have a thread on this somewhere, if you want to search for it).

At that time, we were down to three members (our secretary and president had left). Today, we're back at 7, including a board member who'd stepped down earlier this summer and two off-site owners. We'll see how long they last (the one who returned is trying to sell her house).

Elsewhere on the site, you'll find other approaches that worked, so take a look at those threads as well - a very good one from about 2 years ago discussed apathy (georgewilliamsw started the thread), why many people don't come forward and taking another approach to resolve the problem. Good luck!

If it is not right do not do it; if it is not true do not say it. Marcus Aurelius

NameW (Virginia)
Posts: 74

Posted:

Sheliah,
I wrote this as an exercise, not because it is my HOA's situation.

I think how it is approached will vary state by state and from HOA to HOA. I have seen Covenants (and By-Laws and Articles of Incorporation) that limit Board memberships to actual owners (which fail to address what to do if the owners are LLCs or other Corporation forms), as well as others that allow non-members to sit on their Board.

I would have to check, but I believe in VA only a share owner can be a President (or a VP by inference) of a non-stock corporation, but all the other seats are up for grabs. In many VA HOAs the positions of Secretary/Treasurer are/were paid positions, but VA changed the laws, so now by June 2011 those persons must both be licensed and also take ridiculously expensive training courses. Gone will be the days of hiring little Billy down the street to make the bank deposits for $10 a week.

[This legal change came about because of some rather large embezzlements by both HOA Treasurers and a management company.]

A further complication to staffing Board positions in VA is a fairly recent legal requirement those persons be bondable or bonded if they handle HOA monies. Nothing like having John-John and the Board hot to trot with him as a new Board member only to have the bonding agent say Nyet.

I just want to see how you all handle filling the slots when owners are apathetic. At the same time, I wish to point out that here in VA I know of one HOA in a similar situation where the last man (woman) standing simply decided to abolish the HOA. [I posted the article about that elsewhere in this forum.] I met with that poor President and without getting too deeply into the HOA's circumstances which may go to a litigation someday, I can see how the decision looked appealing to those who made it.

MaryA1 (Arizona)
Posts: 388

Posted:

Try asking if a member would be willing to be nominated to a position. Oftentimes a member will agree to this but will not agree to running for a position; I guess they don't want to face a possible defeat.

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