Florida HOA Changed By-Laws

I moved into the community that I am in back in 2006, at the time the homes were new construction and the builder provided us copies of the by-laws and the covenants. In 2009 the Board Members decided that they had enough fighting with the high number of foreclosures, vacant, and non-payers and turned the HOA over to a management company, the first order of business for the management company was to address the by-laws, the claim has been made that the original by-laws were never filed with the state and that the HOA was not registered up until 2010 (at this point I do not know if this claim is accurate) and had the by-laws that we all built and agreed on been filed in 2010 I think things would be fine. However, the original by-laws called for a 80% quorum to make changes, and the new by-laws that were drawn up in 2010 are completely different from the 2006 by-laws and only call for a 10% quorum. I understand why the management company and the board members wanted a lower quorum, because 80% was impossible to achieve with the lack of participation, but changing the by-laws just to get around things because they are difficult is troubling and to what degree I am not sure. We have homeowners that have stopped paying and they claim that the HOA is illegal because the original by-laws that were given when they moved into the neighborhood are not being followed and that the 2010 passage of the new by-laws was illegal because it lacked the 80% quorum that was required. At the homeowners meeting we elected new board members and we for the first time since I lived in the neighborhood are on the way to having more participation, but our first concern as a board is looking back at the old business and the by-laws that were filed in 2010 and if we are operating legally or not. Has anyone ever experienced a situation like this before?

Adam,

I understand your frustration but your options are limited. You could spend a couple of hundred grand and sue. I have no idea what your chances of winning are as Florida has to be the quirkiest state of all when it comes to HOA's and condos. You could call a special meeting to take a vote to restore the old 80% requirement and find out just how damn near impossible it is to achieve even the current 10% quorum. Or you and like-minded other owners could run for the board and restore the old 80% quorum rule.

As a practical matter, an 80% quorum rule is not practical. Most associations consider themselves blessed if they can get 20% of their members to vote.

Think about this: half of all eligible Americans are not even registered to vote. If we had to have 80% of all eligible voters cast ballots on election day, Andrew Jackson would still be President. BTW, in national election years, we average about 2/3 of the registered voters casting ballots, and that is only one third of the eligible voters. I have worked on city election campaigns where the precinct-level turnouts were as low as 5% to a high of only 38%. Remember that those figures are the percentage of registered voters who represent only half of all eligible voters.

A ten-percent quorum for an HOA is far more reasonable than an unworkable 80%. Personally, I would welcome the change.

Never in my life have I seen an 80% quorum requirement met. I've seen 90% requirements in some documents, which is simply laughable. I think, if you want a high quorum requirement, then 30% is high enough. Beyond that, you're digging the association into a bottomless ditch.

Of course, its all relevant, if its a 10-lot community, a 90% requirement may be best. But if its 1000 units, and 80% requirement, you'll never get anything done and the association will slowly fall apart.