President charged us fees

It would help if you broke out some of this in paragraph form to make this easier to read, but let's see..

First, Board members usually don't get paid for serving on the board, which is what your bylaws are getting at, but they might be able to get reimbursed for expenses incurred on the association's behalf. However, that expense should be pre-approved by the board and there should be board meeting minutes noting a vote was taken on that issue.

The rest of your bylaws and CCRs should state what the Association is responsible for - there should be a budget for those items. The homeowners should have been provided with a budget, but if your treasurer is incompetent, that may or may not be of much help to you - nonetheless, get what you can.

Unfortunately, homeowner apathy is a big reason why a lot of association boards run amok - if the homeowners don't keep them honest by attending meetings and demanding answers, it's easy for someone or several people to get the notion they can do anything - and they will, unless homeowners like you stand up.

I believe Florida has some sort of ombudsman's office that assists people with HOA problems - check your state government website and file a complaint. If that doesn't work, you and your like-minded neighbors will have to work to fix this yourselves. In fact, while you're waiting to see what the ombudsman will do, start talking to your neighbors about what's goinjg on, educating them on your concerns and what you've found so far. Get them to come to the meetings and demand answers.

Better yet, call a special homeowner's meeting to have the board explain themselves - check your documents to see what you need to do. You may need to have a special election to recall these people - if it comes to that, be sure you have people (like you?) willing to step up and replace those board members. I wish I could say you won't need to pool your resourced together to hire an attorney, but in some cases, that's what it comes down to.

Once you have those people in place, get the audit done as soon as possible. If you have a property manager and he/she's not being cooperative with the new regime, you may have to get rid of them as well.

As you'll see from other people who post, none of this will be easy or happen overnight, and you may be in for some namecalling and worse, before it's over. But change is never easy, but since this is your home, you don't have any other choice. Good luck!