Recovering from a "bad" board

Started by JosephH2 • 22 replies • 1930 views

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JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57

Posted:

I’m the current president of a relatively new (3 years) owner controlled board.

Our current board is fairly conservative in its approvals of landscaping & architectural changes. We want to keep our development somewhat uniform and not have individual owners “overdoing it” with landscaping and exterior decorations.

Most of our HOA members seem happy with how the current board is operating and don’t get involved much in meetings or elections.

I hear from the grapevine that a small group of owners are organizing to get themselves elected to a majority on our board so they can get approvals for A&L changes they want to make that the current board won’t approve. Their rallying cry is, “nobody’s going to tell me what to do”. This could easily happen since, as I said above, most members don’t get involved.

Let’s say then that eventually, the other owners see what this group is approving and decide that they don’t like it and elect a board which is more conservative.

How can the new board reverse the approval precedents set by the “rogue” board?

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 1,767

Posted:

This is politics, pure and simple. In Washington, one group wants to control spending the other raise taxes. Your association is no different/. Some have different points of views and by campaigning, can take power and make changes ONLY if they don't conflict with the governing documents. If they have to change them, more campaigning.

If the conservative group gets back in, the operating rules are fairly easy to reverse, BUT IF the other group got the CCRs and/or Bylaws amended, then your work is really cut out for you.

JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57

Posted:

Richard

Thanks for responding.

I agree with everything you said but I’m worried about a narrower issue regarding landscaping & architectural changes. If the “rogue” board approves a lot of new trees, random front door colors, front lawn wishing wells, etc. in our small development (45 townhouses & 30 semi-attached) I’m concerned that it will be very difficult to reverse this. Wouldn’t these changes set a precedent that future boards would have to follow?

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 1,767

Posted:

Joseph

That is a platform you have to convince people on. IF the other group gets everything done legally, then we live with the decision.

"Democracy is a dictatorship of the majority"."

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

Would a new more "lenient" Board oppose your governing documents if it permitted any color for front doors? Any number or type of trees or landscaping? In other words, do your Covenants or ARC Guidelines specify certain colors and certain types of landscaping?

Put another way, is it merely your Rules & Regulations (usually changed easily--often solely by the board) that specify the current guidelines? Then a new board would be able to change things pretty easily.

Or are these specified in documents that require a large majority of owners to vote for in order to change them? Then a new board wouldn't be able to change these guidelines or whatever very easily.

Whatever chafes a new board might make, if done per your documents, can be undone by a subsequent board so long as it too adheres to your documents.

I'm a little confused by your language, Charles. Is this right? Your current Board is "conservative." A new board that wants kind of a free-for-all is a "rogue" Board?

JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57

Posted:

Carol & Richard

Thanks for your response. None of what these people want to do is specifically spelled out in the CCRs or Bylaws. It all has to do with the CCRs permitting the board to disapprove A&L changes due to aesthetics.

“Rogue” may have been a poor choice of words. What I’m concerned about is that, in my opinion, most of our members would prefer the board to be “conservative”. But through their inattention, by the time members realize what the “free-for-all” board is doing it will be too late to recover.

Even if members revert to a “conservative” board, it seems to me that there would be two major problems:

1. It would be difficult if not impossible to reverse the damage done - have trees removed, exterior colors repainted, landscaping undone, etc.
2. The past approval of these “free-for-all” changes would be a precedent whereby the new board couldn’t disapprove a future request for similar changes.

What options would the “back to conservative” board have to address these two problems?

AnnH6 (Florida)
Posts: 27

Posted:

If the majority is happy then I doubt they will vote in a minority that wishes to "go crazy" with modifications. If the deed restrictions are clear about what is allowed and not allowed then you would probably still be ok. The only cautionary tale I have is about what happens when an Architectural Review Committee decides that their vision of what is cohesive and good is actually tacky. It behooves a new community to tighten up their ACC guidelines ;)

RichardP13 (California)
Posts: 1,767

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JosephH2 on 02/18/2014 4:27 PM
Carol & Richard

Thanks for your response. None of what these people want to do is specifically spelled out in the CCRs or Bylaws. It all has to do with the CCRs permitting the board to disapprove A&L changes due to aesthetics.

“Rogue” may have been a poor choice of words. What I’m concerned about is that, in my opinion, most of our members would prefer the board to be “conservative”. But through their inattention, by the time members realize what the “free-for-all” board is doing it will be too late to recover.

Even if members revert to a “conservative” board, it seems to me that there would be two major problems:

1. It would be difficult if not impossible to reverse the damage done - have trees removed, exterior colors repainted, landscaping undone, etc.
2. The past approval of these “free-for-all” changes would be a precedent whereby the new board couldn’t disapprove a future request for similar changes.

What options would the “back to conservative” board have to address these two problems?

Our President leads by example, "I have a pen and I have a phone."

You make a great case and what you need to do is sell the community. Give the the pros and cons. Tell them what could happen to put things back to the way they use to be, removing trees, houses repainted, landscaping redone, and so on. The easiest thing to ensure you don't have to do that in the future is make sure it doesn't happen now. You have to campaign.

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JosephH2 on 02/18/2014 4:27 PM

None of what these people want to do is specifically spelled out in the CCRs or Bylaws. It all has to do with the CCRs permitting the board to disapprove A&L changes due to aesthetics.

So what you have is a small group of people trying to cram their concept of aesthetics down everyone else's throat as if they had been anointed by God himself to do so. In the United States we associate those ideals with the Taliban.

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

Joseph, you wrote: "CCRs permitting the board to disapprove A&L changes due to aesthetics. " Are you saying that there are no written guidelines of any kind in your HOA's documents?

Can you and the other current directors make some rules & regs about colors, landscaping, etc.? Or write a package for changes that homeowners want to make? Perhaps you can draft several on a list and put it out for an advisory vote from the homeowners.

this should serve two purposes: 1. spell out what's needed for approval of changes. 2. Learn from a large group of owners what matters to them in general.

KellyM3 (North Carolina)
Posts: 2,239

Posted:

The "rogue" board could change any board-passed policy it wants but couldn't - or shouldn't - ignore architectural and design rules spelled in the governing documents.....the docs that require heavy petitioning to modify or eliminate. The HOA has a constitution of sorts that protects minority owner interests.

Make sure you out-hustle them on the proxy collection game and you'll be fine.

DonnaR5
Posts: 162

Posted:

If your board is too strict and uniform in its vision, if you want to keep it looking exactly as it came from the developer, you will provoke resistance. I gather that you have not allowed people to plant trees or gardens that you don't approve of, or add any ornaments to their yards, correct? My suggestion would be to be a little more lenient in allowing people to garden and personalize their yards. It is, after all, their property, and most people don't see "cookie cutter" as a good adjective to apply to a home.

Your role, as a board, is to manage the appearance of the neighborhood in order to preserve property value, not to micromanage every plant that a homeowner puts in the ground. So you should ask yourself and others on the board if what you consider "overdoing it" is actually "over-restricting it." The fact that homeowners are feeling frustrated should clue you in. If your board eases up somewhat, there will be less chance of a new board going too far in the other direction.

You know, homeowners getting involved and running for board positions is not necessarily a bad thing; this is what involvement looks like. That you are already considering these people a "bad board" or a "rogue board" before they are even elected, and that you are worried about "recovering" from them, actually makes me more sympathetic to their side, which I have only gotten except through you. Just a thought.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DonnaR5 on 03/25/2014 7:06 AM
If your board is too strict and uniform in its vision, if you want to keep it looking exactly as it came from the developer, you will provoke resistance. I gather that you have not allowed people to plant trees or gardens that you don't approve of, or add any ornaments to their yards, correct? My suggestion would be to be a little more lenient in allowing people to garden and personalize their yards. It is, after all, their property, and most people don't see "cookie cutter" as a good adjective to apply to a home.

Your role, as a board, is to manage the appearance of the neighborhood in order to preserve property value, not to micromanage every plant that a homeowner puts in the ground. So you should ask yourself and others on the board if what you consider "overdoing it" is actually "over-restricting it." The fact that homeowners are feeling frustrated should clue you in. If your board eases up somewhat, there will be less chance of a new board going too far in the other direction.

You know, homeowners getting involved and running for board positions is not necessarily a bad thing; this is what involvement looks like. That you are already considering these people a "bad board" or a "rogue board" before they are even elected, and that you are worried about "recovering" from them, actually makes me more sympathetic to their side, which I have only gotten except through you. Just a thought.

Donna

Playing it loose is a very slippery slope. Many moved into a place as it had a certain shall we say "theme" and most want to maintain that theme.

DonnaR5
Posts: 162

Posted:

By the way, I get it. You're a new community, you're trying to keep it nice. But--

As time goes on, there will be changes. There will be pots, little gardens, ornaments, new trees, shrubs, etc. You would be wiser not to say "no" to everything but to start laying down precedents that the community can live with, making some room for individualism.

You will have much bigger and more important struggles than this, believe me. You don't want to make enemies unnecessarily. You may have read about very damaging (and very stupid) HOA lawsuits in the past that occurred as the result of boards escalating struggles over flags, election signs, small statues, etc.

One sentence in my message above was a little garbled; I meant to write "So you should ask yourself and others on the board if what you consider protection against "overdoing it" is actually "over-restricting it."

DonnaR5
Posts: 162

Posted:

"Playing it loose is a very slippery slope. Many moved into a place as it had a certain shall we say "theme" and most want to maintain that theme."

But in your first message, you said that the unhappy people could very easily get a majority on the board "because most members don't get involved." Are you sure that they agree with you? Have you asked? This sounds like a community discussion that should be invited, and conducted respectfully.

You can make that slope whatever you want--gradual or slippery. To believe that to give an inch is to lose? That attitude doesn't prevail in the end. Negotiation and compromise make a happy community & board.

FredS7 (Arizona)
Posts: 927

Posted:

> Wouldn’t these changes set a precedent that future boards would have to follow?

I'd like to see some discussion of this. It seems to me that most documents have language to the effect that failure to enforce does not prevent enforcement in the future. I'm thinking that there is nothing that REQUIRES following precedent.

Having said that- a reasonable campaign to make owners aware of the issues might be enough to stop the insurgents.

CyrstalB (Maryland)
Posts: 457

Posted:

No one should give the "grapevine" enough credit that you or anyone should feel that there is a problem. That term is used instead of the word, "I" more often than not. In this day and age, cynicism is at an all time high and you have to be cautious to take what anyone says at face value.

Clarify the statements of the grapevine with five W's and go from there. Everyone wants an accomplice to soften the impact and will use the imaginary grapevine as such.

SG3 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 63

Posted:

You will never recover.

Now who has the tacky taste and lacks vision for the community is a slippery argument. You need to look at the developer's aesthetic. Did people buy in because they liked it? Why change it? A certain amount of personalization isn't a bad thing but there has to be guidelines.

The board is not there to implement what those members personally want. Everyone owns property there and has equal rights to vote on the direction of the community. You need to represent your members by voting on things as a community. It is not your development. You are not the "boss" so to speak.

JosephH2 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 57

Posted:

SG3

Thanks for the reply.

I agree with you that an HOA can’t recover if a Board gets in that allows a lot of random changes. I was hoping that someone would know of a way to reverse this but, as I suspected, there is no easy way. The only (and unlikely) possibility I can think of is if the entire association gets together and individual owners voluntarily reverse the changes.

In line with your other comment, I agree that more of the community should be involved. This will make it harder for a small group to take advantage of the apathy of the rest. I have convinced our Board to start an A&L Committee. I would appreciate any help anyone might give regarding how their A&L Committees are set up and run and how they interface with the Board.

CarolR11 (Colorado)
Posts: 2,563

Posted:

For starters, Joseph, review your documents, probably your bylaws, to see how committees are formed, chaired, comprised, etc. If silent and you're incorporated, you'll probably find laws about committees in PA's corporation codes. These will give you a background for committees.

Do consider an ad hoc Architecture & Landscaping Committee. It would just convene, etc. on this topic and bring recommendations to the Board. If, though, you want a committee that would review owners' requests, yes, you'd want a standing A&L Committee.

SG3 (Pennsylvania)
Posts: 63

Posted:

We have an A&L committee now. They still allow and make random changes. Our whole property has been ruined. Eyesores are grandfathered in. The bod allows people to do what they want anyway.

Bod, committees, the problem remains that the individuals on them have their own agendas and their own taste. Changes and direction needs to be voted on by everyone. The documents to protect, which everyone purchased under, need to be upheld by the board. This is why they are there. No individuals have the right to force their ideas onto the community. You want to change them? 100% approval by all owners is the only fair and decent thing to do. Then the next guy who buys in knows what he is buying into also.

Another problem is that many people fail to see the big picture and ultimately wind up with one big mess. It is not reversible. Anything that does change will take a very long time and cause a lot of tension and conflict in the community. Same goes with poor money management. It is very difficult to recover from.

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