Florida statute,lawyers advice doesnot seem to be supported

This is a real problem for us,obviously an H.O.A. retains a lawyer to watch their back,but his interpratation of the Florida Statute does not appear to have foundation.
It is really quite simple,all we want to do is change slightly our electionj procedures for the board to stop what we saw last year as "rule bending"
In essence we want to change the Bye laws to insist that nominations are in before the AGM thus giving us chance to check the eligibility,so no nominations from the floor,we also want to insist that Proxies are mailed in prior to the election for the same purpose,checking eligibility,our lawyer thinks one cannot go with the other thus not allowing nominations from the floor means we have to do mail in secret ballots,from our point of view thats very expensive and there does not seem to be any foundation for this advise in the Flroida statutes.
Can anyone help please?

Stewart,

Just like the members of this forum, every attorney has their own opinion. It's up to the client to decide how much of that opinion they will follow.

Expecting that your Association is incorporated as a nonprofit (most are), they will need to comply with Florida Not For Profit Corporation Act in addition to FL 720 - Homeowners Associations or Condominium Act (which ever is applicable).

Per 720.306 Emphasis added:

(9)(a) ELECTIONS AND BOARD VACANCIES.—Elections of directors must be conducted in accordance with the procedures set forth in the governing documents of the association. All members of the association are eligible to serve on the board of directors, and a member may nominate himself or herself as a candidate for the board at a meeting where the election is to be held or, if the election process allows voting by absentee ballot, in advance of the balloting. Except as otherwise provided in the governing documents, boards of directors must be elected by a plurality of the votes cast by eligible voters.

As you know, I am not an attorney and I do not work within the legal profession. The word following the bolded section is "OR". This would indicate to me that in order to avoid nominations from the floor, the Association would have to adopt voting by mail procedures to allow absentee voting in advance of the meeting.

Without the advance absentee voting, the law prohibits the association from denying a member to nominate themselves at the meeting held to elect directors.

Based on my interpretation of this section, you attorney's advice was correct. They were just not able to explain the basis of their advice.

Hope this helps,

Tim

TM4,

Yep it is confusing. Additionally, as I posted earlier, every attorney has their own opinion. It's up to the client to decide how much of that opinion they will follow.

It could be that your attorney is erring on the side of caution and including both clauses. It would certainly minimize the legal challenges but it can cause more confusion.

Thanks for sharing the information, its really considerable.
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Tampa Injury Attorneys