Condo owner on board not living on property

Welcome KeithT.

There are no Florida Statutes that restrict non residents from serving on HOA Boards. But individual documents such as your Articles of Inc. or Bylaws may have wording that states absentee or out of State owners may not hold Board positions. Look at your Bylaws and if there is no mention addressing owners who are not residents from holding Board positions, then it is allowed.

It is not easy to have an owner who is not present for all meetings if they are out of State. I myself do not like absentee Board members because doing business by long distance can be more challenging if you have an active association which requires fast responses from the Board members but it is done frequently.

Hi Keith...
Florida condo statutes are very succint regarding unit owners who are NOT eligible for board membership. Other than felons or unit owners who owe monies to the association, all unit owners may run for BOD election.

718.112(2)(d)

Any unit owner desiring to be a candidate for board membership must comply with sub-subparagraph 3.a. A person who has been suspended or removed by the division under this chapter, or who is delinquent in the payment of any fee, fine, or special or regular assessment as provided in paragraph (n), is not eligible for board membership. A person who has been convicted of any felony in this state or in a United States District or Territorial Court, or who has been convicted of any offense in another jurisdiction that would be considered a felony if committed in this state, is not eligible for board membership unless such felon's civil rights have been restored for at least 5 years as of the date on which such person seeks election to the board. The validity of an action by the board is not affected if it is later determined that a member of the board is ineligible for board membership due to having been convicted of a felony.

I know of least two Florida condo associations who petitioned the Division for a declaratory statement relative to your question of eligibility for non-resident owners.

(1) Hollywood Golf and Tennis Club Condominium Assn., Inc. (Case No. 96L- 0189) Declaratory Statement
Residency requirements were rejected in the Hollywood Golf
and Tennis Club Condominium Assn., Inc. (Case No. 96L-
0189) Declaratory Statement. Thus, an association cannot
prohibit a non-resident owner from serving on the board, even
if that condition is imposed by the governing documents.

(2) STATE OF FLORIDA
DEPARTMENT OF BUSINESS AND PROFESSIONAL REGULATION
DIVISION OF FLORIDA LAND SALES, CONDOMINIUMS, AND
MOBILE HOMES
IN RE PETITION FOR DECLARATORY STATEMENT
DocketNQ.2006051291
MAISON GRANDE CONDOMINIUM ASSOCIATION, INC.

13. The legislative intent and the statute are clear that condominium
associations may not impose a residency requirement to restrict a unit owner's right to run for board election. Therefore, Maison Grande's bylaw provision conflicts with section
718.112(2)(d), Florida Statutes.

My personal observation of a non-resident board member of our association (owns a condo in which the mother resides) is extremely positive. This person's service has been impeccable i.e. never missed a meeting, offers valuable advice & research, available at a moment's notice for board queries and has a real estate background which has served us well on quite a few occasions. This owner lives 2 blocks away from our community and is on our premesis at least five times a week.

I always wonder why some people are in a hurry to "exclude" interested volunteers.

HTH,
Ann

I agree that sometimes it may work to allow non-resident board members however in our situation it does not work very well. Our association was turned over from the developer to the homeowners in 2010. The developer at that time carried 4 votes per lot, whereas individual homeowners carried 1 vote per lot. The developer also brought proxies from other builders who owned lots in the subdivision and used these to vote one of his employees to the board of Directors ( the employee was deeded a lot just prior to the elections) This board member has fought us on most issues all year long. We are a 9 member board so the majority has over-ruled him however, his reports back to the developer about things we are discussing have hurt us. Case in point, we are changing our covenants to update and clean them up. One item we are removing is a sentence that says that anyone who owns more than two lots may take a waiver from paying assessments for a two year period. It doesn't specify if it is a one time waiver, it this was intended just for the first two years when the subdivision was being developed to encourage sales of the lots or what. This non-resident board member, developer employee went straight to the developer, told him we were considering removing this sentence from the covenant and the developer sent us a letter( fedex the next day) to declare his intentions to take this waiver in 2011 and 2012. Our lawyer tells us because he declared before we amended the covenant then we would have a difficult time getting this over ruled. This isn't the only situation where this board member has not worked in the best interest of the majority of the members but in the best interest of the developer instead--it was just the most costly. I understand why the developer who still owns 60 lots would want to have representation on the board and who knows he may even go so far as to build a home on one of the lots and put an employee in one to get around our changing the covenants to only allow residents to serve as board members. Ultimately, it will be the voters exercising their rights to keep the developers employees off our board.