PjP (Alaska)
Posts: 5
Posts: 5
Posted:
Hello everyone,
I am a member of a 76 unit association. I have owned my property for the past decade. During this time, there has been a relatively permanent board in place.
Due to recent poor decisions made by this group, I have become more interested. Such decisions have included very bad contracts. They also have taken other actions without obtaining professional opinions. Specifically, they elected to hook up some of our units to the city septic system without hiring an engineer to evaluate the condition of the existing on lot system. When pressed for their rationale explaining their decision I was told that they had uncovered a letter from an architect which stated that "the useful life of a septic tank is 10 years". First of all, I am unaware of and architects qualifications to provide a professional opinion on a septic system. Secondly, I work as an engineer, and know this information to be not correct. While some septic systems can fail within 10 years, others can last a lifetime or more. The only way one can know for sure is to have an engineer run an adequacy test on it. This cost our association $90,000. The units hooked up to the city system also had a monthly service fee of $50. This was very troubling to me, as we had an existing on lot system that could have been good for decades to come. The only way we would have known is if the board hired an engineer for testing.
As a result of this, I became much more interested in the association's affairs. I attended their annual meeting intending to take a position on the body. I was shocked to see how their "elections" were handled. It consisted of the existing board members sitting a round a table discussing with each other who would take which position. In reading our bylaws, our rules say that ballots are to be passed out to all members present this was not done and nobody who was not a existing board member could vote. I told them that I would like to serve. I was told that I could not take a place on the board until they "could check if our dues were current". It is unclear as to why this information was not available at the meeting. Nonetheless, our rules do not even state this as a requirement for voting.
Long story short, they never checked on it and continued to operate in the manner they had previously done for the following year. I have little time to spare, so did not really spend as much of it on it as I should.
I spent time prior to this year's "election " trying to uncover information in the associations files that could be brought to the attention of other owners. I made numerous written request to access the files on their history of assessing fines , executed contracts, and the location of their "dues must be current to vote" justification (for the record, my dues have never even been late once in the past decade). These requests were initially denied due to "executive privilege" and "privacy laws". I researched the matter further, and realized neither applicable to this situation.
As a result, I was told they needed to consult with their attorney first. I figured that this should not take more than a few days, so was agreeable. I again contacted them by email or weeks later and asked if they had a response. The answer was no and they were still waiting.
In the meantime we received notice of the election happening in a couple of weeks. Specifically, the notice stated "Remember, dues must be current to vote!" I immediately wrote and requested information on whether or not they had obtained their opinion and if they had located where they had determined the voting rights limitations. The response I received was something like "I am not an attorney... blah blah blah... We don't have a response yet." After this, the "election quote was held as scheduled. I saw no reason to a to attend, because in my view, they were breaking the law by doing it that way.
Over the year they have not responded to my questions and requests to access information (I found out this access was required by the nonprofit corporation active my state, our declaration, and our bylaws).
In recent months, I have began attending their meetings to try to force their compliance with the law without initial success. I drafted a very stern letter to them, and supplied it to them prior to their meeting two months ago. Attending that meeting and being more assertive, I seemed to make some progress, but the minutes that were sent out for that meeting stated that some of the owners in the meeting had "aggressive" behavior and caused one of their members to resign.
After not receiving access again I attended their meeting last month to make my assertive claims in front of other owners. Access was FINALLY granted orally, though I had to leave state the next day for a few weeks for other matters. The meeting was rather heated during my time to talk. As I had multiple of grievances I wanted to make others aware of, they tried to tell me I had to stop talking after three minutes. My response was that I had to finish speaking. hat I would not stop. until I made my point (probably five or six minutes). I told them that since they failed to be properly elected, they did not have legal authority upon which to stand. One of them threatened to call the police. My response was "Call them, there is nothing criminal happening here." My voice was elevated, but I was certainly not anywhere to yelling. Also noteworthy, there was another homeowner there that had very similar grievances to mine and was involved in the discussion at the time.
I have just returned home and discovered that minutes were sent out to the owners with a very extensive write up naming me and stating that I was "aggressive" toward them in the meeting. They stated also that I was disruptive and a problem... their threat to call the police was mentioned, my entire list of grievances was named individually, with the convenient exception that I've been diligently trying to access our records for the past year. I realize you're only reading one side of the story here, but does anyone have any suggestions? It seems likely that this is going to get really nasty!
Finally, I should add that I also go
I am a member of a 76 unit association. I have owned my property for the past decade. During this time, there has been a relatively permanent board in place.
Due to recent poor decisions made by this group, I have become more interested. Such decisions have included very bad contracts. They also have taken other actions without obtaining professional opinions. Specifically, they elected to hook up some of our units to the city septic system without hiring an engineer to evaluate the condition of the existing on lot system. When pressed for their rationale explaining their decision I was told that they had uncovered a letter from an architect which stated that "the useful life of a septic tank is 10 years". First of all, I am unaware of and architects qualifications to provide a professional opinion on a septic system. Secondly, I work as an engineer, and know this information to be not correct. While some septic systems can fail within 10 years, others can last a lifetime or more. The only way one can know for sure is to have an engineer run an adequacy test on it. This cost our association $90,000. The units hooked up to the city system also had a monthly service fee of $50. This was very troubling to me, as we had an existing on lot system that could have been good for decades to come. The only way we would have known is if the board hired an engineer for testing.
As a result of this, I became much more interested in the association's affairs. I attended their annual meeting intending to take a position on the body. I was shocked to see how their "elections" were handled. It consisted of the existing board members sitting a round a table discussing with each other who would take which position. In reading our bylaws, our rules say that ballots are to be passed out to all members present this was not done and nobody who was not a existing board member could vote. I told them that I would like to serve. I was told that I could not take a place on the board until they "could check if our dues were current". It is unclear as to why this information was not available at the meeting. Nonetheless, our rules do not even state this as a requirement for voting.
Long story short, they never checked on it and continued to operate in the manner they had previously done for the following year. I have little time to spare, so did not really spend as much of it on it as I should.
I spent time prior to this year's "election " trying to uncover information in the associations files that could be brought to the attention of other owners. I made numerous written request to access the files on their history of assessing fines , executed contracts, and the location of their "dues must be current to vote" justification (for the record, my dues have never even been late once in the past decade). These requests were initially denied due to "executive privilege" and "privacy laws". I researched the matter further, and realized neither applicable to this situation.
As a result, I was told they needed to consult with their attorney first. I figured that this should not take more than a few days, so was agreeable. I again contacted them by email or weeks later and asked if they had a response. The answer was no and they were still waiting.
In the meantime we received notice of the election happening in a couple of weeks. Specifically, the notice stated "Remember, dues must be current to vote!" I immediately wrote and requested information on whether or not they had obtained their opinion and if they had located where they had determined the voting rights limitations. The response I received was something like "I am not an attorney... blah blah blah... We don't have a response yet." After this, the "election quote was held as scheduled. I saw no reason to a to attend, because in my view, they were breaking the law by doing it that way.
Over the year they have not responded to my questions and requests to access information (I found out this access was required by the nonprofit corporation active my state, our declaration, and our bylaws).
In recent months, I have began attending their meetings to try to force their compliance with the law without initial success. I drafted a very stern letter to them, and supplied it to them prior to their meeting two months ago. Attending that meeting and being more assertive, I seemed to make some progress, but the minutes that were sent out for that meeting stated that some of the owners in the meeting had "aggressive" behavior and caused one of their members to resign.
After not receiving access again I attended their meeting last month to make my assertive claims in front of other owners. Access was FINALLY granted orally, though I had to leave state the next day for a few weeks for other matters. The meeting was rather heated during my time to talk. As I had multiple of grievances I wanted to make others aware of, they tried to tell me I had to stop talking after three minutes. My response was that I had to finish speaking. hat I would not stop. until I made my point (probably five or six minutes). I told them that since they failed to be properly elected, they did not have legal authority upon which to stand. One of them threatened to call the police. My response was "Call them, there is nothing criminal happening here." My voice was elevated, but I was certainly not anywhere to yelling. Also noteworthy, there was another homeowner there that had very similar grievances to mine and was involved in the discussion at the time.
I have just returned home and discovered that minutes were sent out to the owners with a very extensive write up naming me and stating that I was "aggressive" toward them in the meeting. They stated also that I was disruptive and a problem... their threat to call the police was mentioned, my entire list of grievances was named individually, with the convenient exception that I've been diligently trying to access our records for the past year. I realize you're only reading one side of the story here, but does anyone have any suggestions? It seems likely that this is going to get really nasty!
Finally, I should add that I also go