Directors not living in community

Mark,

We actually have zero qualifications to serve as Director on our Board. This of course means that you could serve as a Director in my Association (we have a vacancy if your interested )

I actually looked at having a qualifier that only members may serve. However, in gathering signatures I became educated in the issues of the day and chose to abandon that cause. It seems that we have a large number of elder persons in our area (or did at the time). Many of those were, due to financial reasons, simply living together vs. being married. Those that were on second marriages chose not to place their new spouse on the deed to the property (many said it kept peace with the children). Having a "members only" qualifier would have eliminated those spouses or significant others from serving.

You should also check the applicable State statutes to your Association. Some States have specified that an HOA/COA may not prohibit members from serving.

As to non-resident members serving on the Board - We have had several serve that lived within commuting distance. There were few problems having them serve and they contributed greatly. We have had a few Directors who became non-resident members outside the commuting distance who tried to serve but simply couldn't be counted on to do anything.

My Sister owns a house in Colorado that everyone on the Board doesn't live full time on the property. They work well together but only meet once a quarter.

I think it will depend on the size of the community, the responsibilities of the Association (upkeep of amenities, etc.) and the issues within the community (if everyone is paying assessments on time and plays nice together then there is little to no enforcement issues).

My opinion is that an owner is an owner whether they live in their unit or not. Their interests might be different, but they should be equal. That's what elections are for, so that owners can elect like minded owners to the BOD.

This topic comes up at least twice a year. You might want to do a search for opinions, which vary widely. In our case we had a nonresident owner who lived an hour-/2 away and knew nothing about our premisses. We've had another who'd actually lived here, serves on committees and lives across the street. He's pretty good.

How do you think, Mark, that a landlord's point of view would be different than a non-landlord's?

It's hard to argue against your point. But in our case the director was elected, then moved.

It's a good question. Let me first say I am really speaking of a non-resident more than just a landlord. If the owner lived here and had other rental units I'd be fine with directorship.

But if they don't live there I believe their priorities are different. Example: I have an upstairs renter. He had a water leak cause by the owner that affected my condo. The owner called and later had his insurance agency call who haven't been great for me to deal with. No big deal but I am the one hiring the contractor dealing with the mess and also dealing with his problematic insurance company because I'm not their customer.

I believe that if the landlord lived here he would have solved this weeks ago and wouldn't have allowed the distance between us to buffer him from embarrassment and the reputation of being a less than helpful/conscientious neighbor.

In other words, investor/landlord is different than neighbor when it comes to being sensitive to others living in the same building.