Keeping Homeowners out of monthly meeting

Does an HOA have a right to hire a police officer to keep homeowners from attending a monthly meeting? We are in Texas.

That just doesn't seem right.

Mary,

Is this a general membership meeting or a meeting of the Board of Directors?

If a Board meeting, does your governing documents allow the members to attend uninvited (open meetings)? I don't believe that TX has an open meeting law for HOA's.

Are they keeping out all homeowners or just some of them?

Here is an item from our HOA's recent history.

Two years ago our HOA ousted a Board that had done many things they should have known better, some actions contrary to our governing documents and state law, including an election in which they only placed the Nominees they wished (essentially, themselves) on the ballot. (They probably would have won anyway if they had simply put all the volunteer Nominees on the ballot. However, the neighborhood was incensed by what they did and the actual results are disputed. They counted the ballots in secret and refused -- to this day -- all requests to verify the vote count.)

The short story is several of us eventually went door-to-door and obtained a vote by petition of over 50% of our Membership to remove the Board.

As part of this effort, we promised that within three months we would put all 7 seats on the Board up for election to be conducted in a fair and open manner.

The former Directors and their friends complained that we would simply control the ballots as they did. (That would be SO unfair.) We responded by inviting one of them plus a volunteer from the audience to help count the votes, so everything would be open and transparent. We had a large number of candidates on that ballot, including all who volunteered.

They then complained that electing all seats on the Board violated our Bylaws, which require that 3 and 4 seats be elected in alternating years for staggered two-year terms. Seats otherwise vacated are filled by decision of the Board for the unexpired terms. Their reasoning was that they were accused of violating the rules; so if we violated the rules by electing all 7 seats by open voting, it would also be SO unfair.)

We resolved that by taking the first 3 top voted as the new elected Board members; the other four of us immediately resigned, and the 3 newly elected / remaining Directors selected the next 4 runners-up to fill the vacated seats for the next year. By doing so, we followed the rules meticulously and still kept our promises.

There were no further complaints about the fairness of the election.

Our HOA has approximately 300 single-family homes in Texas with a volunteer Board of Directors (no management company) and several grassy common areas for assets. Our annual budget is approximately $70K to $100K -- mostly allocated to mowing and watering the common areas in normal years.

It was a regular monthly meeting that homeowners have always been allowed to attend. There has been an uproar because the board has been doing things illegally, violating their own bylaws, etc. They decided that those who have not paid up on their dues couldn't attend and hired the armed police officer to keep them out. Their own deed restrictions do not have enough "meat" in them to enforce anything and most people out here stopped paying years ago because they do not maintain all the amenities and common areas as they are supposed to. And unfortunately, most people have just opted to quit dealing with them altogether. The homeowners we've talked to all want them out, but when it comes down to it, they're not willing to help us to the hard work to make that happen, and a handful of us can't do it alone.

I don't think excluding Members from meetings is a good way to get them to support their HOA. It's also illegal under the new Texas legislation (although I'm not sure if that part has gone into effect, yet).

My attitude as a Director is that we are obligated to be inclusive of Members and responsive to their concerns; but as volunteers, we are not obligated to give unlimited time and effort and they are not free of obligation to make some effort to help out. With us, it's more of a problem getting them to come to Board meetings to discuss issues, rather than just complain on a whim.

I also take the attitude that we deserve the best HOA we can get; and if anyone thinks the best way to achieve that is to oust us or replace us by appealing to our neighbors, then we should help them any way we can.

I understand Michael. If HOAs expect to ever get any cooperation, they need to understand that they are not GOD! If they would listen and work with homeowners, take their concerns into consideration, not have any underlying agendas and be open and honest with the homeowners, I think they would realize they'd get a lot more cooperation. When they strong-arm and bully people, they won't get very far.

Mary,

When is your next election? How many seats are on the Board, and how many will be up for election?

You have 248 homes (Members), right? A developer with 14 votes may have little impact, if you get enough homeowners interested in voting. Also, the way you describe the amenity upkeep suggests the current Board is doing little to help the developer sell those lots. His interests may be more in-line with those of a new Board that wants to improve the condition of the facilities. Did I miss something here?

As for the meetings, ask a lawyer if current TX legislation (or laws about to go into effect this year (maybe this month?) give every homeowner the right to attend. (A reasonable attorney should be able to tell you this much for free, especially if you indicate you and other homeowners expect to hire one to help you.)

If you are a Member of your HOA and Members have a legal right to attend a duly held meeting of your HOA Board, and if you know of a duly announced meeting of the HOA, then you and your neighbors should be able to approach an on-duty police officer present to maintain order at the meeting and ask him to ensure your peaceful and lawful attendance. You should not do this yourself, but have the attorney speak to the Officer. An on-duty police officer will generally not involve himself in a civil dispute (whether the law really supports your group or the Directors who called him). He will only serve to maintain public order. If the Board can cast you and your group as illegally disrupting a meeting to which they are not invited, then his job is to send you home to avoid a fight. If you are obviously peaceful, respectful and well-behaved adult citizens who claim it's your meeting, too, then he has no business interfering. Especially if an attorney tells him it's the law, then it's a strictly civil matter and another Officer of the Court has taken some responsibility.

If it's a private security guard (even a police officer hired for off-duty work), then you definitely need the attorney. Either the Board will back down or they will be on record as holding an improper (not illegal, as it's not a criminal offense) clandestine meeting, as opposed to penalizing Members for not paying dues or simply preventing disruption by unruly malcontents. Your attorney can tell you what you can do with that.

Your attorney can also tell you how to set up a fund in the HOA's name but not controlled by the Board, into which your neighbors can deposit all their back-dues.

How much are your monthly dues? Do you have the minutes from the meeting(s) where it was decided to pay a Director to maintain the golf course or approved financial reports from the President's wife? Was there any discussion of conflict of interest?

Where in TX is your HOA located, please?

Vicki, where is yours?

My email address is MikeK at Ethos dot net, if you would like to contact me and compare notes in more detail. We could also compare notes on attorneys. I'm acquainted with several other TX HOA people from this forum.

Michael, our annual election was last month. I just mentioned in another post that they drug it on for almost 7 hours and did the voting at the end to where the owners who did show up got tired of waiting and being there and left. They knew we had enough proxies to vote them out, so they decided they weren't going to accept them.

This HOA has been in existance since the 1960s, so not quite sure what you mean about a developer -

I'll email you privately in a little while about it. I get so frustrated when thinking about them. I'm going to take a little break then go into more detail in an email. Some of the people on this board seem to think it's a bunch of people who don't want to pay dues then gripe about it and that's not it. These people have actually signed over lots to their pilot buddies just so those people can say they own property and can house their plane here. Heck, even had a couple of them on the board, yet they've never lived here, had a home here, nor any other interest except the air strip.

Maybe half are lease homes of those who don't live here, if that many. This was originally started as a weekend community on a small lake, and people eventually started living here full time.

Many owners have their home vacant and still just come to visit occasionally.

Mary:

sounds like Texas adopted similar laws to what Kansas did with regards to meetings. We are now required to have open board meetings and we also have to give homeowners a "reasonable" opportunity to speak on any subject affecting the HOA. It also limits the rights we can take away from non-paying members.

to answer your question, once this law takes effect they can not ban members from a meeting.

The first of these was proposed to take effect at the first of the year, requiring open meetings and open books.

The next two were to take effect on 1st Sept; if that was not changed, they are current law. They prohibit restrictions on homeowners voting in Association elections (e.g. if they don't pay their dues), prohibit secret ballots so that HOA elections can be verified, require that electronic and absentee ballots and voting by proxy be permitted.

Does anyone have updated links to the final or latest results of the proposed measures?