Terminology- HOA participants.

Started by DouglasM6 • 9 replies • 1205 views

💬 Join us to post & get advice from 50,000 HOA & Condo leaders.

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in

DouglasM6 (Arizona)
Posts: 724

Posted:

A little history-
I have a small community that had no Board of Director's and might as well say there was no Officer's either for about 5 years. There were no meetings, no announcements, no nothing.

I moved into this community 4 years ago and began helping with repairs to common areas. Before long, it was decided that I should be the President and that we should restart this HOA process.

So yes, it's the Special Olympics of HOA's right now. I'm learning hard and fast how this stuff works and so is my new team of officers.

Like oil discussions on a Harley Board or Tire Discussions on an Offroad Board, I know there are always lots of opinions. I'm open to them all at this point.

So, at this point in time, and if I have the terminology correct, we have four Board members (Board of directors members) and all four of us are Officers. This will be verified before tuesday night. It may be written in our docs that all lot owners are members of the Board of Directors. I'll report back on that.

So, right now we have:
Lot owners (Residents)
4 of which are Officers, each from a different lot.

From what I read on the other thread, I'm going to say the best scenario would be to have 7 board members and 4 of them would be officers. The odd number of board members would prevent a tie in a vote. Does that sound correct?

Again, thanks in advance.

MelissaP1 (Alabama)
Posts: 13,836

Posted:

That would be the "Best" scenario. However, must warn that due to apathy in HOA's, 7 can often be a stretch. So may need to play with the number a bit. I say 3 should be minimum. The treasurer position if not held by someone who actually does the accounting, can be eliminated. Many HOA's that position is basically covered by their management company or paid accounting firm.

Some officer positions can't do the other's job. In our HOA the President can not act as the Secretary. Vice-President positions do not necessarily take over if the President quits. They may just take over for meetings when President can't attend. It's best to read up your Officer positions responsibilities.

Right now your HOA sounds like it's going in a positive direction. You just have to plan ahead when it doesn't anymore. Must sure it can protect itself with the less participants possible.

Former HOA President

DouglasM6 (Arizona)
Posts: 724

Posted:

Thank you Melissa.

Very helpful.

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Many Bylaws will call for a BOD of 3 to 7 members. Typically the Officers will be Pres. VP, Secretary. Treasurer. Some offices can be combined. I was VP and Treasurer of our HOA.

Typically the BOD will decide how many BOD Members to have and they can change it. We had 7 during the transition to we owners. After the transition we decided 5 was enough. Two relocated thus we were down to 3 and we decided to operate that way for the rest of the year.

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DouglasM6 on 01/27/2017 8:52 AM
From what I read on the other thread, I'm going to say the best scenario would be to have 7 board members and 4 of them would be officers. The odd number of board members would prevent a tie in a vote. Does that sound correct?

From my experience, the absolute maximum number of directors is five. When my association was turned over to the owners, our bylaws said 3 to 5 directors and we elected five. Those five turned out to be clueless idiots but rather than admit their mistakes and resign, they expanded the board to nine and appointed four more totally clueless directors. Our board has been hamstrung ever since with two or three directors who know what to do and six or seven who bring absolutely nothing to the table. The county manages to operate with five supervisors, so just what is so complicated with your association that you need more elected personnel than the county?

Why four officers? When I was in the Cub Scouts in 1955 our den had a president, vice-president, secretary, and treasurer -- just like your association. Just what are the duties of that vice-president and why is that neither the secretary nor the treasurer can do his/her job?

JohnC46 (South Carolina)
Posts: 14,265

Posted:

Larry

Are you saying the BOD alone expanded the BOD beyond the maximum number of 5 as in the Bylaws? How could they do such unless the BOD is allowed to change the Bylaw?

LarryB13 (Arizona)
Posts: 4,099

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By JohnC46 on 01/27/2017 6:26 PM
Larry

Are you saying the BOD alone expanded the BOD beyond the maximum number of 5 as in the Bylaws? How could they do such unless the BOD is allowed to change the Bylaw?

Yes. The BOD may change the bylaws at will. The members may also amend the bylaws but never have.

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

If I recall from your other posts your HOA is only 20 Units. On those posts both Larry and I noted that 5 is a lot of chiefs for that number of owners. Your BOD is currently 1/4 of your owners and in the future you will face potentially a lot of apathy or burnout. I personally would recommend in the future only having 3 BOD members for the 20 home size of your HOA. Most of my local area HOA's of 40 units or less have only 3 BOD members.

I contend It is great that you have 5 for this year as you now have stated you are restarting the association and which is a lot of initial work to make this happen. It is great you have so many in your small community willing to step up to the plate to make it happen.

JanetB2 (Colorado)
Posts: 4,219

Posted:

Note: 5 BOD members if the current 4 appoint another to make the odd number recommended by your attorney.

DouglasM6 (Arizona)
Posts: 724

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LarryB13 on 01/27/2017 4:19 PM

I've found two separate documents titled Bylaws of this association. I'm trying to determine which is the newest, but if i'm reading thing correctly here, we can change the ByLaws as we need to. One of them says "no less than 7 and no more than 20" The other says "no less than 3 and not more than 7". That's the one I'm going with.

We have 4 directors (all officers at this point in time) simply because it was given to us like that. There was one director left, the treasurer, and she and her husband told us (members) that four was the number they had traditionally had. So, an election ensued and here we are. I plan to keep four as long as we are learning the ropes.

Apathy is not an issue right now. We had 16 out of 20 lots represented at the last general meeting. Two of the 4 that missed are rentals with the owners living in other cities.

🎯 You've read this entire discussion

Join the conversation with 50,000 HOA & Condo Leaders:

✓ Ask follow-up questions
✓ Share your experience
✓ Get expert advice
✓ Access 350,000 discussions

Create Free Account →

⚡ Takes 30 seconds

Already a member? Log in here