Term limits not observerd by 2 board members

Cassey,

Does the Board hold annual meetings and is a quorum reached at those meetings?

Is the Association under declarant (developer) control?

Cassey,

I was asking if the Board holds annual membership meetings and if you were meeting quorum requirements for them.

If the membership isn't getting involved due to apathy or any other reasons, and the Board is refusing to comply with the governing documents and/or State laws, one only has the following options left:

1) Live with it.
2) Sell and move
3) Consult an attorney to see what legal actions are available.

Any other options will require support from the membership.

Cassey, Richard is right; requirements for quorum, etc., etc., should be in your bylaws, but if they've never been amended to reflect current CA Corps Code AND CA civil Code, they may not be very useful. Newer laws may supersede your bylaws.

The CA Civil Code that deals a lot with HOAs is the Davis-Stirling legislation. An HOA law firm has an excellent website with a wonderful Main Index. It's Davis-stirling.com. Scroll down the Index to Elections to find the current laws about how HOA elections must be held, etc. You'll aslo see that almost all HOA materials--financials, etc. are supposed to be available for your review.

Meantime, there generally is no quorum that's required for Board meetings except for directors themselves.

For meetings of the membership, often annual meetings to hold elections, a quorum of homeowners must vote to elect directors. But they don't have to be physically present voting by mail--absentee ballots-- count towards a quorum, and so do proxies.

Tim listed your options and I agree:

"1) Live with it.
2) Sell and move
3) Consult an attorney to see what legal actions are available.

Any other options will require support from the membership."

By the way, Cassey, what size is your HOA?

Thank you for all the responses, guess I'll stay apathetic and hope to hit a lotto some day and move out of an HOA and never purchase a home in any again, learned a hard lesson, and wonder who ever started HOA's in the first place. In the 1950's as far as I know they were unheard of. Please no more replies are necessary. For 52 years our boards have successfully created apathy among members, they are not our neighbors anymore but appear to be dictators.

Well here you have it folks 2 people have cast a spell of apathy and stupidity on the other 698. Now those are some clever folks! Yes lets blame the two Board members because the 698 can't muster the b_lls to do something. Yes I feel bad. I feel terrible. I just wish there were some more laws to fix this.

Years ago somewhere I rmember reading God helps those who help themselves. If the 698 sheep decide to allow this it is not the fault of the 2 cowboys who have herded them up and lined them up for slaughter. Yes we think they might be stealing our money should we do something it isa 698 against 2. Better not it might require work, effrot, time, and giving a crap. Better to get taken to the cleaners.......

There just is no cure for stupid.....

I learned years ago in a human psych class the following (true of the population, not necessarily true of any individual):

1) Humans resist change, because they fear that it will be painful, and/or it is painful to change.
2) Humans will change for reward, or to lessen fear/pain.
3) humans may change when the perceived GAIN/reward for change is greater than staying the same. However, THIS change is typically temporary, and will revert back to zero state when the GAIN is no longer there.
4) humans will only make a permanent change when the fear/pain of remaining the same is greater than the fear/pain of changing

If no one cares enough to even dedicate an hour a year to a meeting, or heaven forbid, ten minutes to marking a proxy ballot, then I can't believe that the pain/fear level is terribly high. I've seen people spend longer ranting on Facebook about late pizza deliveries than they do paying attention to their HOA, so that tells me that the current level of pain to them is slightly below that of a pizza delivered 5 minutes late.

BrainB sounds like you have a good understanding of human nature and in this case how it applies to HOAs.

698 owners sit back and do zip. And are allowing 2 people to lead them around by their collective noses. Don't even have 50 that might TRY to stand up.

So then the only hope is passing some more laws to protect those people like this who can't be bothered to attend meetings but make all the meetings open, can't be bothered to vote but lets require all records to be made available whenever, can't bother to check on the fiscal health of their largest investment but lets paas a law that represents people like the 698 in this case even when they don't want any of it.

The root cause of many of the HOA issues is the absent minded owners who couldn't care less and allow things to go on and don't bother to get involved. There is not law that will cure that.

Thanks Brian

Thank you everyone for your input. For twenty-two years my group circulated newsletters, going door to door and carrying petitions to no avail. Yes, I am very familiar with the Davis Sterling website our governing docs, Civil and Cal Corp. Codes.

Members complain, but when it comes to asking members to help circulate petitions they appear to want someone else to do the work. To hire an attorney would be next to impossible, no member in our track wants to contribute one dime to help, let alone walk the streets. I'm disappointed that our Senator's office would give us the fast turkey shuffle.

The Attorney General-Public Inquiry Unit will only act on very few complaints, the answer to my letters to them is: "hire an attorney". Anyone in their right mind would not hire an attorney, they would be suing themselves. We could loose our life savings and possibly our homes; as I've read many case laws and I shutter at many of the outcomes of those I've read.

As for attaining a quorum to elect the same board members is questionable, it appears that our board (in these six years} have not attained a quorum and only send one round of ballots, by passing the second round. If I am not mistaken the board is to file a petition with the court to rule on the ballots they received. We ask for proof and their attorney advised them that the cost is too high, refusing to show proof of a quorum. Our senior group is very small and most cannot walk the 20 streets. We are in a catch 22, I've tried many times to contact members by newsletter and petitions. The member's list I requested from our board is never current. The board knows we are members advocates, and it appears they will do anything to stop us. And member's appear to change their mind even though they remain disgruntled.