Non elected HOA board members

We live in a 288 lot community on Merritt Island Florida. There is a golf course here that was given to the county to run, they have done so for 38 years. The agreement between the county and developer has an agreement stating the course must be maintained in championship condition this has not been done,and the county agrees. When the county found out what it would cost to comply they simply refuse to fund the course after July 1 2018. The tax millage for rec&parks stands as the county was still funding the golf course. Now the problems start, several homeowners who identify themselves as HOA board members begin talks with the county to take over operations of the golf course. The first thing they do is have a ballot to vote on securing a loan for 1.2 million, they get a legal number of votes for the loan but than realize the HOA can not borrow money. They then come up with the idea of forming a CDD and use the votes that were cast for MSTBU loan and then pick there own CDD members, Now not one homeowner is told of any of this. A HOA meeting was held and the self appointed board states the county forced them to form a CDD with out holding a vote in the community. Homeowners are in a fury, the HOA attorney states that she knew about vote switching but she can not tell board members what to do.

The mess gets deeper, the county transfers the golf course property, a land deed is signed by a person who is not the elected HOA president and notarized by the attorney. We have by-laws and the golf course take over is never mentioned, we have not held a voting election of HOA board members in more than 5 years and the people sitting as board members say that this is all legal as per the attorney.

This is really what I need to know.

1) by transferring the votes from a MSTBU to a non voted on CDD was any law broken in Florida

2) by having a land deed signed by a person who was never elected to HOA president was a fraud committed

3) if the county officials knew that the people representing themselves as elected, will any of this fly in a court of law.

Sounds like the HOA was so loose that no one paid attention - bad on the HOA and it's members.

You have a mess and will need lots of attorney time to fix it - frankly, a lot of it sounds potentially criminal.

Good lesson for communities that aren't paying attention - pay attention!

Mark

Not to take defend but it is possible for the same BOD to have been in office for many years. One way this happens (and quite common) is there is not a Quorum at the Annual Meeting thus no business, including an election, can be held thus the existing BOD stays in place.

I have seen HOA's borrow money. It can be done but would probably take a large % of owners (in excess of 66%) approving the borrowing. I know one HOA that borrowed over $2 Million on a 5 year pay back plan.

We have not had an election in 5 years because the board does not follow the by-laws as written. If a quorum is not established the election meeting is to be adjourned until such time as a quorum can be met. When ask at the meeting of how many votes are present the reply is not enough. It is possible that only a handful of votes are needed but it is the same every year, no quorum so we will have an informal meeting.

Geno, Our bylaws state the board does not have the power to borrow money