Question regarding non-member of HOA being an officer/board member

To all HOA Officers or Board Members, have a question for you!

We have a new homeowner, young person (21) who purchased their first home with the help of their parent. This person is the only one on title, not the parent. The parent is an experienced mtge lender and has helped the homeowner with questions about the HOA (understanding how it runs) and other small matters. Which has been fine with the Board. Our question is, the "parent" wants to be the homeowners "voice" in all of this. The homeowner is very timid and won't even talk to us without her parent over simple matters like our lawn crew missing a small portion of her yard (which was only weed along the street).

We have tried to be accommodating and sent the parent a proxy form to have the homeowne sign to give the parent the authority to act on the homeowners behalf but have never rec'd the proxy.
We are getting ready for our annual meeting and election of new officers. We heard thru the grapevine the parent thinks he can be voted in as an "officer/board member" at the annual meeting and the current board say no he can't, he is not the "legal" owner.

Now, our CCR's and By-laws do not specifically state that only a "legal" owner can be a officer/board member. However, our subdivision is very small (12 single family dwellings) and this issue has come up before and no one wants a "non-owner" on the Board. So should we let him run and be voted down or tell this person they can't even run?

Your thoughts, comments, suggestions????

Karen,

As Douglas pointed out, if your governing documents do not have any qualifiers to serve as directors, then anyone may be elected or appointed as a Director and/or Officer.

Tim

I agree with others. Your docs might well let a non-owner run for the BOD. This would not be uncommon.

An owner could give a proxy in the name of another so the proxy holder could vote. As in Daughter gives her Proxy to Daddy so Daddy can vote.

Were I in your shoes, with only 12 owners and as you say many opposed to Daddy running, it might be easier to ally the other owners to vote against Daddy rather then have a drawn out, potential legal issue over is he or is he not eligible to run.

well there is 11 votes against 1, if you want an over protective parents watching out for their children and against the community. just talk to everyone and don't vote for that 1 lot owner running for office esp the parent.

Imagine they run for office and then they challenge the way the vote goes and claims that 1 lot owner actually has 4 votes 2 for the owners and 2 of their proxy votes of the parents since the proxy vote document was voluntary sent to them. sending mix messages of who and how many can actually vote and then that family rents the lot to another couple and now there is 6 voters voting in favor of the single lot owner and then the renters demand their parents gets a proxy vote also. stranger things have happened.

it must be real bad in determining who has voting rights last 3 converts/bylaws/restrictions changes to that HOA in our community were all about whom gets to vote and how many in a lot can vote. Once a worm gets wiggling room it really starts wiggling for more space. seems every time it's voting time someone found a way around their last change to the bylaws about voting rights and they always have to patch that last hole and then it springs a new leak next years election..

Most governing documents require that the officer must be a director.

Revised:

Some allow Directors to choose the Officers, but do not require those Officers to be Directors (except for specific positions like Pres).

Our docs say Members of the BOD must be lot owners. Our docs say Officers are chosen by the Members of the BOD from the Members of the BOD thus our officers must be Members of the BOD. Our docs do not reference residency so we could have Members of the BOD who while an owner, do not reside here.