What comes next? Dormancy? Receivership?

Indiana HOA here. 400+ community of single family homes. No active Board since last Sept. (all resigned en masse without appointing successors). Special Meeting scheduled for next month to elect new Board of Directors. Meeting notice has been done per bylaws. Consent and proxy forms have been mailed out by property manager. Homeowner apathy rampant.

So far, only twenty-some homeowners filled out the consent form and fewer filled out the proxy. With a quorum set at 60%, odds are we will not meet that number with attendance or proxies (despite canvassing the subdivision soliciting signatures) with the meeting less than three weeks away.

If quorum is not met and the volunteers are not elected to the Board, what happens? Does the attorney for the Board and/or management company have an ethical/legal obligation to petition the courts for a receivership?

Could the HOA just lie dormant and nothing happen without a BoD?

Can the volunteers petition the court to allow a judge to appoint them as the Board w/o regard to quorum? If so, which court would handle this and is an attorney needed?

Any input would be greatly appreciated!

You didn't say when this meeting will be - if it's coming up in the next two weeks, it may be people are preoccupied with the upcoming 4th of July, especially if they plan to go out of town next weekend. You may see more of a response after the holiday, but as time draws closer, you and the neighbors who are putting this together will need to continue walking around the neighborhood and pounding on doors to talk to people. Leave them a fact sheet or something to review and encourage them to complete the proxy if they don't plan to attend. They're welcome to change their mind - if they show up, the proxy can be cancelled and they can vote as usual.

The property manager and attorney work for the Association and can't do anything unless the board says so - since you don't have one, I would imagine any homeowner, including you, could petition the court for receivership, appointing you as the Board, etc. However, you and your friends need to talk to a HOA attorney RIGHT NOW about your options so you can put together a plan B, C and maybe D in case few show up to your meeting. Get together and start pooling together your resources to pay the man or woman because they don't work for free - you may decide to petition the court, but that will also cost money.

You can also try to reschedule the meeting - this time you need to put together a strongly worded letter on what can happen if the homeowners don't figure out once and for all whether they want a HOA or not. For starters, do you have any common area, like streets and sidewalks? Who will repave them if you don't have a board who will set a budget and select a contractor? Did you know if there is no operating board for the association, each and every homeowner could be held personally liable if someone should get injured on common areas? If the community goes into receivership, the judge will appoint someone to serve as a one person "board of directors" to run the association. That person only answers to the judge, not the homeowners, so assessments can be set to whatever's necessary to pay the bills and pay his or her fee PLUS court costs.

Threatening to smack people in the pocketbook may be what's needed to get people to show up - and if you can, make sure the previous board of directors are there because they need to explain how and why they let things get to this point.

Good luck to you and make sure you're strapped in - you're about to go on a very interesting ride (some of which may be extremely uncomfortable)

My understanding is that if there is even one warm body willing to serve as the board, then the courts would rather appoint this person and not a very expensive professional receiver.

How many candidates are there? How many board seats? If the number of candidates = the number of board seats, but there is no quorum, these folks should appoint themselves board members, trying to run an election every so often but at least as often as the gov docs specify.

Nope, you can't just walk away - you've put in too much work and if the worst should occur and the association falls into receivership, you'll be hit with the fallout like everyone else. Do you really want to live somewhere where you have virtually no control over your community and really, really high assessments? You can try to sell, but good luck finding anyone willing to move in a community that's in receivership - unless of course, you're happy to sell your home for, say $1.98 and call it a day.

So consider your efforts your way of protecting your own interests - because that's exactly what you're doing - it's what grownups are supposed to do! I think you're frustrated right now and understand why, so I suggest putting all this aside for a few days to enjoy the holiday and then get back to work.

If your documents call for a five-person board and you have three who are interested, the three would make up a quorum for board meetings, so start with them. If you decide to join them (and I think you should), you'll be one person closer to having a full house. If people are as apathetic as you say, getting the 20 or some homeowners to vote you in (or having a court appoint you) should be relatively simple.

From there, you can get to work on running the association - starting with a financial audit to see where the money went and reviewing all board meeting minutes to see what the previous bunch has been up to. If you find any signs of wrongdoing, don't be afraid to call them out on it and take legal action against them, if necessary. It might be fun to watch them explain to a judge why they up and quit without telling the homeowners what was up or filing for receivership themselves.

AS for the rest of your neighbors, they could be waiting to see what comes to pass (that deer in the headlights look up until the car hits them). If they really don't give a damn (and a lot of them don't as you've seen), maybe it's a blessing they keep quiet (for now) as long as they comply with the rules and pay assessments in full and on time. Just be sure the new board is upfront about what it's doing and why. Have a good holiday!

PS - you have roundabouts in your community? Bleah! Those damn things are all over Hamilton County (or maybe that's just Carmel) and people still drive like crap!

In Florida an owner planning to file for receivership must give all the other owners 30 days notice that he or she is planning to do so. That notice can be expensive since the statute says the notice must be served either in person or by certified mail. Don't need a lawyer though, from what I can see, although it may be advisable to have one just so your petition doesn't get tossed for technical reasons.

The notice itself is where it's made clear to the owners that unless people step up and volunteer to be directors, their monthly obligations will skyrocket.