Board Members Open Seats

Maureen, when you have your elections are the owners voting for board members or officers? In most HOAs I am familiar with at the annual election seats on the BOD are filled. Then the board among themselves chose who is Pres, VP, etc. I think the best way to fill your specific officer jobs is to have an actual job description of all the officers. If it is necessary for a job that specific skills are needed or computer software be used put that in the description. That way everyone can make an informed decision as to whether they can perform the duties.

Actually, additional qualifications for candidates may be made in the governing documents providing that they don't conflict with a higher precedent document or State/Federal law.

Many Associations do have additional qualificaitions.


Absolutely. I think that this should be done. However, depending on how it is worded, you can run the risk of scaring some good individuals out of running.

We include the following paragraph when we ask for volunteers:

To be effective as a Director and Officer of the Association, a nominee should be able to commit 2-3 hours a month for meetings and have basic computer skills like using e-mail and using Microsoft Word. However, the most important quality a prospective candidate can possess is a genuine desire to serve and improve our community!


One thing to remember is that Directors and Officers are, in fact, two different positions.

Directors are elected by the members. Officers are appointed by the Board. Unless your governing documents requires a specific Officer position to be filled by a Director, the Board may appoint whomever they determine to be the most qualified to an Officer position (even if that person isn't a Director). OR, after each election, someone who is currently serving in one Office might need to serve in a different Office.

We are self managed. Hand over from election to election used to be "here are the files, bye". I thought this could be better. Therefore, with assistance from others, I've started creating binders for each Officer position. These binders explain the job of each position and, where needed, explains how to do specific tasks. This helps to minimize the learning curve for the positions.