No Officers on our board, can the show go on?

you need RIGHT NOW:

to seek the advice of an attorney who specializes in CONTRACT LAW

and / or

to petition the appropriate court to appoint a receiver for the HOA corporation until it 'gets back on it's feet, and operates according to OHIO not-for-profit corporate law

however, IN MY OPINION (repeat: opinion) the 3 trustees would, de facto, be the 3 officers ~ let your attorney sort all this out

Remember:

w/o the corporation there exists PERSONAL LIABILITY for all the HOs

BTW improper or not, if the Board had to hold a SA to raise funds to do X, where do you expect them to get the funds to pay you and your neighbors back from?

Mark,

In most states there is usually a provision in the statutes that says something to the effect that failure to abide by technical requirements does not invalidate an action by the board.

I read a lot of "us versus them" or maybe just "me versus them" into what you wrote. Nothing you provided indicates that you have done anything to remedy the problems you complain of. Have you sought a seat on the board? Have you tried to amend your CC&R's? Have you volunteered to serve as President?


Any attempt at recovering your payment would likely be barred by the doctrine of laches, which prohibits bringing an action where the plaintiff knew he had a cause of action, unreasonably delayed making his complaint, and the other party is prejudiced by that delay.

If you had reason to believe that the assessment was somehow illegal, you should have made your objection known at the time. Instead, you not only remained silent but you actually paid the assessment without protest. Your board most likely spent that money long ago on behalf of the association so that refunding it would not be possible . . unless they had another special assessment.

MarkC18, Would you be willing to provide some additional information?

How large is your Association? Approximately how old (when established)? How long have you lived there?

You wrote “we have three (3) trustees”. How many should there be? Are you self managed, or is there a management company? In your Association do the Owners vote for the trustees, and then the elected trustees vote to elect, or decide among themselves, who is going to assume which Officer positions?

Apparently the Board is functioning and meeting? What is it they are not doing? Do you know if Minutes of the Meetings are being kept?

Would you expand upon your statements “and they had no right to charge us” and “not my problem because they should have done their research before demanding money”.

Re budgets and assessments, most Associations I know, need to increase dues annually to keep up with increased costs. Why was a special Assessment necessary? Was it because there was no, or not enough, money in a reserve fund?

HOA dissolution will not happen if there are "landmark" amenities in the community. If there's so much as grass to be mowed, the consideration makes zero sense and Mark's philosophy will never mesh with an HOA community. The people who know the "HOA sucks" should step and join the board, thus entering the proverbial battle. For the effort to sue for assessment refund or dissolve the HOA, you could fix the neighborhood.