Anyone Want To Pick This One Apart? - Petition To Remove Board

Let me give you some background here because it is almost comical. A year ago, myself and 4 others replaced the board that consisted of 2 guys who were not doing their jobs. We have made remarkable accomplishments in the last year, getting the financials 100% current, the landscaping has never looked better, etc. So here is this girl named Jane. She was a past due account with the HOA (3 years) but when I took over, we cut her and her husband a deal...pay 2 years and we'll call it even. They even asked for 6 months before paying that back...no problem. But when her husband sent us a big f*** you email, and stated they planned to move before they even began repaying their past due account, we told them that we intended to escalate the collections if they didn't pay up. They didn't, we filed a lien and lawsuit and they paid up within 48 hours. They've obviously had a bug up their ass over us since. Now, they are best friends with another neighbor, who is the litigant in our very first lawsuit. It goes to mediation a week from today. You would think they'd keep a low profile going into mediation but instead, Jane and the woman litigant went door to door with a petition to remove the board. Their attorney didn't know about this and even he told our attorney he is fed up with them. The litigant probably figured out this was doing them more harm than good so it came down to Jane doing the petition. This is what we got as an email tonight:

To the Secretary of the Board of Directors of the ****** Home Owners Association (SWD HOA), Via petition circulated through the unit owners of the SWD HOA, we have more than the required number of interested unit owners to request a special meeting to be called of the SWG HOA unit owners to remove the current SWD HOA Board of Directors or SWD HOA Board of Directors President. We are requesting this via email sent to ****@gmail.com and certified letter mailed to the address of record for the SWD HOA. We are requesting that this meeting be called as soon as possible. Please only respond to this request via email to ****@gmail.com. We will not accept phone calls, personal visits or communication via social media as a direct response to this request. Thank you and have a great evening.

Now, in my opinion, this is all total crap and we have forwarded it on to our attorney. First, I don't know where they Googled "interested unit owners" from but I'm fairly sure the petition is worthless. We have no idea who signed it, if renters signed it, if multiple people in a single household signed it, etc. Second, they sent this via email when our governing documents say that all communications must be in writing. Third, I'm fairly confident that it takes 2/3's of all of the home owners to vote for the board to be removed, and not a showing of hands at some special meeting. Lastly, they have no one lined up to replace the board. This was done because they figure if the board is gone, the lawsuit will go away because there won't be anyone there to represent the HOA or, when we win, to collect the judgment.

Thoughts?

Adding on to what Tim said.

The number of signatures to call a special meeting will be far less than the number of signatures to remove a board member or the entire board.

If they have enough legitimate signatures to call a special meeting, then you are probably obligated under your docs to prepare and circulate removal ballots for the special meeting.

Best to review with your attorney. Need to be careful how you present the matter to the community. Do you mention the lawsuit? Do you talk about your accomplishments? Or do you say nothing past the time, date, and details of the recall meeting?

I appreciate the feedback. Everything is going through our HOA attorney. In no way am I going to respond to "Jane" directly. There are our governing documents and state statutes that have to be followed and I am not going to let her set us up by responding without having our facts straight. I will NOT be surprised if the letter she says being sent to us does NOT include the petition. If it is included, we will go over each and every name to verify who signed it because we are positive there are names on it that shouldn't be there. Renters do not have a vote.

One person stated that email is an acceptable was to make this request to us. I respectfully disagree. Not only do our docs say requests must be done in writing but there is no proof of the receipt of an email to us. She directed the email to our secretary, who does not access our email account.

The sender already said that the request was being sent via email and certified letter.

"We are requesting this via email sent to ****@gmail.com and certified letter mailed to the address of record for the SWD HOA."

May I say most of this can be resolved by the OP reading their documents. Seems they don't know their own process of removal of the board and what it entails. It can require a special meeting called by the membership on their own accord for the intention of removal of the board. It's NOT a board special meeting. We also don't know the number of members it takes to make a recall. That too should be in the CC&R's or Article of Incorporation. We also do not know if votes count if the owners are not in "good standing" with the HOA.

Also need to point out that once presented with the petition with the list of names, the HOA should have enough records to verify correctness. If not, then your HOA isn't as organized as you think. The HOA should have some idea of who are members. It may not be 100% or up to date. However, they should be able to do enough research through tax records and collections information to sort.

My other advice is to lay off the lawsuits. It's NOT good for an HOA to sue. Dependency on your HOA lawyer is getting your Lawyer richer. He/She will ALWAYS tell you they will do whatever you tell them to do. They won't offer up options. Beware of any lawyer who tells you this. Lawsuits are not as powerful as liens/foreclosures.

Seems to me a bit more review of their own documents and rules need to be reviewed before filing off onto the lawyer. The lawyer should be the last source not the first. Unless you can keep affording a high legal bill with eating pounds of prevention than ounces of cure.

In my HOA, any group of homeowners can demand a special meeting if they have enough signatures.

But they can't call a special meeting on their own. That would be the responsibility of the board (no matter what the purpose of the meeting).

I think we're probably typical on this.

I agree that it's likely a few disgruntled owners or owners that likely are not aware of the facts of the issue. However, the petition should be taken seriously. I agree it's nothing to worry about but it needs to be taken seriously.

The Board has a duty to respond to such petitions regardless of who submitted it or the reason behind it.

Gregg,

This might sound nuts but give them their recall election if their petition is even close to acceptable.

The reason is that you have one or two disgruntled owners who think they speak for the majority. Rejecting the petition and denying the recall election will just add fuel to their fire. Chances are that they do not represent the majority of owners.

In my association we had a small group of owners who wanted to disband the HOA. The board finally put the matter up to a vote of the members, even though that does not conform to our CC&R's requirement for amending. Out of 1600 owners they got fewer than 10 votes in favor of disbanding. The dissidents shut up and sat down after that.

On a larger scale, a group of extremists sought to put a controversial issue up for a public vote about 25 years ago. I was opposed to what they wanted to do but also knew that there were enough loonies in the state legislature who could enact even worse legislation if given the opportunity. Every opinion poll I read also indicated that there was no voter support for the initiative. All my friends thought I was nuts for signing the petition to put their issue on the ballot but I knew just what I was doing. The issue was on the ballot and was defeated in 98% of the precincts statewide. After that, the loonies all sat down and shut up for a few years.

My point is that noisy petitioners do not necessarily represent the majority and there is nothing like a complete defeat at the polls to shut them up.

GreggK2 posted on May 17: "Now, they are best friends with another neighbor, who is the litigant in our very first lawsuit. It goes to mediation a week from today."

May I ask what the subject of this lawsuit is? Has mediation been completed?

What reason did Jane and her husband give for not paying dues for three years?

So far this sounds like my former HOA. From 1999 to about 2012, it had four lawsuits. The thrust of three of them was failure to provide the services specified in the governing documents. The plaintiffs tended to win, though at great personal cost to themselves by way of years of litigation and not always winning attorneys' fees.

Others seem to be giving the advice I would give: If these folks are following the gov docs with regard to a special meeting, then just mechanically follow the gov docs on this (with input from the HOA attorney). I'd be a tad generous to them, where possible. From experience, it's likely the gov docs' numerical threshhold for the members to remove a duly elected director is high indeed (as it should be). I do not think I have ever read of a group of members successfully doing this. The smart ones get one (or more) of their own voted in at the next election, via a lot of campaigning.

I find it troubling when a board negotiates for dues owed, offering a significant discount to what other members paid and on time. Maybe taking off the interest that the gov docs specified is appropriate, but nothing more. At my former HOA, I preferred just placing a lien on the home. The dues owed, with interest, came back steadily over time upon sale of the house (lien = title flaw = no sale). But on this point, to each her or his own.