I think the HOA did something illegal or against the rules.

I have been dissecting the HOA rules in my area, and nowhere in the 1978 rules or the most current revision of the rules does it indicate that at a private meeting the Presidents position can be putting a turtle on a post.

In the 1978 rules no where does it talk about what to do in case of a president stepping down by choice .... it only refers to a "ACC" or "AGC"

Since the rest of the rules have no reference to what would happen, I'm under the impression that when 4 members. President , secretary , and 2 "officers" which are named officers but should be in reality named "committee" members....3 stepped down and 1 died. the one that died was a "officer" despite being wrong term.

I feel that if the rules for the HOA only says what to do when a AGC (Architectural Design Committee) later mysteriously called the ACC. Architectural Control Committee I feel those rules, which are attached to this post are ONLY talking about the Architect committee members . 3 . As it says the remaining 2 members can fill a vacant spot, not talking about the entire "PANEL" of the hoa.

I need this confirmed by someone , because If I'm right I'm going to call for a emergency meeting to demand a real vote so the popular that lives in this neighborhood can actually have a vote for who they want in charge, not these shifty eyed types that don't want the community to have a say so in who gets on the board.

This meeting was done at a "officers meeting" in which they did not allow the public to show up. they did not inform anyone what was going on and later revealed that weeks in advance they had it planned out to go that way . The president did not want to be in the HOA anymore and instead of calling a emergency community meeting to take a vote, they picked up a turtle and put them on a post. The person appointed as president was not even on the board at all. Going from someone that nobody knew at all, right straight to president.

I have no idea what format the attachments allow on here, I tried to upload a gif and a jpg under 200k and nothing worked.

but both 1978 and 200X rules indicate the ACC can appoint a new ACC MEMBER but nowhere does it say the ACC or the board has the power to appoint a President who steps down.
I looked at the Florida law 720 and I don't see in there anything about what happens if someone steps down prematurely.

Ok, but I have all the by-laws on paper and this is the ONLY written example of talking about a position being filled other than a vote.

16.1 ARCHITECTURAL CONTROL COMMITTEE
No residence, building, structure, additions thereto, add-ons, pool or fence shall be commenced, erected, placed, altered or maintained upon any portion of said lots, unless a completed set of plans and specifications showing tho nature, kind, shape, height, materials and location of the same shall have boon submi­tted to and approved in writing as to harmony of external design and location in relation to surrounding structures and topography by tho Architectural Control Committee of tho COMMUNITY NAME. Said Committee shall be composed of three members. Tho ACC shall' be elected by tho resident property owners of COMMUNITY NAME. Each lot with resident property•owner/owners shall have one (1) vote. A-member is elected for a throe (3) year term at tho October Mooting of tho COMMUNITY NAME/Homeowner/Civic Association Inc. and will servo from January 1 to December- 31. Tho .first such elected-ACC-will have a varied term of service. The person receiving the highest number of votes will -servo three years, the second- highest two years and tho third highest one ' year. Tho ACC shall designate one of tho members to serve as a contact person by a title they determine. Tho ACC shall maintain a written- record-of their actions.- A majority of tho ACC may designate a representative to act for it.

********In tho event of death or resignation of any-member of the ACC, the remaining members shall have full authority to designate a successor.’**********

In tho event said ACC. fails to approve or disapprove ouch design and location ; within thirty (30) days after said plans-and specifications have been submitted, then such approval will not be required, provided that the - design and location on the lot conform to and. arr in harmony with the existing structures on tho lots. In any event, either with or without tho approval of tho ACC or its agent, the sizr and setback requirements of buildings and structures shall conform with the requirements contained in these restrictions.
Any act, decision or other thing which is required to be done or which may be done in accordance with tho provisions of these restrictions by tho ACC. may be done by the Enforcement Committee of- the COMMUNITY NAME Homeowners/Civic Association Inc. as an agent of the ACC. No member of tho ACC nor any officer or director of the Association shall be liable for any costs or damages incur­red by the owner duo to any action of the said committee in connection with its approved powers.

The line surrounded with ********'s is the only phrase in the entire handbook that talks about a vacancey and the way it is worded incideates to me that is ONLY for Architech members and nothing more.

Noah,

see: FL 617.0809 Board vacancy

Most forget that Associations are typically incorporated.

All will check their governing documents.
Many will check the applicable property laws (HOA/Condo).
Most forget to check the applicable corporate law (typically nonprofit or nonstock)

As advised in some of your other posts, Noah, you and the others will save a lot of time spending an hour with an HOA attorney at maybe $250. The lawyer can help you all speak and understand HOA language instead of you all running around spinning your wheels because you don't know where to look or how to interpret what you do read.

I got a folder on my extra hard drive named "HOA" so we are in the process of it.

The problem is all the people doing the leg work are not on the board and all the people on the board are not doing anything at all.....its a total reverse.

I brought a copy of the CC&R's, Articles of Incorporation, and By-laws to every meeting. The ACC is a committee and has it's own rules. Which did not really have a copy of as no one was ever on the committee for years. The HOA ultimately made all the ACC decisions.

Now keep in mind that CC&R's are Public documents filed at the County. Articles of Incorporation are filed with the State and public as well. By-laws are internal HOA documents. They are not required to be filed in most states. If they are, then they are often with the CC&R's at the county.

The documents being public (except by-laws) typically means those interested can have access to them without anyone being responsible for handing them over. Although many states there is a requirement of sellers turning over the documents at the time of sale. There are different situations where this may not occur.

I bring this up so that you don't get too carried away. It's more of an education of where one can find the information outside of the HOA. That way you don't want to be bogged down with an expense of producing these documents which can translate into responsibility.

My last year as president we started out with 7 board members including 3 officers. The end of the year it was just me and the Vice-President. Plus I had moved out of the HOA. (Moved to neighborhood next door non-HOA). Our documents were silent on replacing board members. So had to wait till elections in January. People asked why I had not picked anyone. I was like it is not in our rules that I could do that. Plus no one wanted to volunteer. Those who did would not have trusted to walk my dog.

Good info and there is a meeting Tuesday so I'll be finally getting to the bottom of much of this. Thanks.

It's a "officers" meeting. Which I'm going to be requesting them to change the name of "officers" to "directors or something else as the verbiage of officers had got to be wrong.

Officers by every definition I can find are:
President
Vice President
Secretary
Treasurer

If the above is the "officers". then the 5 "officers which are NONE of the above need to be called something else.

Also at that meeting were going to be discussing on having a entire ballot to decide if we want to adjust any of the rules as in rewording them or adding more.

Well last time they started they said "were doing something different this time were not having a regular board meeting , were calling it a officers meeting to where only the officers can talk" of which everyone on the board talked and made everyone else wait to talk til the very end.

I'm just a stickler for the fact that if their going to use that terminology , they need to call those kind of meetings something else. Luckily last week another one stepped down as they see that people are finally realizing around here they been breaking the rules and winging it for far to long.

Well the problem is their not asking the community about changes their trying to make. The problem is in total of which I will call the "HOA leaders"
out of 9.....4 stepped down and were never voted in. So you have almost 1/2 the people on their trying to strip the rules away and their not even posting that in the news letters going out, and now their at the point where they want to limit what gets voted on...so its a bad situation that hopefully will get off that course after Tuesday.

I know that for things to change a overwhelming majority have to vote and approve, but their limiting on what will make the ballot, so their not listing to the "silent majority" around here.

The terminology of the Home Owners Association is tied to the deeds for each lot, but the dues is volunteer in which only 47% this year feel like paying, as the other 53% have washed their hands of it as they feel they don't enforce any rules around here..... if this keeps up there wont be any HOA at all....then that would be really bad.

Is this "message attachments" something that works on here. I have the 6 pages of rules we have....the problem is nobody enforces them around here saying phrases like "their is no teeth in the hoa" and rhetoric like that.

I can email these in a pdf to someone, but I also have them in jpg format too.

Is there any way at all I could post these here somehow?

If by bylaws your talking about the pages they give to people when they remember that are the "deed restrecitons" then yes I have them, their mostly poorly writeen compaired to the 1978 version which I also have a hard copy of.

Noah,

You need to reach out to your State representatives and pressure them to change the laws.

Keep in mind that a voluntary (i.e. non-mandatory) association is not subject to any part of FS 720. FS 617 probably does apply, though, since it's a general corporate statute that governs Florida "corporations not for profit". Noah's corporate structure seems a little bizarre, what with committee members calling themselves "officers" and the "officers" acting like directors. It seems like a nebulous state of affaors that has evolved into some sort of mutant HOA in the years since 1978.

As others posted, good for you, Noah, in trying to bring some sanity back into play. If you've got like-minded neighbors then you absolutely have a fighting chance to get things straightened out.