Board Member Qualifications

If you google "sterling davis+board members+elligibility", you may learn a lot.

Our governing docs say who is eligible to be on the Board. Check yours and see what they say.

You also may find director qualifications in your HOA's Election Rules, which every CA HOA must have (eff. '06). My understanding is that any qualis in your Election Rules would not stand up in court (they need to be in your bylaws or other governing doc, e.g., Articles, CC&Rs). But they'd be a good place to start.

Imo and many others, renters should not be able to serve on HOA boards as they have no financial stake in those HOAs. But your bylaws may say otherwise.

Currently per our documents only owners are allowed to be Board Members. At our next annual meeting we will be attempting to amend many items in our documents. One item to be amended if passed will allow renters to make up a minority of the Board.

I am unfamiliar with CA law.

With or without a PoA from the unit owner? If without, then you risk becoming a lord of the fly's.

How would that minority thing be enforced? What would happen if there was a simultaneous resignation and/or recall of enough board members that this arbitrary minority amount was breached? Would the whole board at that point be in violation of the rules and a wholesale election of the entirety would be required?

I did check the Sterling Davis Act but didn't see specifics about owner qualifications for being a Board Member.

You probably need to read your docs further. Somewhere it is probably stated that board members must be members of the HOA. At that point what becomes important is membership in the HOA. If non owners are excluded from membership in the HOA, and Board membership is only given to HOA members (both of these are normal only after release by the declarant), then there is no need to further limit Board membership to owners because that already accomplished upstream.

Hence, it is not a matter of statute.

It is unlikely to be so in any case because of the problems it would cause for declarants and commercial and investment owners who chose to protect themselves by incorporation.

I want to add that only allowing "owners" to be members of a HOA or Board could also convieably exclude those who have put their property in trusts. Since it is likely that those who have done so are older and wealthier than the "average" to limit membership away from corps and trusts is likely to cause legal difficulties, because corps and trustors likely know their lawyer on a first name basis.

I'm recovering well.

As others have said, qualifiers (which is what your asking about) would be defined in your governing documents.

The only time I've seen any State statute address who may run for the Board of an HOA/COA was in FL that specified all members (which did not eliminate non-members, simply emphasized that you couldn't keep a member from running).

I once started looking at adding qualifiers to our Association. The main one being that only members may serve (member being defined as the name on the deed). In soliciting signatures I met many individuals who were married but, due to various reasons, only had one name on the deed. Had such a qualifier been adopted, we would have eliminated many individuals who could run for the board.

One way to counter someone who is running is to gather support for another candidate (perhaps yourself).

We have the same. If not an owner they are not members. If not members they cannot run. We don't allow renters so that never comes into play. Our not named on the deed spouses never come to meetings. If they did I wouldn't recognize them unless the named on deed person said it was ok and by doing so they would forfeit their right to speak. It is very specific. The owner OR their representative. Not both.

Hi KerryL1, thanks for the legislation name correction. I did review it and didn't see anything that gives me the answer to my question. However, I did get my hands on a copy of our bylaws and it does say Board Directors do not have to be association members. These bylaws were filed in 1980..time for an update. Thank you everyone for your input.

After reading these post, I just realized something. About 4 years ago we had a President whose name was not on the deed. Only his wife's name was on the deed. I found this out when I was preparing for an annual meeting after he resigned as President. Per our documents he wasn't even qualified to even be a Board Member.

He was the President who resigned because he was upset a board member was asking questions about a bookkeeper he wanted to hire.

Check your documents. Our HOA does not require the BOD member to be a resident, or even a resident of the State.

Ours, too, Bill, don't require directors be residents of our HOA. Pretty common, it seems. We had one owner who lives across the street in another HOA be director --he was OK. We had another who lived 1-1/2 hour away and was the worst director we've had in 9 years. New owner who knew nothing and didn't want to learn.

We have a lot of ownership by Ms. X, Trustee & if spouse wanted to be on Board it's OK with us. Some HOAs have a lot of trouble finding enough to serve, though we haven't lately.

It's all on how your Association defines who a member is.
Typically, it's the name on the deed.

If the deed is held in a trust or by a corporation, then the trustee or the designated contact for the corporation would be considered the owner.

Our docs say a Member of the BOD must be an owner and not delinquent in their dues.

The owner does not have to be a resident. We have never had a non-resident Member of the BOD.

The owner(s) is whose name is on the deed. If more than one name on the deed, they must designates one of them as the voting member. Quite common with a husband and wife. In one HOA they both showed (they were in a middle of a divorce) and neither would designate the other so we allowed neither to vote.

In the case of a corporation/trust owning the home, they must designate who their voting (thus could run for the BOD) member is. We have never had this situation.

Unfortunately, our Bylaws filed in 1980 when the complex was first built states that you do not have to be a owner to be on the Board. We have to take steps to update the Bylaws to change this. This will challenging if we try to do this with 2 possible non owners sitting on the Board.

Lots of food for thought here. Richard makes a good point about financial responsibility. The easiest thing for the court system (anywhere) to understand is what's filed as an official record. Thus it makes sense that an association would go to that same source for their documented definition of who's a member (owner) and who's not, i.e. the name on the recorded deed.

Hi KerryL1 I missed answering your other question about how many HOAs. We have 45 units.

So, Sandra, are some of the 5 owners running for reelection? Or is everyone new?

It's unusual to have all five seats up for election. What do your bylaws say about how many should be elected at each election or about "Staggered" terms, or how long each term should be. Two years is typical, but I've seen one year & three years form posters at this site.

I guess not, but do you by chance have a property mgr. who can help you figure things out?

Thankfully this issue is not a problem here.

Only owners are allowed to seek election to the board. Renters would not be permitted to attend out meetings no less now run for a board position.
I would like to read the actual wording of the OP's documents. Does it in fact say candidates need not be owners or does it simply not state candidates must be owners?

As members of a corporation owners would have certain rights one being seeking board positions. As renters, residents would NOT be permitted to vote for the board but now are able to seek a board position? Sounds nuts to me.

Renters, have no financial stake in the property. Renters reside on the property at the pleasure of the unit owner. How would those owning property now be willing to allow those who can't vote, don't pay dues, to decide how the property is managed and how the dues PAID BY THE OWNERS, is spent?

IF we were faced with a similar situation as the OP I would do everything in my power not only to prevent them from running but see to it they were unsuccessful.

Just don't understand how someone who can't vote in an election can still run for an office they don't have the right to vote for.

IF the owners in this community sit back and allow this to take place they will only have themselves to blame.

Bizarro world if you ask me....

Attached is Section 7.02-Election of the Board of Director. This is an association I managed some years ago. It was a condo conversion from 1980. The president actually lived in the apartment complex next door and had NO financial interest in the property. He couldn't vote as a member, but ran the place like a dictator.

7.02 Election of Board of Directors.
The initial Board of Directors shall be replaced, and the members of the Association shall elect a Board of Directors, at the first annual meeting of the Association. As provided in Section 6.06, every Owner entitled to vote at any election for Directors of the Association may cumulate his votes and give one
candidate a number of votes equal to the number of Directors to be elected multiplied by the number of votes to which each Owner is entitled; except that in all elections in which the Declarant is entitled to vote, and in which the Owner other than the Declarant does not have a sufficient percentage of the voting
power of the Association to elect at least one (1) Director through the cumulating of all of their votes, there shall be designated one (/) directorship for which the Declarant shall be ineligible to vote. Said Board shall consist of three (3) Directors, each of whom shall serve concurrent terms until the next succeeding annual meeting of the Members of the Association or until his successor has been elected. Directors need not be Members of the Association nor reside in the Project.