Legal/Lawyer Advice

John,

One would have to post their email in a thread. Others do not have access to your profile.

As for lawyer options, contact the local BAR Association.

Libel is a published false statement that is damaging to a person's reputation. I don't think you would have standing for such a claim if you were not the target of any published statement.

Keep in mind that it is typical to change MC after turnover from the Declarant.
The Board is also allowed to make mistakes.

It sounds like you have a specific issue vs. you liked the old MC.
If you care to share, the members of this site may be able to offer opinions on various options. They won't be legal opinion.

John

What are the issues you see?

Thanks for your reply; side note, I hate the fact I can't edit my posts. After I reread them with fresh eyes, I see my mistakes and it changes the point of my inquiry/question. And I need to make this corrections regarding the intent of my request.

Keep this in reference when reading any of my posts here; I/we (the entire board) are completely new to running an actual HoA. If experience included longevity and neighborhood involvement, that would be myself and the president. We were allowed to create a "Steering Committee" by the original BoD/developers. Essentially, we were liaisons between the BoD, neighborhood concerns & the managing company (MC). I've seen this sub-division grow from approx 30 homes (2007) to present day/Jul 2017, approx 155. We should max out to just under 180 if/when all plots are sold. The CM was required to visit our subdivision at a minimum once a month and due their duties. Check out common areas, enforce by-laws, etc... and all the things CM's do to include the accounting aspect. Hence the crux of my request here.

There is quite of bit moving parts in getting our HoA up and running as a Corporation and that in-itself is for another thread. I'm attempting to keep on-topic in this thread.

-Current situation: newly formed BoD, which I am the VP, lots of records have been turned over to us in no particular order from the old MC, a box of old files & a couple of CDs.
--I now had 3 or so weeks to review & I'm no-where near done. But just looking over the most recent financial statements(present/Jun 2017 back to 2015) has given me a clearer view of how much we have been paying for services that pretty much has been non-existent. Did we get financial statements during annual meets...yes, and that was pretty much in a excel-type of format. Some of it pretty self-explanatory, and some of it not so much. When questioning the CM regarding the not-so-understandable parts it was pretty much glossed over and just became frustrating, it was as the idiom goes, "pulling teeth". All the CM seems they were doing was taking our dues. There was no annual meeting in 2016. I personally sent many emails to request/questioning when the the 2016 annual meeting was going to happen. It eventually, happened in Feb 2017.

And there's just too much for me to go into here and it may seem very subjective vs objective (and this is were the lawyer come in for "do I/we have a case). The one thing I can say more than 50% were unhappy, I know...I and the president was constantly questioned by neighbors about the on-goings of the MC. We constantly reminded them we have no power, nor leverage here. We are homeowners just as they. And we were simply liaisons, so please send emails/concerns to our CM manager, which changed just about yearly. I did request to be courtesy-copied...don't think that ever happened, at least the courtesy-copy part.

In a nutshell, its not about suing my own HoA. Its about the new existing HoA/BoD Members/homeowners suing the "developers & the previous managing company" of let's say; dereliction, lack-of-fiduciary duties, ect...along those lines. Hence, the lawyers...is this even worth it...or should I/we be happy and with what we got so far in this turn over? Can I drop it, and its not a complete lost. We've gotten some funds. Which, in my opinion is more than enough to get on track and ready for 2018...mind you that's from a monetary standpoint, not a BoD viewpoint. But that's for another thread.

Also, I have to state; I don't want to mislead; as I feel like a have a bit of an opposite problem regarding all this. The homeowners are nowhere near as involved as this post may lead one to believe. Reference this setting of past years as the my being the "Steering Committee"; As far as I can tell, no one but myself and the president ever wrote to the developer or MC. We typically got the brunt of complaints; why is this.../when are our dues going to be reduced/can you do something about the speeding/etc. And as the "Steering Committee" we truly attempted to address all these concerns. But anytime we announced a meeting a very small percentage would show...we even asked the community the best time to get together, bit few more did attend still could be a larger attendance base on the size of our neighborhood. And during the MC annual meet, attendance was dismal. Myself the president and maybe 5-10 other families would be in attendance. I've never seen more than 20 families represented at the MC annual meet. And yes we have some rental homes and yes with my now current view we do have homeowners behind on annual dues.

Unfortunately/fortunately, I feel as though I have to try. I simply feel wronged and the existing board is nowhere near as motivated as I am in pursuing this...sure, they say go for it, but I'm the only one making inquires...I figured, as the longest member of this neighborhood, I would only get them involved if it goes anywhere.

One last note; at the risk of being slightly off-topic: the number one compliant/question is: when are dues going to be reduced. This subdivision was originated in 2007. I moved in 2007 there were approx 30 homes, today Jul 2017 there are well over 150 homes. And this wasn't a 30 homes in 2007 and all of the sudden in 2017 we have over 150 homes. It has been a very gradual growth over the years. And we are still paying the same dues. You can imagine how off-put I get when questioned by other homeowners about dues. I ask when they moved in, many times the answer is 2014/2015. And here's the typical conversation: "'They' said our dues will be reduced as this neighbor grows." I ask, who is 'they'? I never get an answer to the mysterious 'they'. I don't disagree, but it seem folks seem I/we at that time had something to do with this. And I have to remind folks I am also, a volunteer. I get absolutely nothing out of this, there is no spin here. My only light in this tunnel is, I want to live in a decent neighborhood and I do not want my neighborhood to be one that demonized. Unfortunately, it that seems to be the consensuses when researching HoAs...but I digress. And yes this is always asked at every MC annual meeting answered with some convoluted answer. Is this normal in our situation, developer owned?

I did get this statement in an email recently from the MC during this turnover;
CONTRACT: MC(I removed the actual company name) started before 1st ground breaking in 2007, contract was signed in 2007 with developer – cannot re-sign until after turnover

I take it, it simply means the BoD/Developer could not change "managing companies" until now. Since, we've been giving control. Still does address why our dues have not been reduce accordingly as our neighborhood grew. Though, since I have a much deeper view of the accounting, I can make some assumptions. Unfortunately, it does not seem its related to fiduciary budgeting, more like egregious spending. But, I have not run the numbers to a point where I can definitively say. But, my overall look is pretty spot on. I've identified many budgetary items to the why's & what's to the BoD and my banking numbers are pretty much in line as to the monies received, thus far. As I mentioned, the new BoD we have a ways to go. Our treasurer does account type work. I'm familiar with that actual job position where they work. That's main reason we elected this person and they willfully accepted. And have yet take the time to go over financials, still waiting for the financial overview from the treasurer. We all have the same exact info...but again that's for another thread.

I am going to be real honest with you.

It is highly unlikely that your assessments will be reduced - ever.

In fact, once turn over (control of the Association from developer to homeowners) occurs, it's more likely that the assessments will go up. This is because developers tend to keep assessments artificially low to entice buyers.

Until the Association (homeowner control board) completes a reserve study, bids out for services (trash, landscape, etc.), decides on hiring or not hiring a management company, obtains insurance and obtains legal counsel (on retainer or pay as needed) they simply won't know what amount of assessments are needed. Once that is known (mainly due to funding reserves) expect assessments to rise.

I would recommend taking everything and running ... unless there are costly development issues that would cost the HOA many tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to fix because developer did not properly install. Other minor items will cost more in legal fees than just taking care of the issue.

As Tim noted dues generally do not go down. Until your HOA makes an Assessment regarding costs to maintain your "common area" property and putting money into reserve account you then can make a better judgment on how much to charge for dues. I have had local HOA's end up lowering dues after they have accumulated more than enough money in their reserve accounts to cover future estimated large expenditures. However, this is rare and usually because has been well managed for a period of time to reach that point. However, that same HOA has members who question why they pay more than a neighboring similar HOA ... answer ... because they are smaller and do not have as many more homes contributing for the costs. If HOAs are maintaining similar common areas then a smaller HOA will need higher dues compared to a similar larger HOA in order to have similar amounts in the bank to pay for the similar common areas.

My new HOA raised everyone's dues slightly because in past they had no reserve account. The increase is to fund the reserve account and maybe in future after fully funded we can lower back down slightly with less needed to fund depending on future costs and needs.