Posted:
Sharon,
I am not a professional but have a bit of experience with an association board. I have sat on the board twice, but left because they were breaking our by-laws and have been fighting this out of control board since 2006.That was the reason I got involved. May I ask why this is in circuit court? What charges ? Just yesterday, I asked four of our board members to step down, we have a law suit against the association, members and individuals. They are using our association monies to pay for all legal fees and not telling the public, or other members about it. We even have our own website, in which they just recently removed our archived minutes for 2010 except for Nov, Dec(no meeting),Jan . They also just voted to destroy the 2010 ballots at the annual meeting ,while they know they are going to court.I am asking for Prejudicial Conduct charges against the individuals named in the lawsuit for breaking our by-laws and state laws. The pending suit is scheduled in August.On your problem at hand, The advice I had from an association law attorney is this, to get the people behind you, and to form a new board (Interim) so that if the court disables the current board you are ready to step in and take care of day to day operations until a special election takes place. The members lawsuit asks for receivership, but you could also pay an ombudsman to do this as well.The court or your attorney will tell you what you need. Most important thing is to have a quorum board in place to be able to take over. An idea for some research on your part, I find it hard to believe they will not list the board members. We cannot get a list from our association either, they refuse. It is State law, but they just refuse do it. So a couple of things you can do- 1.If you need to check on the names of your board members, then go to where your charter is kept, here it is our capital of lansing. We call the website d.l.e.g. in Mi. I do not know where yours is called.Research by name of Association. There you will find their license number to operate, names of all your board members and this must be filed every two years here, or the association non-profit status is terminated. This is a non-profit association, but both profit and non-Profit can be found in your state.2. If you need a members list of all association members, you may go to your township in which the association is in and get a copy of residents there. It will cost a nominal fee, let the attorney know and he can recoupe your fee in court. Here it is 35,00 dollars. It is so well worth it, then you will have a list to either sent post cards, or newsletters to all members, to inform them of your proceedings.It is all the members rights.Our lil association is an Association Law practice, meaning anyone in association law field would get a lot a practice with us, it would be a dream for a student, because it is a nightmare and they would think all other associations were child play after dealing with ours.Good luck and let us know the out come.