An Ex-HOA President Problem

We ignore our ex-pres except when he sends records requests that we are required by law to fulfill. Otherwise we have just stopped responding to him entirely. Ours is not quite as bad as yours, but he does complain regularly and widely. Since the rest of the board was re-elected by a huge margin and he was voted out, it seems that most homeowners have had a enough of him too, he doesn't seem to have quite the following that he thinks he has.

Thank you both for your advice, I am taking note of all of this and trying to be more informed about our decision. I think he deserves a hearing also since it is the process of the HOA, but the two other board members are not in agreement to this. They feel we have given him the time to voice his concern and disagreement with our decision and that a hearing is not going to solve anything. He just doesn't want to comply with something that he feels is wrong in his OWN opinion, not factual. Whether it is or not, he does not like our decision and will continue to fight.

Any suggestions about if we grant him this hearing, and he continues to not like our decision? I mean, where does it actually stop? Or does it?

Thank you again, both of you for your input. I really appreciate it!

Instead of fighting him, get him involved. Acknowledge his "complaints" and his "efforts" as a previous Prez. Get him on board with you by asking his advice and asking for a historical prospective POV.

If his complaint is about the color of the trees, ask him what did his board think about the color of trees etc.

As a previous prez myself, the hardest thing for me to watch was the new board trying to make decisions on matters that the association had been fighting all along. So the mistakes were repeated again. And again. If they had asked that simple question they would have saved themselves from quite a bit of the angst.

If it's a prez that the current board feels was terrible, shady or any other type of crap, then you put your biggest and brightest smile on your face and STILL ask him or her regardless.

Good advice from others. Won't repeat it.

Going to focus my comments on the non-payment of $15 which is apparently what he wants to appeal.

The essence of the financial relationship is as follows:

Covenants require the homeowners to pay for services that the HOA must provide. Even if the HOA doesn't provide the services, the homeowner cannot withhold payment.

That description of the relationship is pretty much universal. Nothing about the HOA paying a homeowner for services not provided.

He has a right to sue the HOA for not clearing the snow.

But there's no right in the HOA covenants to self-appoint yourself as a vendor to the HOA. Selecting HOA vendors falls within the authority of the board, not the individual homeowners.

Covenants usually give the HOA the right to do work on a unit and bill the unit owner for the cost. But that's a one-way street only. Nothing in your docs will say otherwise.

Question: If a vendor wanted to challenge the HOA's decision not to pay an invoice, would there be any obligation to hold a meeting? Don't think so.

So no matter how frustrating, I don't think it makes much difference if you grant him a hearing or not - If the issue he puts in writing to you explaining what he wants to appeal is the payment of the $15, you could easily decide that what he wants to appeal is beyond the scope of the HOA-homeowner relationship.

Anyone can sue anyone else for just about anything. Access to our judicial system is available to everyone.

From what you originally posted, the HOA had an obligation to clear the snow. In his mind, that wasn't done. He did it himself. He has "standing" to sue in court. That's the technical answer.

The common sense answer is that he would be a fool to sue because he would lose. But people sue over some really crazy things.

But now you have changed the facts a bit. Now you're saying that he wants the $15 for shoveling his driveway which the association had no obligation to clear.

Now none of his $15 claim makes any sense under this second set of facts.

Hope I've answered your question to your satisfaction.

So... his latest escapades, has made our new landscape company send us a termination letter. Our expresident has turned them into Dept of Ag...and our Water District. I don't blame our company for not wanting to deal with nag nag nag from him. He is out of control!!! HELP

At this point, I agree with Larry and the Board needs to step things up by involving an attorney.
You can't prevent him from contacting government agencies to file complaints against companies.
However, you can serve him an injunction preventing him from talking directly to the contractors.

It would also be good to find out if the agency found any violations or not.

Great advice, TimB4. I have recently taken on the position as secretary on our board, and already have heard complaints, rumors, etc. regarding all sorts of issues with our current board from previews board members. I've just joined this site, and it looks to me like it will very useful.

Thank you all so very much!! Great advice. I am in communication with our counsel regarding this matter, now it seems all I need is the information from Dept of Ag and our Water District to see if anything was found. I'm not sure if I am privy to this, but I'm going to attempt it.

thank you all again... I am loving this forum and the knowledge you all provide.

Christine

Here he goes again! Please help, you all were so great at giving me awesome advice. Our expresident has now filed a small claims lawsuit against the HOA for the snow removal bill he billed us back in Spring for $15. We declined it at the beginning, under the advisement of our counsel, he requested a board hearing. Per our CCR's, we had 180 days to set something. We ended up sending him notice that we would hear him after the board meeting coming up in October. This was within our 180 days. He has declined, saying we are out of time. So... my biggest question is, Should our counsel represent us at the small claims hearing? I think so, but our treasurer does not. He feels it's a waste of money when I feel it's a waste if we don't use them. I am not an attorney, he is not..and I feel this is why we retain counsel. Please let me know what you think, thank you!!

Christine

Thank you. I appreciate your outlook on this situation. I am definitley weighing our options carefully.

Christine

So here's where we stand as of right now. And side note, I really appreciate everyone's advice and comments, they really do help in making some informed decisions.

After discussing the lawsuit with the other board members, we received an email from our ExPres, offering to mediate this. He refused to meet with the board to discuss it further, but now wants to mediate. We informed our counsel of the lawsuit, our stance on it and that now he is offering mediation. He advised us, that if our decision was not to pay for his own removal of snow on that particular day, we should not take mediation. Mediation is for compromise, to which we all understand. We discussed it in detail, looking at all possible outcomes. In all honesty. . .we argued, and were not united on this. We have declined mediation, because we do not feel we can offer him money for something the CCR's do not cover. That would indeed set precedence for others to then bill us for removal of snow that is NOT covered in our obligations as the HOA. We offered ExPres a meeting in front of the board again, stating that if he can show us new evidence of why the HOA should be obligated to pay we would reconsider, but if nothing new can be provided to us in proof, we would not be changing our decision. We have heard nothing from him.

Counsel is going to be representing the HOA in the court hearing and we are now preparing a response. We all unanimously feel it is a waste of money, but in the same breath feel that we are not in fault for the cost of defending ourselves. Please don't take that wrong everyone, I am a firm believer in making moves to work things out without going to court and building costs on both ends, but I feel we have attempted to resolve this and nothing is working.

Quick Question (and maybe I asked this way back when): If it were you, and a resident questioned any type of covenant, and whether it was a past board member or not, .. would you simply have shown them the covenant and asked them to read it?
It is with this question, that I regret some of the ways this was handled. But ..a Board determines their line of actions, not ONE single member. I went with what the consensus wanted.

Bravo, Jon!

ChristineD2, can you clarify a few things?

1.
In your May 25 post you wrote that the reason the HOA did not clear the snow is because it was between contracts and the snow was melting faster than the HOA could clear it. Then on June 8 you changed the reason the HOA did not clear the snow. You wrote, "We are not required to clear his driveway, so how is he in the right to expect us to pay him $15 for his own shoveling of his own driveway?"

What do your HOA's covenants say with regard to snow removal?

2.
Is the ex-President using an attorney or not?

With regards to your latest question: If I were on the Board, I would ask the member to cite the covenant that she or he claimed the HOA was violating and put her or his complaint in writing, per a set format the Board had established. If it was a matter of interpretation of covenants, I would hope the Board would say as much to the complainant. After one more round of exchanges and without any new information, I would inform the member that the board and manager responded to the original complaint and have nothing further to say on it. Then I would ask the board and manager to ignore further communications on this particular issue.

I would have invited the individual to the Board meeting to discuss it.

Decision wise, I agree with you and would have provided the citation of the covenant in the response along with any applicable statutes.

I also agree with John regarding the attorney.
Have the attorney inform the individual that they are now representing the Association on this issue and all communications about this issue are to be directed to him/her.

Thank you for clarifying, ChristineD2. It's a shame this ex-President does not read the governing documents. I agree the HOA is likely to prevail.

Since presently this ex-President is pro se, I am not hopeful for an award of attorney's fees to pay for the HOA attorney's defense of the HOA. Where I am judges are generous to pro se folks, especially in small claims court. The generosity is part of the "access to justice" movement begun some decades ago. If the ex-president becomes a frequent flyer in small claims courts, with his nonsense claims against the HOA, then in my experience a judge will be more likely to penalize him with the costs of the HOA attorney.

Just an update, cause I know you ALL want to know, haha. We did go to court, he agreed to dismiss his argument for $15, if we agreed to this, this and this, "he supplied a list". Of course our attorney looked it all over, talked with me and we said no to everything except where he was asking to work on communication. I agree it could have been handled better, and in hindsight, i think the majority of issues were between him and the now resigned treasurer.
BUT... hold on to your horses. This pain is still in our side, every day, every meeting, every thing.
I need advice please.

This former president of the HOA not only emails us hundreds of times a week, but he continues to bring up issues that are closed at our board meetings, and at our homeowners meeting. He has pushed and demanded to know pertinent information about a homeowners foreclosure, demanding to be told what we are doing about a "expired tag" car in our neighborhood, going as far as to say that I am not capable to make decisions about violations and otherwise.
We give him answers and he refuses to take them and keeps emailing, pushing, demanding he will go to the Management company to view documents. Trust me, we are not hiding information from him, other than personal, private homeowner info.
He won't consider anything closed.
I am going crazy here. Please please give me some advice on how to deal with it, how do you deal with a rude, demanding homeowner that will not take the Boards word, instead keeps going on and on. And I mean on and on.
I admittedly know that taking on his position would lead to some calls, some emails and some answers that people will not all agree on. But as long as the Board is following the CCR's, our policies and Colorado law, do we really have to continue this engagement with him?

PS, Christine: we do have rules of, let's say, decorum for sour open board meetings. One of them ids that no owner may criticize directors, committee members, our property manager at an open meeting.

Another is that maintenance requests must go through the proper channels. Here, it would be submitting a work order. No one may bring them up at our open board meetings.

When I say he brings up "closed" matters, I mean...He will ask, for example about why so much was spent on irrigation last year. We have answered him with what we know. He continues to bring that up. We have told him that the discussion regarding irrigation is a closed matter. There is nothing new to add to the discussion., nothing has changed. He does this with just about everything, no joke. If he doesn't like the answer or agree with it, he brings it up again and again.
As far as meeting decorum, we do have rules and we have printed them, outlined them to all residents in regards to time allowed, when to speak and if disruptive: we have the right to ask him to stop and if he does not, we can adjourn the meeting or ask him to leave the meeting.
I wish all of you could be a fly on the wall. No one is as aggravating as he is, or just plain rude. He talks over people, talks when not given the floor by the Board, and will bring up topics that are not on the agenda. Which we were told, that he can't bring up unless it's on the agenda.
It doesn't seem make a difference what we do. We tell him time and time again that he can't just talk over people or argue something that is closed, or speak rudely to any of us, but it does not matter, he does it any way.
Can you tell I'm frustrated? lol

In regards to him contacting homeowners, he has gone as far as twice now writing up his own letter to all the residents and disbursing them home to home. Residents get so frustrated with him too. He even set up his own meeting, for all the residents, not including the Board, to discuss how miserable we are. Two people showed and thought it was ridiculous.
We honestly can't imagine why he is this way, if it's us or just any Board.
As far as his family, he is single, retired military and lives alone. I have had good times with him, when i served as his Vice, but I tell you, if it's not his way, it's complaint after complaint. Ugg

ChristineD2, I just read the history on this thread about your issues with past board member. I've been in a similar situation for past 2 1/2 years but it was the president of our HOA that started harassing us. We bought the vacant lot adjacent to us on an online auction and got it for 1/3rd of previous owner. Several people in neighborhood also expressed interest in buying it but wee unaware of it being sold. The bank was just liquidating the properties they had foreclosed on and used an online auction company to sell them. It was owned by RBC bank which was acquired by PNC Bank. It took about a year for all RBC's deeds to get transferred to PNC and there was no notice when the bank owned properties were going to be sold. I had a friend who is a real estate broker and he looked weekly to see if it was listed or not. Out of the blue he called me and said the property was for sale, it was a 10 day, closed bid auction, highest bidder wins. I won over the other 2 bidders, lol. Not a single person in the neighborhood even knew it was back on the market. That's when everything started going downhill. I had been mowing and keeping up the vacant lot even before I owned it. It wasn't long before I started getting letters from HOA management company and law firm. We got nasty letters, fines, and constant harassment weekly for 6 months and we paid all their BS fines. They fined us $1,300 for planting a 3' Avacado tree at the back of the lot, you couldn't even see it from the road. They filed a lawsuit against us and placed a lien on my property because I didn't have approval from "architectural review committee", they also said lot was unkept and unsightly but had no pictures to prove this. There were 4 other vacant lots that looked way worse than mine and I did have pictures to prove this and filed countersuit against HOA. The judge immediately threw their case out and dismissed the charges or claims against us but our countersuit remained, trying to get back the BS fines, fees, and nonsense attorney fees we had paid in past 18 months. The HOA had already spent close to $50k in attorneys fees and wanted to keep coming after us. I get along with everyone, I never try to pick a fight. But if you keep pushing, you will get one. I spent 6 months talking to neighbors and gathering information, learning as much as I could about the board members. It turned out, the president, treasurer and secretary had been on the board, uncontested, for the last 12 years! They had rewritten all the bylaws, given landscaping contracts to spouses and after looking through past 5 years of detailed financial reports, they are all corrupt and mismanaging our money. When I look at the dues "collected" vs what is on balance sheet, there is $25-30k unaccounted for in a single year. The HOA management company has an "office supply" company that charges us $900 for ink, $80 for delivering tissues, lol. It's crazy how people feel this is ok to do. My neighbor told me to go to our sheriffs department website and search our treasurers name, sonI did. Holy crap, his mug shot was the funniest looking photo ID ever seen, looked like they yanked him out of bed in the middle of the night. After he had thrown roofing nails in my driveway and given me an my wife 9 flat tires, I printed his mugshot and taped it to every mailbox, at the guardhouse and on the gates, I made sure everyone knew who was handling their money. He has taken over $70k just in past 3 years. I've had to hire 2 attorneys fighting the HOA's law firm and have spent close to $25k of my own money but have gotten the entire board removed, it took over a year to get them voted out but the neighborhood says the mugshot stunt is what got the current president to run and oust the previous one as well as the treasurer and 2 other board members just resigned. I didn't realize the treasurer was actually taking money then, that's is a recent finding but HOA management company is just as or more crooked than the old board members.
My point is, hang in there, stay the course. HOA's need good, honest people like yourself who are willing to take the thankless job, put in the time and effort to create a harmonious community and refer that past president's complaints to your HOA management company, I wouldn't even talk to him.
One of the main reasons for having an HOA management company is so that neighbors are not pitted against each other and put in situations that will create tension. I will never understand why a neighbor "wants" to create problems and fight with other neighbors, if they are that unhappy, they need to move out.
But since we have a completely different board now, new blood, they are creating social committees and trying to bring everyone together instead of driving around the island twice a day on a moped to document complaints on as many people as possible, the only winners before were the attorneys and crooked board members. I would suggest requesting a backup copy of your Quickbooks if you don't al have one and moving to a new management company and seek out new bids on contracts. You never know who's nephew or son in law is providing current services.

SeanM8, what a history. Do you think the 2.5 years of your life spent in conflict with these miserable incompetents and criminals, and the $25k or so you have spent, was worth it? Did you ever try to run for the board yourself? (I am not writing the latter to be snotty. More that, when push comes to shove, and the choice is between a couple years of conflict, $25k in legal expenses, and harassment by at least one criminal, I would prefer to get on the board, though only if I could be assured like-minded people were also on the board.)

Trust me, both me and my wife thought about running last year but the mess it was in, it's going to take a lot of time for whoever gets elected. The new president is young, likeminded like the majority of young families, not a retired, bored old man from NY or trust fund baby from Chicago, lol. That's fairly specific. I have 22 employees and trying to run my own business, I just don't have the time, the attorneys working for me I have known for a long time and will take these guys to the cleaners, all I want is my money back, the rest will go back into the HOA reserves. It's crazy how both the previous board members, HOA management company and law firm has taken so much money from us, and some of it is criminal. I'm fairly sure the treasurer can't give himself no bid contracts for landscaping, mulch and tree trimming for an area less than 10,000 sq ft. To the tune of $25k yr when there are 2 other companies providing the same service as well. It's all a shell game, the way they move money around from account to account, classify them wrong and no one ever even looks at the detailed expenses. 3 yrs ago they spent $16k on holiday lighting between 2 different companies, I only have seen one company here the 5 yrs I've lived here. I am selling the vacant lot now and looking to buy some acreage outside of town to build on with no HOA. As much as I like the "safe" feeling I get here, it's not worth the constant headaches and harassment we've had and the amount of money we have had to spend to fight it. But I want to make sure the past board members that were writing themselves checks for $5-10k to be reimbursed for "lights" or pressure washing, trimming a tree, are never able to serve on a board again.

I would send out, put on every door, a letter explaining the process for filing a complaint. If you don't have a policy in place for this, write one and have the Board vote on it. You can include the policy in your letter to the residents as well, and ask that everyone please ignore any other documents. Important to send it to the problem resident as well.

This guy is acting "ultra vires," meaning he is speaking for the corporation when he has no legal authority to do so. Document as many as possible of these "violation notices" this guy has given to members. I would hope the attorney is planning a cease and desist letter in this vein immediately. Since the guy is also harassing residents, I think the board has a huge obligation to put a stop to it a.s.a.p.