Board Behavior

I want to start off by saying I admire the dedication of anyone who volunteers to be on a BOD. From reading these post I can see that many of you care deeply about your Association. I do believe in the concept of HOA'S. But what can you do when your Board is self-dealing, operating in secrecy, and breaking what I interpret as state and federal laws? I have shared the document information with several of my neighbors, some wanted to do something about it, others called me a troublemaker and said they don't want to be involved (they don't understand as a member of the Association they are involved whether they like it or not). I have been to an HOA Attorney for consultation, this cost was split between two people and I have spent some money on obtaining copies of documents from the county. I have spent hundreds of hours of research trying to wrap my layman head around what has been done and how, and trying to understand our By-Laws and Indentures plus state laws and federal. Jointly we have sent a letter of warning to the board and we also allowed them to read the Attorney opinion.

Our goal and recommended by the Attorney was to resolve the issues in this manner. The BOD cleared up some matters and ignored others. I stayed quiet and gave them the time to clean it up. I have now found they have spread it all over the Association that I have filed a lawsuit. I have many people that I have never met angry at me. I have lost the friendship of some close neighbors.

My main fear was the discovery that not all of our common grounds had been insured, we live in a zone of violent weather and tornadoes. Some of these areas are full of old trees overhanging homeowners houses. I have also discovered two Board Presidents have written licenses to allow themselves to fence our common grounds into their yards, they both have pools. Our Attorney said we are now liable for those yards. These two Presidents then filed Quick Claim deeds in language which I believe includes these licenses to give them permanent control and ownership (did not have these at time of attorney meeting). They refuse to release records, they meet in private without announcing their meetings at Board Members houses, they don't post the minutes on the website for more than 6 months after they meet. We have several years of no records except partial financials. After confronting them they are now meeting some of our bylaw requirements for financial information. I have been threatened to silence me, by an Attorney hired with HOA funds, because of that, and all the anger directed at me I have not disclosed everything. I have much more to disclose to this site but I will stop here at this point. I ask that you respond to me politely because I am under emotional distress. I will not spend any more of my hard earned money on Attorneys nor at this time can I move. I am most likely going to go silent, I don't know if all that has and is being done is bad enough for the circuit court to take us over but I have decided the damage to our subdivision is not worth it, Attorney agreed.

It is election time and the ringleader of the problems is up for election so we rallied about ten people put up a candidate, formed teams for canvassing, had letters ready to send out, had our own proxy ready to go. The BOD would not answer our e-mails about the election date or any information, so we decided to take matters into our own hands, however after they changed the date for the election 5 times (we found out by the calendar where we meet) and moved it so far out our candidate got so stressed she quit.

What they are successfully going to do is get majority quorum by proxy. Most people just signed the general proxy to them, this in spite of the fact they did not mail out or post a budget for 2013, did not include any minutes, or agenda. They have been given a blank check to do anything they want. They did not disclose on the letter accompanying the proxy what powers it would give them, just stated they needed it to conduct business, never mentioned it would be used for quorum either, and it is good for all 2014. They fired the Management Company in early 2013 at the end of their contract so they could operate in secrecy since they stopped the Board from questionable, unethical and possibly illegal behavior several times. Part of those funds saved were used to lower assessments a small amount which made the Board very popular with a lot of short- sited homeowners. I suspect their goal is to change amendments to cover up their past actions to make it legal and to try to give away our common grounds which has been their goal for the past two years. I have been in a three year fight to stop encroachment on the common grounds in the area I live.

This subdivision has about 150 houses, value- 350,000 to over 500,000. Our assessments are 220.00, we have a lot of common ground but no pool or clubhouse. They keep the assessments so low by not maintaining all the common grounds, forcing owners to do it and put the entire subdivision at a liability risk- we are talking about mowing, weed whacking, using chainsaws to trim trees etc, which our Insurance Company says is not covered for liability. The homeowners begin to think they own the common ground since they are maintaining it and some have fenced parts of it.

We were turned over in 2006 and the President added the buffer strip of ground that surrounds most of our subdivision to our Association by quick Claim Deed (no survey) and did it in secret, in 2008. Then she proceeded to have the licenses written up to give herself that common ground and fence it into her yard, thus closing off access, and giving herself enough room to build a pool. She claimed the builder gave her permission, so one homeowner requested to see that document and we were told by another Board Member they could not find it.

I have copies of one of the quick claim deeds from the county. The President herself told me she had filed a quick claim deed which I have not tried to confirm. I did not have this copy of the deed at the time of Attorney consultation. I did not know it existed at that point.

In regards to your comment about tornado damage. We have many high wind storms that are not tornados and effect only small areas so it would be easy to confirm damage from a tree came from the area I am talking about. Also our documents clearly describe what type of insurance we are required to carry. The BOD refused my request to see the policy and the Insurance carrier has also told me they will not give me a copy.

The Hoa Attorney wanted 2500 just to start an investigation, he was going to get a court order to get our records. that's when most people balked at getting involved they did not want to share the cost, and I believe the 2500 was just the beginning of the cost of what would have been an extremely ugly and costly situation.

Attorney advised against involving the state- first he didn't think our situation was bad enough that they would get involved, and secondly he said if they did it would basically ruin our subdivision for a long time in terms of trying to get appraisals or selling a home, plus divide us into a battleground. He gave us many ideas on how to handle it internally which we attempted.

I want to add another item to the list of what our Board has been involved in. One of our BOD(treasurer) members worked for a major financial company. As soon as the builder left he took our Associations money and placed it in an money market account under his name. He claims he made no money from this transaction but the truth is since it was his customer he got credit for that from his company. We have no financials for three years while he was doing that except for a simple budget. We have no idea if there was any retained earnings or loss. His friend a tax accountant was doing our taxes at the time and still is. Our bylaws clearly state how our money is to be handled- in a FDIC Bank, we are allowed investments but only by what the bylaws have listed as acceptable and not with operating money. I have been told but I have no documentations to prove this that he was comingling our money with other accounts. He was stopped by two other BOD Members in a confrontation in which he responded to by cursing them and slamming his chair. He was turned into his company and investigated.

I am going to go back over your suggestions and see if there is anything else I might do. But I have to tell you I am extremely weary of fighting this. The State of Missouri is no help, we have no laws to protect us from BOD'S like this and even our Bylaws and Indentures give them power over the homeowners that allows them to self-deal.

I have also gone to the county planning and zoning with overhead maps showing them where the fences are in the common ground and asking them to get involved, they did nothing. These people have no fencing permits - the county will not give them fencing permits into common ground,.but apparently neither will the county go after people who fence without them.

I appreciate your suggestions I will send a letter to the state about our need for laws like Arizona has.

yes
subdivision is incorporated.

At this point I should add that several of us were walking in the street one night after meeting and some neighbors who are good friends of one BOD member confronted us jabbing their fingers in our faces and threatening us with body posture, and accusing us of deliberately causing trouble in Association. These types of actions could be and most likely will be repeated by other people in our Subdivision. They know that a few of us have the documents and I believe we will be opening ourselves up for any kind of oppressive behavior if we go to the state. Including physical harm, vandalism, and verbal assault (which has already occurred many times) this is why some of the people have dropped out of our group of support. if I were in a position where I could move I would be more willing to do more.

[q1uote] Including physical harm, vandalism, and verbal assault (which has already occurred many times) this is why some of the people have dropped out of our group of support.