General Wording clean up of By Laws ( Florida )

Started by LindaC3 • 35 replies • 2388 views

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LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

Good Day All..... Below I posted the mission statement of our By Laws Committe.. We had our first meeting htis past Saturday.... My question to you that I am in need of help on is as follows...... If we are at FIRST trying to clean up the language of the existing 34 years old By laws and NOT MAKING ANY CHANGES..... in Florida, would we still be required to present these to the general membership and be mandated to get the required 2/3 vote of approval ? I have more questions to pose with regards to rewording /additions to our By Laws but will post them later, as I am sure someone will post with a question that will lead to my next posting.... I am QUITE concerned that our By Laws Commitee has persons on it that are really heading into dangerous territory , and as a Member of the commitee , I am quite uncomfortable with the direction of this group....Thanks for all replies. as always..LindaC

****After some discussion, it was agreed that, at the least, we would like to pass a Bylaws revision that takes out obsolete language, is gender neutral, corrects for inconsistent language, and incorporates the amendments at the end of the document into the body of the Bylaws. In order to do this, we need one ballot question that does all of the above but makes absolutely no substantive changes. Any changes we may want to suggest should be separate ballot questions members can vote on.*****

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Linda, it may be best to amend the By-laws in their entirety. IOW have a complete set of new By-laws replacing the current By-laws with a new totally separate document. Often with 34 year old document, with many changes, this is the best option. I have done this by highlighting in a copy of the old By-laws the deletions and highlighting in a copy of the proposed new By-laws the additions. These are provided to the members in advance for review and suggestions. The final proposed version is then submitted to the members with the notice of meeting to amend the By-laws.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

Rogerb.... I agree totally , but these hard headed people on the commitee feel they need the approval of the membership JUST to clean up obsolete language !!! I feel that it is going to confuse the issue with trying to have TWO SEPERATE documents for these people to vote on..... I say Do the complete document WITH all the changes and then present to the membership...... In additon do you feel we even need a membership vote to jsut clean up old language IF we were NOT doing any amendmants to the document ?? LindaC

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Linda, any change to a document is an amendment. Once I recommended changing just one word - from "may" to "shall". That required an amendment.

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

LindaC3 - First the committee needs to agree on the changes it wishes to present. Is the fact that the word "him" isn't gender specific to "his/her" really a big deal? IMHO, not worthy of amending because it's understood there is in gender discrimination, an officer of the BOD can be either man or woman, correct?

My method of skinning the cat would be to get the required percentage to vote on renewing the existing bylaws with a yes or no response to the itemized passages the committee agrees need to be amended. Structure the vote ballot that way i.e. I vote to renew the bylaws currently in effect, to adhere to the cc&r's, and to comply with the state laws that have precedence over our cc&r's and bylaws while simultaneously voting on the following amendments:

RebeccaM1 (Florida)
Posts: 43

Posted:

I don't mean to hijack your thread Linda. ;)

I want to do something similar by putting our existing documents into a Word or .pdf format for the purposes of uploading to our website and distributing data CD's instead of hardcopies when the docs are requested. Right now, there is only a very old, typwriter copy. The Bylaws were just recently amended, so they are shiny and new and I have a digital file of them. No changes will be made to the remainder of the documents. Would it be required or even advantageous for me to have the documents all typed up and amended in their entirety as a whole new document? Or is it alright to have them typed word for word with a disclaimer at the bottom that, while they are a word for word replication of the documents, they are not a true and certified copy? They would just be easier to read and reference if they were in a .pdf format.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RebeccaM...have they been recorded at the Clerks Office Yet in the county where you live ? LindaC

RebeccaM1 (Florida)
Posts: 43

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By LindaC3 on 08/21/2007 1:23 PM
RebeccaM...have they been recorded at the Clerks Office Yet in the county where you live ? LindaC

They being the bylaws that were amended at the last annual meeting? If those are what you meant, then no. They haven't. It literally took the Association attorney months and months to get around to having them typed up. Then another month or so for the Board to look them over and sign them. My understanding is that they have to be recorded with the Clerk of Court with an effective date, and distributed to the membership before they are effective. I have held off on doing this, so that if I can do something with the remaining docs, I can distribute them all at once.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RebeccaM1.....Hmmm... I am confused by your wording about the Board having to look them over and sign them ??? Were the amendments voted on and approved by the membership at a duly called meeting ? LindaC

RebeccaM1 (Florida)
Posts: 43

Posted:

Yes. The whole process was supervised by the Association Attorney and the membership voted on the amendments by mail October of 2006, to be effective January 1, 2007. I came on in November of 2006. They (the Board)wanted to handle the rest of the process themselves, because I came in in the middle (Their words, not mine). They then sent the whole document plus amendments to the attorney's office for his paralegal to type up (Can you believe that?). It took her months to get around to actually doing it. Then she emailed me back the finalized document for the Board to sign and have recorded with the Clerk of Court, then distributed to the membership. The Board VP wanted to go over the document with to proof-read what the paralegal had done. He took another month. I got the document back ready for the Pres, VP, and Secretary to sign. So bylaws that were to be effective January 2007 won't really be effective until I get the recorded document back and distributed. Right?

I am not sure if the whole process was done by the book. The voting part was done before I got here. I have all of the ballots and the numbers were there.

What are my options for the remainder of the docs that will not be changed at all?

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RebeccaM1--- LOL LOL LOL.... I am not laughing at you I am laughing at your BOD...SOunds a bit like ours..... The amended By LAws are NOT EFFECTIVE until they have been filed at the clerks office in the county where you are located..... Our BOD had that MAJOR oversight themselves with regards to our By LAws... When I started becoming more active in my HOA and their doings back in October of 2006 I started questioning the amendments to our by laws..... Of course this was NOT to the liking of the BOD at the time..
The attitude was one of who the hell does she think she is asking these questions....And then of course it peaked the curiosity of the members here... I asked at a BOD meeting that if our current By Laws stated that any amendments made to the by laws MUST be certified by the Secretary of the Association and then filed with the clerk of courts of XYZ County to become effective why indeed are we following the amendments when in fact THEY HAD NOT BEEN CERTIFIED OR RECORDED.... well ya could have heard a pin drop in the room...........

I then asked WHEN had they been recorded and the VP at the time with his bully like attitude told me to go to the courthouse and find it out myself.... I said "excuse me, who do think you are talking to ? " I proceeded to tell him that I spent SIX HOURS with the Clerk of COurts herself and no documents had been recorded for our subdivison in years...She even went thru all the index cards they had in a room- PRE internet and computers..... So after much to do at this meeting I was put on the "hit list" by the BOD for being a pot stirrer....Did I care ? NOPE........ We all just wanted our HOA to be run the right way....So our CAM got together with me and we did some more research and sure enough they were NEVER recorded ..... After much diggin thru all the paperwork for the HOA at my insistance they found the minutes for the meeting that was held on OCTOBER 28th 1979.....YEP 1979....... It is confusing because they say that the amendments were voted on and approved BY THE BOARD...No mention about the members themselves voting on them... I questioned that and got no where with an answer....so for the time being I will let it slide now that I am on the By Laws Commitee........... On MAY 11th 2007 our CAM went to the court house and recorded those bylaws from 1979...WHY you ask ? Because a member here sent a certified request for a copy of the minutes of the meeting a copy of the RECORDED By Laws...... They freaked....... It took them 17 days to get the paperwork back to him and that in itself is a violation of the Fla SS.......It justs adds more to his petition for mediation with the State on other things LOL

YOu can bet your bottom dollar those same mistakes WILL NOT take place this time with me on the watch.... I will make darn sure it is done correctly this time around......Problem is...the other people who sit on this commitee want to RUSH this and have it done for the BOD to look over before being presented to the general membership at our annual meeting in January..... They want it done and able to be to the BOD by the October meeting..... Well haste makes waste and there is no way this can be done if we only have ONE meeting a month and we just had our first meeting this past Saturday..... More to come later on this post about the problems I am having with this........Sorry to have ranted on this but feel better that I got to talk about it..... Have a good day Rebecca.....LindaC

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Linda and Rebecca,
You both need a rant and don't forget to save one for latter. I like Roger think new CC&R'S are the way to go. We did ours after 26 years, about 10 of those years was me telling board it needed to be done and several more years getting it done. You have found it won't be easy, you are finding how difficult the political process is and I'll bet you a dime when it is all said and done you will rightly not be satisfied. Unless you both have some absolute support from the Board and membership, it will never be right. You will see. Time becomes a factor, politics becomes another, don't care raises up, don't know nothing about it and don't want to know. I suspect if either one of you were tasked with the job and told have it ready in six months, you could do it. But it won't be have it ready, it will be, let the Board look at it, take it to my friend Jack in a town 200 miles away and let him read it, etc, etc. You will need a new declaration, you will need a new set of exhibits, if a condo, you will need final say on what is decided to put in their. You will not even have final say on what you put in there. You will meet with attorney and go over changes, he will make changes, your president begins to think of what he wants to change, now that the documents are laid out in front of him, and when all is done and voted and registered, you will find something important was not done. Cynical? You bet. You will always have in the back of your mind the resistence you experienced and how you don't deserve to be called a nitpicker or a trouble maker, knowing full well some of the people you are working with or for allowed the mess to perpetuate itself for all these years. Just remember you have another rant coming and stay cool.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RobertR1....AMEN to all of what you said.........I so agree and that is the point I am trying to get across to our By Law Commitee about the haste part of doing this document.... I have a laundry list of things that need to be considered especially after going to the web site provided to me by RogerB...that was so helpful and of course when I brought these points up at our meeting it was like falling on deaf ears....

I am trying real hard to maintain remaining "cool" thru this process and the funny part of it is they want me to post to my little forum to have the memberships approval of all this before the general meeting... I CAN"T in good conscience condone these things when they are doing it all so wrong..... They actually want to change the description of the duties of the secretary and the treasurer to include the phrase " or the individual appointed by the board to fulfill these obligations" when I questioned why in the world would you want to have that in there they said...and you're gonna love this reply.... " Well because the people here think when we refer to the secretary they think we are talking about the girl who works in the office " I about fell out of my chair from the laughter I had to contain........ The majority of the smart people on the commitee tried real hard to contain themselves also.... what a hoot !!!

The co chair also keeps referring to chapter 617 for non profit corporations here in florida for legal rulings..... I keep trying to tell her that we are an HOA subject to the Statutes 720 for HOA'S and 617 does not apply to us...They keep telling me I am wrong... So I just sit there and keep my mouth shut-- let them continue on and can;t wait for this to go the attorney for his review which then I am sure ??? he will come back with a long laundry list of items that need to be corrected....... This is why in my oringinal post I said "more to come"...LOL.....Thanks for the giggle tonite Robert.....It surely does make me feel better...LindaC

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

Good day...... Okay my brain is not connecting today.... I have posted below some of the wording of our By Laws..My question is as follows............Under Article Five OFFICERS where it states the officers of the club shall be...... Does this mean we can have non officers serve as the treasurer and the secretary ???
The reason for my question is that presently our treasurer is a member not an officer....no one would volunteer to be secretary so one of the board members is serving in that capacity...We have thirteen (13) Board members... The By laws commitee wants to change the description of the secretary and treasurer to be WHOMEVER THE BOARD APPOINTS......Most here feel that with 13 Board members...why you want non board members to fulfill these obligations............Input PLEASE.......thanks Bunches LindaC3

Board of Directors
Section 1. The business and property of the Club shall be managed by a Board of three (3) directors until the first annual meeting of members; thereafter, the Board shall consist of from three (3) to thirteen (13) members as shall be determined by the members at the annual meeting or at a special meeting called for that purpose. Except for the initial Board of Directors or their replacements, serving until the first annual meeting of members, all directors shall be members of the corporation.
In the event of a vacancy on the Board of Directors, the Board shall appoint a replacement until the next regular election. In the event of a vacancy on the Board of Directors prior to the first annual meeting of the membership, the Sub-divider shall have the right to appoint a replacement director.

Section 6. The directors shall elect the officers of the corporation at the directors' meeting following each annual meeting of the members of the Club. All officers shall be elected by the directors. The President and any Vice President must be members of the Board of Directors. An officer may be removed at any time by a two-thirds (2/3rds) vote of the full Board of Directors. An officer or director may be removed by a two-thirds (2/3rds) vote of all Club members present at an annual meeting or special meeting of the membership called for the purpose of considering such removal.

ARTICLE V. Officers
Section 1. The officers of the Club shall be a President, one or more Vice Presidents, a Treasurer and a Secretary, and such other officers as the Board of Directors may designate, all of whom shall be elected by the Board of Directors, and shall hold office until their successors are duly elected and qualified. One person may hold simultaneously two offices, except that the offices of President and Secretary shall be held by separate persons.

RogerB (Colorado)
Posts: 5,067

Posted:

Linda, I think 13 Board members is too many. Why do you need over 5, 7, or possibly 9 if extremely large and active? I live in a town of several thousand homes and we have 5 town council members.

I would allow only Board members to be officers and have 4 - President, VP, Secretary and Treasurer. Some large associations provide for an assistant Treasurer and assistant Secretary when they do not employ a MC.

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

LindaC3,

You write, "Does this mean we can have non officers serve as the treasurer and the secretary ???". I think you mean non-board members as the treasurer and the secretary.

Other than Pres, and VP, in your association the officers don't have to be Board members. That's the way I read your bylaws. Why the Board would choose a non-board member to be a treasurer and secretary in your association is beyond me because you have 13 Board members to choose from, only two of which (Pres. and Sec.) are exempt from dual officership.

I agree with RogerB there are way too many Board members. But there may be a reason I've not considered. However, your bylaws require 3 - 13. Quorum of the Board is 7, do you ever have a hard time reaching quorum of the Board?

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

JoeW1 and RogerB..... Hopefully I can answer both questions at once..... We ( membership) tried real hard to get the number lowered this past january...But the majority felt because it was the same old people ( not meaning age ) running again we needed to have some new blood in our age bracket....So we opted AGAIN to keep the number at 13..... It's a more fair representation of the members now- we think..... We ALWAYS have a quorum at the meetings.....They all would think they missed something if they didnt show up LOL LOL.....Occasionally maybe 2 tops are missing during the summer months for vacation..... I agree with Joe that is assinine that we 13 board members and we have to look outside for sect and treasurer.....I say eliminate the position all together from what makes up our board...... Another question ?? If the sect and treasurer ARE NOT board members how does the insurance thing work ????? HHMMM more food for thought...as you can tell this really bothers me ........LindaC3

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

occurs to me that your Manager is probably mot a member either and I imagine he is bonded and has Idemnity Insurance. The insurance applies to the Job not to the individual. IMHO

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RobertR1......Our manager IS a member.....owns a house here and lives here full time.....LindaC3

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

LindaC,
Now that is a "No No", our Master Deed would not allow it. Doesn't your Declaration state that your association consists of only so many members (Units) and that is how many votes you have. How can your manager pay assessments, vote, run for office, spend money, keep books, hire employees, and have all the responsibilities of an owner. Hell, he could also be the President. How in the world is this handled in your CC&R's?

I'm out of my leaugue on this one. You do it, so I assume it's legal.
Is this something that just is, and no one knows why. What say you Roger, Paul, Joe, and everone else?

RogerC1 (Texas)
Posts: 4

Posted:

Can you tell me what website you are referring too.
Thanks,
Roger

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By RobertR1 on 08/23/2007 9:39 PM
LindaC,
Now that is a "No No", our Master Deed would not allow it. Doesn't your Declaration state that your association consists of only so many members (Units) and that is how many votes you have. How can your manager pay assessments, vote, run for office, spend money, keep books, hire employees, and have all the responsibilities of an owner. Hell, he could also be the President. How in the world is this handled in your CC&R's?

I'm out of my leaugue on this one. You do it, so I assume it's legal.
Is this something that just is, and no one knows why. What say you Roger, Paul, Joe, and everone else?

I say it's a conflict of interest.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

Well All...................You have made my day indeed !! I have questioned this very same thing since moving here and becoming involved in my HOA....WELL you can only imagine the shock and awe of HOW DARE I !!!
After some real intense investigating and having contacts OUTSIDE the HOA and finding out some things about our CAM... I pushed real hard to have the membership VOTE for an audit...WE WON.........Audit is under way as we speak......The problem with that is they are having the SAME people who prepare our financial report do the audit...Most of us feel real uncomfortable with that...When we questioned WHY they said they didnt want some outsider coming in and looking thru our stuff...I laughed. and said WHAT ??? Then a quick back peddle....oh um well what we meant is that the new person wouldnt know our system........Oh yea I believe ya now...NOT...All this came to light this past Sunday.....Our CAM thinks its a good idea to also have the same person do the audit..... What conerns me about having a member/manager.....think of the voting issue....lets say we need 200 votes on something and we only have 199 and he wont vote...he says conflict of interest....well we now have lost something becasue of his failure to vote on something...Horse Patute....

There is really nothing in our 34 year old by laws that prevents this..It says the BOD has the right to hire whomever they feel to help manage the place..He has been here for 11 years...It seems that the "youngsters" coming in are now actually reading thru the documents and seeing what I have been seeing for the past 2 years...Some are asking questions some choose to have a blind eye to the whole thing......

Any thoughts ???? LindaC3

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

I got a thought Linda,

And my second thought is an Audit is not done by your cronies, and Audit is done by a Certified Professional that has a State issued seal and will attest to what his audit shows. There is no justification to say you are going to have an audit and have something less. It is pure nonsense to state you have to have someone who knows your books to do an Audit. Our place has the same blind spot and they say it will cost too much money for a certified audit. They had someone look at the books. I am happy to say that is apparently going to change shortly.....I hear.

Another thought is I doubt your manager has the authority to declare he can't vote because of conflict of interest. He already is "A conflict of Interest-er, by holding the job. Nothing in our documents allows a member not to have a vote. If he can't vote he is not a member. And your association is in violation of your Master Deed and/or declaration that states how many members (voters) you have.

Your manager could be the salt of the earth and the most honest person since Abe L., but that is not the point, the point is he can use his position to do mischief, many times over. Just curious, does he do State Home Inspections also?

Woe is us!

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RobertR1...........LOL............He does hold a real estate license and as far as I know he does not do home inspections....He does have some sort of brick paving company because he has an employee that works at his house everyday...Whats funny is that no one here knew about till something happened and the gate attendant got pissed off and told me about the shanigans going on....We have system here that all persons ( non members) are announced via a radio system when they enter the gate..Color and type of vehicle and where they are heading.... The gate people have been told NOT to announce this person when they enter or exit the property.....Whats also mind bending ..is that any of us here that want to work out of our homes MUST have board approval in order to do so......

We are not even allowed to have UPS or FED EX deliver packages to our door....We have to make the 15 minute trip ONE WAY to the gate to pick up our packages....The gate people also sign for all certified mail for us... I told management that it is WRONG for gate people to sign for my mail...They DO NOT have my permission to do so....The USPS person should place the notice in my mailbox and let me worry about it......I put it in writing and hopefully they will abide by it......It seems around here the closer we get to the end of the year funny stuff starts to happen...The BOD is PISSED they are having to do an audit.....At Sundays meeting a BOD member made a motion that we will only have audits every 5 years if needed.. I made a statement that it is not up to the BOD to make that decision...Fla Statute is very clear that it is the MEMBERS right to vote whether to have an audit of a finacial review......Of course I got that " if looks could kill look " I just snickered to myself....

Okay sorry I went off course...... So I guess my question is for any Florida folks out there....do any of you know if it is questionable about having a member be our CAM. ??????? Thanks again as always for all input LindaC3

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

I got another opinion Linda.

How can you make a motion a a Sunday meeting. Sounds like you have a meeting every Sunday. You are Busy Little Bees. Seems to me a quorom would be required with a notice of meeting, an agenda would have to be made and followed and something close to Robert's Rules have to be followed. I doubt in any situation a Board member should be allowed to make a motion of that sort without notice to membership. He could bring up the issue for discussion but the Board would have to go to the membership, unless there was specific allowances in the CC&R's, which I doubt. State Law would prevail, IMHO

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

RobertR1.....Yes we are busy bees here....We have BOD meetings every third Sunday of the month....... The BOD Member who made the motion is actually our Parliamentarian for the BOD..... The motin was made because of the Managers report about the fact that the audit is now being done and will be ready to be distributed to the Members at the Annual Membership Meeting in January.....The cost for the audit and the filing of the taxes is $8000.00....... That's what peeod the BOD Member off was the cost to do this....... Our budget had $6500.00 set aside for this purpose..Not sure if they are going to ask us all to pitch in the difference or not...Seems to me if there are other things that ran UNDER the projected budget they could make up the difference internally.......... Oh well still learing alot the more questions I ask the deeper it gets here....LOL LindaC3

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

One question?
Didn't the BOD have oversight on the whole audit process by committe or an assigned Board member?
They should have and it might be smart to assign a Board member to find out what went on and make a report back with reccomendations.

DonnaM2 (Massachusetts)
Posts: 2

Posted:

i have been reading through our by-laws and it does not mention the fact that a board member can not be a property manager that receives a pay monthly. nor does it mention that a property manager that owns multi companies can not retain services.

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Donna,
You might want to look maybe under owners responsibility or in the Statutes and see if there is not some mention of any owner receiving monies for any work done on complex. I know it is forbidden by our docs.

Our documents also state how many units comprise the association. In my case it is 65, not 64 or 66. You are not a member if you don't have the right to vote, you can not elect not to have a vote, and you can't vote if their is a conflict of interest. But it is done and some have been doing it for years. Some allow their members to supply services to the regime such as grass cutting for an example. They even allow Members of the Board to do the same thing. Our past manager used to run her Real Estate business and rented members units on the side. It's a conflict, should never be allowed and like being pregnant there is no such thing as just being a little pregnant. I really think that sort of practice is paving the way to Condo Hell.

JoeW1 (New York)
Posts: 728

Posted:

Quote:

Posted By DonnaM2 on 08/26/2007 11:36 AM
i have been reading through our by-laws and it does not mention the fact that a board member can not be a property manager that receives a pay monthly. nor does it mention that a property manager that owns multi companies can not retain services.

DonnaM2 - Do your bylaws say anything about the matters that need the community to vote upon? Such as self-management?

DaneC (California)
Posts: 210

Posted:

Two weeks ago, I met with a California CPA firm - here is an extract from one of their publications -

As a Certified Public Accounting firm (CPA), we are required to include an Accountant's Report with any set of financial statements that we submit to a homeowners' association. Non-CPAs (bookkeepers or management companies) cannot attach an Accountant's Report (using the same language) to their financial statements - this report is reserved exclusively for statements that are submitted by a CPA.

The Accountant's Report informs the reader about the level of assurance the CPA places on the financial statements (are they Compiled, Reviewed or Audited?). Monthly financial statements generally are COMPILED by the CPA; they are not usually REVIEWED or AUDITED. The review or audit process is usually performed at year-end by an independent CPA.

In addition, for monthly financial statements, the report informs the reader that the statement of cash flows, footnotes and supplementary information about repairs and replacements of common property are being omitted - this is standard practice for monthly financial reporting.

However, for year-end reviewed or audited financial statements, the statement of cash flows, footnotes and the supplementary information must be included in order for them to be in conformity with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP).

MichaelB2 (Florida)
Posts: 12

Posted:

Linda, has your hoa followed the 712.05 and there abouts concerning MRTA? If not, you have a much bigger problem and would need to address that first, being your CC&R's may have expired for some lots.

LindaC3 (Florida)
Posts: 526

Posted:

MichaelB2...Our HOA did the MRTA back in August of 2003...Even that paperwork at first was screwed up when they filed it but then someone here went back in and refiled it the correct way.....Seems no one here remembers this meeting where they had 2/3 vote for MRTA...Interesting to say the least.........

Our By Law commitee chairperson called for a meeting this past Sunday and of course none of us could make it on such short notice...So she and the co chair held the meeting anyway and sent all of the minutes of the meeting....They want to change the by laws to where it would no longer require a 2/3 vote of the membership to change them TO the majority of those present at a duly called meeting.... I DONT THINK SO......Dont feel comfortable with something like 15 people deciding things like this...SO now we have a new crusade to go on and get this idea squashed...........

We also just found out from a neighbor that they have changed the use of our riding arena for our horses here.... WITHOUT NOTICE TO ANY OF US..........we are no longer allowed to set up jumps and jump our horses at the stable area...They said too much of a liability...This women specifically bought her home here because of the horse stables- riding arena etc....and now is no longer allowed to do this...BUT the Equestrian Commitee is still allowed to have SEDRA come in and use our riding trails???? HHMMM....something new to discuss at eh BOD meeting this Sunday....Never a boring day here......:>) LindaC

RitaW (Tennessee)
Posts: 16

Posted:

I understand about your audit issue--we have it too--I found a CPA who had pitty on us and said she'd do one for $2000.---we have $900 in in the bank--so--our "older" members said "why do I want to pay someone $2000 to tell me I have $900 in the bank"-- Now our new BODs and Tresure will be doing an internal audit this Monday. Some of our other "older" members feel "money" has been misused and I did find in some old minutes were money was assessed for some new fences but they were never installed----so----I always thought good accounting was to put money for each budgeted item in its own "bucket" and it stay there to be used for that expense --like the "fence" money would be on the books in the fence "bucket" and should have stayed in the "fence bucket" until it was either used for the fence or voted to be "moved" to another bucket----So, here we have a motion passed in the minutes to install 4 fences--money assessed and no fences and we don't know where that fence money is--oh, by the way, our Treasure says she has 40 years of accounting exp--but she just writes check from the check book and we have no ledger book of any kind---how's that for accounting--ha I'm sure our new BODs will be in for a shock--

RobertR1 (South Carolina)
Posts: 5,164

Posted:

Rita,
Welcome to the Wonderful World of Creative Bookkeeping within the santified acres of the Home Owners Associations. Legislated by the few for the few and administered by the unknowing to the detriment of the many. Run by unknown
volunters, elected by the disinterested and funded by a populace that who find themselves smack dab in the middle of something going on that will effect their lives and don't have any idea what it is going to cost them next month.

All systems ready to go to work with Laws, Corporation dictates, State Statutes, Master Deeds, By- Laws and rules and regulations that offer the victims, if complete adherence to the doctrines could be accomplished; maybe a 80% chance of success, on a good day. The only saving grace of undertaking this involvement is you know damn well you can make a little difference.

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