Member proxy hoarded and has made himself president

Team,

One member who lives in my neighborhood does not like what the rest of the people who live in the neighborhood have decided to do. Which is to ban public school buses from driving on our private road. He has taken offense to this and told me he would not allow us to vote and his kid was never going to wait at the entrance for the bus like every other neighborhood.

What he has done is paid the annual dues for vacant lot owners and in return proxy hoarded their votes. This is legal. He’s now made himself president and has more than double the amount of votes than those living in the neighborhood.

He has vowed that if we all go quietly nothing else will happen. If we don’t, he vows destruction.

I have been contacted by every member who owns a home and they are frightened out of their minds. I have told them we will meet with the new president and explain our position. There are cries to never pay dues again, never follow rules again, and no ones helping anything until he resigns and gives them back their right to vote.

What in the world can be done?

You need to speak to the vacant lot owners and see if you can convince them to see your side and give you the proxies. We are a member run HOA but the developer still owns a majority of the lots and can "outvote" us on any issue if he wishes.

The members aren’t goin to follow covenants or pay dues any more. What can he do? Use the $3,000 in our bank to sue all of them?

For what length of time did the people who gave him proxies turn over their voting rights?

Inspired by Tim, lobby the school district to have the bus pick-up at the entrance. Will save it $$.

They don't have to if the district decides they don't want buses to go through the neighborhood. Prohibiting it is one thing; requiring that they do it is another.

Sometimes the best way to deal with an HOA issue is not to deal with the HOA at all and work with an outside party to render the issue irrelevant. However, that wouldn't solve the larger issue of one person running the HOA.

The principal of the high school lives in our neighborhood and is the one who first motioned to ban the buses. He has no problem banning them.

Please note. NC requires written approval for public buses to drive on private roads. We have no written agreement. I was only holding the vote in the first place because it was motioned. We could have just called the bus garage without a vote. But I don’t want to be that kind of person. I like being adult and civilized. But it completely backfired because of this individual.

Other neighbors have already called the bus garage on their own demanding the buses stop regardless of the HOA. They are scared of the dues being raised to inappropriate level by new president and because we don’t have the votes we are all up a creek. Thus their decision to not pay dues anymore or follow the rules. As a community standing against this guy.

Do garbage trucks drive on these roads? Do delivery trucks drive on these roads? How fragile are these roads that they can't stand up to normal use? A school bus isn't a tank.

So he didn't buy several vacant lot votes, he bought one guy's? One guy has 20 lots, was behind on his one assessment for $150 and let his 20 votes be bought for that? For the new guy to turn around and cost him a lot more than $150?

Does that guy live there? (The actual owner of the 20 votes).

This part confuses me. In one place it says one vote per owner, no matter how many lots, and in another place it says $150 per improved lot.

I think clarity on this would be helpful. This isn't the only vote that will take place. This one guy with 20 votes is going to continue to matter.

Update to this story. This person is not voting themselves president. They are voting the hate filled corner cutting unlicensed contractor who paid for 20 lots, has always had someone else pay his dues, and has built five houses with original developer permission not the HOA permission.

Everyone is an owner. The original developer has a lot of lots and therefore votes. A unlicensed contractor ruining and threatening our neighborhood also has lots of lots and votes. And then this guy who has paid their dues and in return those people have signed him as their proxy.

You don't allow proxy voting? I'm pretty sure it's impossible not to allow.

Again, how was he elected prez?

Usually Boards elect officers ....

President is elected by Board?

9 members meets the 13 vote quorum requirement because some members own multiple lots. You get 1 vote per lot.

No one knows who directors are. We only have three positions.

This gives me hope. I have informed the neighborhood we will not vote on who the president will be tomorrow. We will vote in our first three board of directors with three year terms. Once elected these three people will then goose the three officers with one year terms.

This ensures six people run our neighborhood. Not just one guy.

This has given us hope.

We will postpone the vote if we must. We will send a new letter and meeting request letting everyone have a chance to vote for directors.

What this stops is this persons attmept to control our neighborhood.

We may have been running the neighborhood wrong but we will fix it and run it 100% to bylaws going forward. We won’t accept anything else.

You read my statement incorrectly.

Membership elects three directors. The directors then choose the officers (prez, vp, sec). This is what the bylaws state. Sounds exactly what someone said above as wel.

Sorry - misread.

Cool - you can now decide who is President. You can likely fire the current President as well.

Yessir thank you soooo much.

Last question. WHEN can we vote in the board? Currently we have no admin people because we have all resigned.

The members believe they are voting on buses and raising dues.

Sounds like I need to take charge let everyone know we cannot conduct business because we have no board.

That’s the question. Can we then vote on board members or do we have to send new letters with new meeting to vote the bod in ?

You had sent out a notice for a meeting to vote on buses and so forth. When is that scheduled?