Quorum vs total association vote

Hi All,
I was just voted in as Vice PReident of our HOA. The presdent may be away for our first meeting and was wondering what the difference between a quorum and total assocation vote is.

Thanks
Beth
Georgia

BethH:
Pls. refer to your official community documents which should state what the quorum is for your own community. A quorum, or the percentage required of total unit owners (not how many persons actually live there) is what is required to have a vote carried or passed.

There may also be a quorum required for your community in order to even hold a vote. But you need to refer to your documents.

Have you contracted with a property manager yet? or do you intend to self-manage your community?
PaulM

Hi Beth:

There are two different kinds of meetings, and two different quorum requirements.

A board meeting is when the Board gets together to do the business of the HOA on behalf of the members. Typically, quorum requirements for board meetings are just over half the board present, i.e. 2 for a 3-member board, 3 for a 5-member board, 4 for a 7-member board, 5 for a 9-member board; check your documents for your community's requirement.

An association meeting is when everybody (or a sufficient quorum of everybody) gets together to vote on things that require a member meeting, such as amendments to a declaration, annual meeting with election of board members, in some HOA's the membership is required to approve the budget. Your documents (usually bylaws) will spell out the quorum requirement. Some are as low as 10%, I've seen one as high as 40% to hold a meeting of owners. It's a percentage of the Lots represented, either in person or by proxy, unless the documents state otherwise. Most of the time, with an amendment, you need something like a 75% yes vote in order to pass (again your documents will spell out the requirements for amending them).

If you don't reach quorum, you have some choices:
1) delay the meeting (technically it's an adjournment) until people can go out and get some more people to show up within a reasonable period of time;
2) adjourn for a week or so (depending again on what your documents say) and work to get people there next time;
3) adjourn and have an informal visit with the people who showed up, but no decisions are made; you then reschedule the meeting for a later time.

We've had an annual meeting where we didn't get quorum, had an informal session with the people who showed up, and then got enough people to fill out proxy/ballot forms to meet quorum and counted the ballots officially. One of the Board members stood at our busiest intersection and asked people driving by to fill out a ballot, in order to reach quorum.

Best of luck on your meeting.

J. Patrick Moore CMCA

40% I wish; our CC&R's call for 51%. Our annual meeting is tonight and once again it looks as if we will not have a quorum. Of course the fact that the temperature is down in single digits along with snow and ice won't help.