former owner still on BOD

I would think that to be a HOA member you would have to own a property within the HOA.
If he is not a member he can't be a Director?

Paul T

Tim is 100% right, unless your governing docs say he has to be a member to be on the board of directors he is well within his rights. In our association, for example, you do not have to be a member to be on the board.

Paul,

We also have no qualification requirements for our Directors.
Therefore, non-members are allowed to serve as Director.

In fact, we have one Director who is not a member. They are the spouse of the member. He is not a member because his name is not on the deed. It works well.

I have come across the issue of both spouses not being on the deed several times. Sometimes it's because one spouse owned the property before they were married and never added them to the deed. Other times it's because family or financial issues caused the desire to only have one name on the deed.

Having qualifications that limit Directors to be members only also limits the potential pool of volunteers. In a large Association this probably isn't that big of an issue. In a smaller Association it can be a huge issue.

Tim

No such thing as an unofficial member. Member is typically defined in the governing documents as the owners of of the property. Owner is typically defined as who's name is on the deed.

If your going to specify that only members may serve, if you don't follow that exactly an association could run the risk of a legal challenge the first time a controversial policy or position is taken by the board with a director who is not an owner.


I also understood that to be Diana's concern.

It's also a valid concern in my opinion. Regardless of agreeing with the concern or not, if there are no qualifications that must be met to serve as Director, then there is little Diana can do to address her concern. The only option would be to recall the Director.


Actually, unless there is something within the governing documents requiring Directors to be members in good standing, someone can serve as Director who is behind in payments and constantly violates the covenants.

Mind you I said that they could serve. I didn't recommend that the membership vote for that individual or that the Board appoint that individual to serve.

It will really depend on the character of the individual if being on the Board but not a member is worthwhile or not. Personally, if I know that the individual is not a member or not a member in good standing, I would not support their appointment, nor would they get my vote. However, if they were elected, since there are no qualification factors in my Association, I would allow them to serve as to do otherwise would be a violation of the governing documents.

we actually don't have any non-members currently on our board. However we do have a few homes where the title is in just one persons name and their spouse is techinically a non-member...

Tim,

Went back over this and it would concern me if I was a member of your assn. It would appear to be a big potential for someone with a special agenda to have adverse effects on your Members? I can't imagine someone who is not a property owner, other than a spouse living in ihe same house as a member, who would want to serve unless he had a specific target, good or bad, to shoot at? Any of your Members have any thoughts about revising your GD's? Or, is it "it is not a problem, don't worry about it" ? :-)

Paul T

The reason most CC&R's do not require a director to also be an owner is that during the period when the declarant is in control he would not be able to serve on the board nor would he be able to appoint any of his toadies to the board.

Paul

Do not forget if non-owners are allowed then the BOD could fill a vacancy with them thus only the BOD voted for them, not the owners.

I ragged on no name on the deed but I would allow a resident spouse of the owner to be eligible.

There could be Bylaws about a unit(s) owned by a corporation (maybe even a one person LLC) where the corporation is allowed to name their representative for voting reasons and maybe even eligible for the BOD.

The way I see it, if an association mainly consists of resident/owners (ours is well over 90%) then there really is no "practical" issue. The issues I see most occur when the association is mainly non-resident owners, part time residents, bought for rental purposes, etc.

Had an issue at a club once where a husband/wife membership was discontinued but those that had such were grandfathered in. Fellow divorces his wife and tries to bring the new wife in under the old husband/wife membership. Might sound simple...but it was not...it got sticky...LOL

I don't know how it works everywhere, but I recently researched the history of my home back to the very beginning in 1974. There has never been a deed to my lot that was in the developer's name. The developer owned a large tract of land that my lot was created from, but the first deed for my property was issued to the first buyers by a title company and referenced a trust number. Technically, the developer never owned my lot even though my lot was subdivided from property he did own.

I am not real estate wise enough to know precisely what the mechanism is to subdivide a tract and then transfer individual lots as they are sold. All I can say for sure is that there never was a deed for my lot in the name of the developer.

If the situation I described is normal, then the developer would not be a member because he owns no lots even though he owns the land the lots are created from. The lot does not exist until it is sold and a deed recorded.


Yes. That was my point. If the declarant wants to control the association in its initial stages, he has to write the CC&R's, Articles of Incorporation, and Bylaws in such a way that a non-member can be a Director. If he writes the governing documents so that only a member can be a director, he would not be able to control the board unless he and his toadies each had a lot in their own names.

After the declarant turns control of the association over to the owners, the owners could amend the documents to limit board membership to association members, but why bother?

In the case of my property (and probably many others), I think the developer never actually had title to the real estate where my house is now.

The original deed for my lot was issued by a title company under a trust agreement. Most likely is that the developer found the owner of an undeveloped tract of land and the developer offered to turn the land into a subdivision. The land owner put the land into a trust and the landowner was paid for each lot as it was sold. The developer himself never owned the land. Therefore, he could not have been a member of the association as he did not own any lots.

My retirement property appears to be developed much the same way except that it was one developer with land from many owners put into the trust.

I do not know how common this is, but I suspect it is done this way a lot. Developers love to use other people's money.