Owner/Resident Requirement for Board Service

just wondering if there are any associations out there that require through the bylaws that only resident owners can serve on the Board ?

Qualification requirements vary from Association to Association.

There are some that have that qualification to serve as a director.

Before an Association adopts such a policy they need to check their State COA/HOA laws and, if incorporated, corporate laws to make sure that the policy won't be in conflict with a State law.

Other Associations have no qualifications stipulated and anyone, within compliance of State laws, may serve on the board.
Other Associations only allow members to serve
Some, as you pointed out, resident members
Some allow members or any adult within the home.

There are many discussions on this chat that the spouse of an owner might well not be an owner, thus not a member.

Owner, member, spouse, resident can be quite different, thus where many issues arise.

I'm guessing that most bylaws only require ownership to serve on the Board - from the responses it seems that there are at least a few communities out there that also require residency.

there's an effort, that I support, currently in our condo community to change the declaration and bylaws to make both ownership and residency a qualification for serving on the Board.

opponents on our Board bring up the legality and discrimination aspects of such a change - I'm not a lawyer but my sense is that neither is an issue if a majority of unit owners are in favor.

LawrenceC1 , thanks for the response and suggestion - both excellent !!

good point - another situation would be where an association has trouble filling Board seats and there is a large percentage of non-resident owners .

a couple of the reasons that proponents of the residency requirement cite are (1) closer day to day involvement and awareness of what's going on and (2) non-resident owners who rent out their unit , which is our case, may not have the same interest in the community as resident owners.

LawrenceC1, what are some of the reasons your community favors resident owner Board members ?

We are a self-managed community and board members serve as the "Management Company." In that role, board members must monitor activity and compliance in the neighborhood, and an absentee landlord can't do that without going out of their way to travel to the subdivision, if they are even close enough to stop by at all.

Our board must handle day-to-day tasks such as counter-signing checks, meeting with contractors, depositing checks at the bank, checking the association P.O. box, etc. Absentee landlords are not around to do any of these things, and it's not fair to dump this work on the board members who live in the community.

Board meetings accomplish more and are less prone to dissension when we all meet face-to-face. Absentee landlords calling in on a speaker phone are much less effective.

The local police will not take action for unauthorized persons using our facilities without a board member present when they arrive. An absentee landlord can't be present to help out.

Enforcing covenant restrictions and collecting dues is made much easier if there is a friendly relationship between the board members and the homeowners. We sponsor parties and other social events to foster a sense of community, and an absentee landlord isn't usually around to participate.

In general, absentee landlords are not as interested in making sure things are working in the community. If the neighborhood watch is floundering, or the restriction on noxious activity isn't being enforced, an absentee landlord is less likely to be concerned, dumping all this on the other board members (although there are exceptions).

Absentee landlords usually have a single-issue focus on property values (things that affect potential buyers) and are concerned less about quality-of-life issues (that affect current residents). Certainly every homeowners wants to maintain high property values, but the HOA and the board ought to have interests beyond only that.

Can an HOA legally require you to be a board member? I am in MD.

I was recently elected to our Board. The member I defeated in the election also had his live in girl friend and his brother serving on our Board. There was no disclosure about the brother and one brother nominated appointment of his brother(different last name). So out of 5 Board members 3 were of the same family. Some Board members have been on the Board for 15 years or more and all past 5 years except the recently appointed brother who was not even an owner at the time of his appointment. Since then they are playing a shell game of property ownership through the use of a trust..Help!

I can understand your problem because same thing has been happened also with me.then importunately a property dealer met with me and said about property management tulsa.