POA Board President publishing homeowners personal information

I am in a South Carolina residential community of about 60 completed homes and 75 lots where the president of our Board often publicly calls out certain homeowners that she does not like and makes derogatory or mean spirited comments about them. Most of the time it is childish, rude behavior and for the most part residents ignore it rather than give it credence by responding to it. However, yesterday, the POA Board President went too far and published some personal information of homeowners to the entire neighborhood. The owners whose information was published have been advised by the police department that they can each file a harassment complaint agains the POA Board President and the police also suggested a civil complaint as well. The issue is that the POA President continually violates the POA documents and is supported by the Declarant who is still in the community. They cancelled the D&O insurance allegedly to save homeowners money and the homeowners are not happy with the idea of suing themselves.

We are looking for some suggestions on how to address this situation without litigation. Has anyone on the forum experienced a situation like this or have any ideas on how to respond? The homeowners are mostly older, retired people without a lot of money at their disposal.

Thanks for any ideas or suggestions.

Drop the HOA protection...Meaning STOP confusing the individual act over the acts of a HOA member. There is a difference. Hold this person responsible on an individual basis with each person responsible for taking their own legal actions. Thiis send a message and NOT bring the HOA into litigation as a whole. It is the sum of all parts theory...

Without going into too much detail, can you give us some idea of what this personal information was? There is a wide range of information that some people would consider personal. Some people feel violated when their name and address is made known, even though it may be available from public records. At the other end of the scale is information such as SSN, birthdates, children's names and ages, medical information, and bank account numbers. In between might be information such as who has not paid their assessments or who has been accused of violating the covenants.

I assume that your president is appointed or elected by the board. Since the rest of the board seems to tolerate the president's behavior, thus ratifying it, you may need to rattle their cages. If several owners pool their resources, they could apply for an injunction with the courts, naming the president and the individual board members as defendants. There are few things in life more humiliating than having a process server show up at your front door and, in front of your entire family, hand you a civil summons and complaint. (Johnny will have quite a story for his classmates!) The rest of the board members will quickly dump the president once they realize the costs to their personal reputations.

well, your license plate certainly isn't private information, so publishing a picture of it, even with the name of who owns the vehicle, isn't a violation of privacy. That's public information, available in a state database, or simply by observation.

so, a picture of my truck, license plate, and an arrow is not violating any of my privacy rights, if I ever drove my truck on a public roadway (or, on a private road shared with the person who took the picture).

I guess I am not getting this one.

What was it that the president hoped to achieve by publishing these photos? I can see no useful reason for doing so.

Even if there was no good reason to publish the photos, how were persons harmed by taking photos of their cars and license plates? The average person is photographed dozens of times a day by security cameras. While it is certainly odd to publish such photos there is no expectation of privacy driving down a street.

Did the president publish the names and addresses of the owners of these cars? If she did, then I think there is a legitimate question as to where that information came from. You have indicated that public policy in SC is to limit registration information.

I am not sure how it would play out if the president took a photo of your car, found your car parked in front of your home, and published a photo that said "This is Rebecca's car and her address is 1234 Main." I would think that might be stalking.

Rebecca, I'm not sure from your post whether the Declarant is still in charge or is simply a member of the community while he tries to sell his remaining lots. If he is in charge and she is his appointment there is little to do unless the people want to waste their time and money suing over this "egregious" act. I'm not quite sure what their damages would be, I'm assuming only the residents get the newsletter, so they got information they could get just by watching the comings and goings of their neighbors.

Now if the homeowners are in control and assuming the Declarant doesn't have the votes to keep her on the Board you could recall her or appeal to the other Board members to remover her as president and make her something innocuous like Member at Large.

There was a method used by the "Right to Life" people who would sit outside of abortion clinics and take pictures of cars the women leaving in car tags. They would then post them up with tags such as "Murderer" and such. It was a form of harrassment. Hence why a law may have been passed in some areas or states in regards to this activity. Otherwise, this would NOT be considered an illegal act and people could continue such activity. NOT supporting either view on the "life" issue here. Just pointing out that indeed publishing one's license plate can be a form of harrassment.

One important consideration, apart from the other good points that have been made, is that board members have a duty to treat all members equally, and to be dispassionate in their dealings about HOA matters.

Any trustee action that seems emotional or to unfairly single out a member, can be construed as harassment. Our HOA insurance agent warns us all the time that boards must treat all members uniformly and fairly, and must not give the appearance of favoritism or negatively singling out.

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HOA Secretary