What recourse does a member have with an HOA board member for emailing the Association about a member not paying dues?

Not sure where to start with this.

There have been discussions about this in the past. Unfortunately, some Associations and/or Boards prefer public shaming to see if this can get the individuals to pay. From the past discussions, there seems to be nothing (other then ethical behavior on part of the board) to prevent such actions.

Personally, having served as Treasurer, I hated having to send out the late notices to people.
It was always to the same people. Therefore I understand the desire to use public shaming.
However, I strongly disagree with it.

Need more details on this. A board member emailed who about not paying dues? Was there a reason for dues not being paid? Were the dues paid and misreported?

It's not exactly clear if this is a public shaming tactic as some HOA's do. (I also disagree with but nothing illegal). Was it a personal matter?

Also not clear your saying a HOA board member emailed everyone in the association with information of unpaid dues? Our HOA we did not reveal names but referred to lot#'s. It wasn't hard to figure out who we were talking about but collection report wasn't handed out to anyone but board members. The importance of the report was just to let the membership know what actions the HOA board was taking to collect.

I can't comment on if this is okay or not. Again, some HOA's this is their practice to encourage non-payers to pay up. Which they have every right to collect.

Like Melissa, I need more details. Generally, any issue between an individual homeowner and the association is between them. I was also treasured of my association and was always concerned about unauthorized people learning the details of specific accounts. That's why I agree with Tim that disclosing the names of delinquent homeowners is a terrible idea (what if you're wrong?). Has anyone seen this disclosure result in the money being paid? Anyone? I've asked this question at least twice on this board and the response is...crickets.

For a moment,I wondered if this was a bad, bad missus (maybe the board member meant to send this to fellow board members, but used the wrong email?). However, this sounds deliberate, so you should start with talking to that board member - send him/her a letter and copy the others. You should demand an apology from that board member - and if you do owe the money, pay up (this really is a separate issue from the board member's behavior).

If nothing happens, I suppose you could go after that board member in small claims court - since you didn't give us any details, I done know if this is something you can or should hold the entire board responsible for.

Some HOA publish unit #s but not names.

Still shaming, but many people are known by their names rather than their unit numbers.

We're going to have to agree to disagree.

Due to state open records requirements in Florida, any member could view/copy this information if they so desired. While I'm not in favor of posting names on the bulletin board and in the newsletter, I'm fine with sharing the info if owners ask.

SORRY, we are in the age of public shaming.

The ugly back story.

Board email:

"Subject :Volunteers Needed!
To Residents,

We are looking for 2-3 volunteers to assist the Board. These volunteers would not be Board members. One volunteer is needed to assist the Treasurer. The volunteer would maintain the books and assist with collecting past dues. The ideal volunteer would have some general accounting knowledge and be interested in joining the board when the Treasurer’s term is up this spring. The hope is that this will ease the minds of those questioning the books.

One to two volunteers are needed to assist with scheduling a special meeting to fill the vacant board positions. The goal is to have a meeting in the next month but the board needs some assistance as the Vice President and Secretary positions are currently vacant.

At this time, we are not moving forward with obtaining a management company. To be transparent, there are currently three board members of which only two have voting rights. xxxx has not paid his 2018 dues. Due to this fact, we are not able to vote on a management company until we have a full board or at least three board members with voting rights.

Also, please disregard the survey that was sent earlier today. Other board members had no knowledge of the survey and thus it was not board approved and has been deleted.

Regards,
xxxxxx xxxxxx, President"

Survey Sent out:

"XXXXXXe Home Owners,

I am sending out this survey to get your input on what I should advise the other board members to do as our next course of action. The debate is between should we fill vacant board positions and let them decide on Professional Management company or hire a management company and let them fill the positions.

For historical sake our Vice President resigned in May and our Secretary in August. We are 2 directors short of a full board. If we do an early Annual meeting for the year 2020 in October of 2019 we will have 3 new openings as one of the current director's term would be up. The term of each board members is 2 years. Directors of a special election would require us to re-election board members at the next annual meeting.

Thank you for your input.

Option A - Hold Annual meeting to fill board
Option B - Have current board hire professional management company"

Here is the response by the member to the unpaid dues.

"Subject: Clarification on XXXX XXXX - HOA Dues
Many of you may not know me, but you do know of my husband xxx as a member of the current HOA Board. Today, he was called out by the HOA President for not paying our HOA dues. I have been part of the silent majority in this neighborhood, but when the integrity of my husband and myself is in question, I feel it is necessary to speak out. On May xth, 2018, I proactively reached out to the current (now past) board specifically asking what we would owe for dues to the HOA for 2018. We were moving from xxxth Circle to xxxx Street and I wanted to make sure that we were in compliance with payment of our dues as we moved from one house to the other. I was told by the board members at that time that "The annual dues for 2018 won’t be assessed for the new property until the structure of the house is complete." and "The lot fee is paid once when the builder closes on the property with Woodland. You do not pay that. The only fee you pay is the HOA dues and any documents request fees." This Spring we were told by members of the current board that we had not paid our dues. They insisted that we owed a full years dues even though I had already paid dues for the property on xxxth Circle in 2018. I brought this information noted above to the new board members and offered to pay the prorated dues from the time we technically occupied 2 houses in the neighborhood (July xx, 2018 - August xx, 2018). I did not get a response from the board members I was interacting with. Now, we were publicly shamed by those same board members that refused to work with me to on a reasonable resolution. My point is, I was part of the silent majority in this neighborhood. Shame on me. I should have been more active. I should have taken more of an interest. I should have been more informed. All of us now have that opportunity and I urge the rest of the silent majority to speak up for this neighborhood through your vote at the upcoming meeting. I look forward to the day when we can all be neighbors and act as neighbors should."

Further, after the email went out the former board President vouched for the claim by the Member.
"I saw the email that the board sent earlier today about XXXX XXXX. I came across this email from May 2018 that I sent to xxx xxx regarding the lot they purchased in late 2018. In the email, I did state the $xxx fee would not be assessed on their new lot until the house was built. I’m not sure when the house was built, but you should be able to find the certificate of occupancy on the county website.

If the house wasn’t built in 2018, I believe the board needs to honor my statement below and the dues would not be due for 2018.

On a side note, I do not believe it’s appropriate to call out a residents financial standing in a communication to all residents. I understand there is a lot going on at the board, but calling out the financial standing of a resident does not seem right. "

Now that everything is out, I would suggest you request an executive session with the board so you can (1) settle this assessment business - and bring whatever documents you have that support your side, along with the former board members you spoke to. Once that's done, have a serious discussion about these emails.

I agree.

Couldn't find anything in bylaws. I don't want to be on the board, but can't resign.

There is more to this story in that there is a petition in place signed by 10% of the members for removal of other board members.

There is language about voting rights of members, but nothing about board members.

We have 3 board of directors for a board of 5.

2 already resigned. The other 2 are sisters and members have signed petition signed for a special meeting to remove the 2 other board members. (that would leave 1 person on the board)

I want to resign, but don't feel I can.

That's what I thought. There are restrictions on homeowners but not on BOD members. That's the major flaw that I see in what happened.

It would be ridiculous if the BOD couldn't perform its functions because of a dispute over money owed.

Doesn't matter to me that what you say is accurate or not. The amount is disputed. Period.

Hold the BOD vote. Do not shut down the BOD. Somebody doesn't have any clue about how to run an HOA.

StevenM8, the email was defamatory and potentially a violation of various debt collection statutes.

I'd file a small-claims lawsuit against the president first and then address things with a lawsuit looming over the president's head.

Hypothetical situation:

The MC does what I say.
There's an upcoming BOD vote that I know will come out 3-2 against the way I want.
I instruct the MC to issue fines to 2 of the opposing BOD members for putting out their trash cans before dusk. The fines make them delinquent.
When it comes time to vote, only the other 3 can vote.
We have a quorum. The result is 2-1 in favor of what I want.
Tada.

Ok. So let's change the hypothetical. The 2 BOD members who were fined say that the fines were selectively applied and refuse to pay.
Fines not paid = delinquent. Still Tada.

CORRECTED:

My point is that every HOA I know of has rules about how to remove a BOD member. But none of them have rules about not allowing a BOD member to vote.

IMO there's a very good reason why it is this way. There is a higher standard required to remove someone. It should be respected.

No one should be able to undermine the right of a BOD member to do his or her job.

Do not know why a board member would lose their ability to vote. Here is the "rub". You can be a member in bad standing and still run for the board. You just can not vote for yourself. Who is going to vote for someone in bad standing? You still have a "board" vote but not an "individual" vote. Unless your documents spell out something different.

My vice-president stopped paying his dues for months. It wasn't a secret. We fully disclosed the Lot #'s of who did not pay. Plus it was a hot topic amongst the membership. However at the time we had lost 3 of the 5 board members. Our Treasurer was the accounting firm. It was just me and him, and I moved out living in another neighborhood (Next door). There was nothing in our documents that allowed me to appoint or have a special election.

So it goes living in a HOA. You are ALL neighbors in it to keep the neighborhood pretty. Your going to be talked about as if you went to church....

Who do you think can suspend a BOD member (membership vote? BOD member vote?) and under what authority do you think that it can be done?

I would disagree. If the homeowners elected a BOD member, I don't believe that anyone but the homeowners should be able to remove or diminish the rights/responsibilities of that BOD member.

I've seen where a BOD-selected Board member can be removed by the BOD, but never when a BOD member was elected by the homeowners.

If it's explicitly stated in the bylaws, I defer to your perspective. No one needs to remove them. Their vote doesn't count.

Not sure how common such a restriction is. I do know of situations where a BOD member gets behind and then catches up. Do you think there should be any room in explicitly stated bylaws if a BOD member for example loses her job?

It seems to me that "in good standing" is a phrase that is open to interpretation.

I suppose it's done that way intentionally, with the expectation that each HOA will develop its own standards of behavior.

I assume that your BOD has the authority to set those standards, so they probably can enforce the rules they create against an individual BOD member.

As already stated, my concern is improper use by those in power to exclude someone who was elected by the membership.

To clarify. The BOD cannot remove a BOD Member that was elected by the owners. The BOD can remove a BOD Member they appointed. I have said our BOD can suspend the BOD voting right of a BOD Member who is not in good standing. I assume (not really sure) they might even be able to attend BOD Meetings and speak but they cannot vote.

Clearly covers my concerns.

A couple of questions Geno?

1. Are these new provisions or have they been around for a while? If relatively new, do you think it was improvement over what you had before?

2. FL now has mandatory training for BOD members. Has it made a difference?

Sure,

1. They're not new. In DBPR arb Case No. 2016-02-9644 the arbitrator cites a 1994 decision,

"A board of administration in general has no authority to remove a board member by board action. Dehne v. Ocean Club II Condominium Association, Arb. Case No. 93-0137, Summary Final Order (January 31, 1994)."

and also cites a 1995 decision,

"Since Section 718.112(2)(k), Florida Statutes, “provides for removal of a board member by recall by the unit owners, the board may not remove a board member, notwithstanding any provision to the contrary in the condominium documents purporting to authorize board removal by board action.”"

Note that DBPR arbitrators freely refer to and cite as precedent prior rulings in Condominium cases even though they're arbitrating HOA disputes and vice versa. It's one area where the condo statute (FS 718) and the HOA statute (FS 720) are pretty much in agreement.

So I don't know if it's an improvement over whatever used to be the norm, but whatever existed before must have been worse. Idiotic overtures to kick a couple of board members off the board in my own HOA in just the last 4 years were stopped in their tracks once the attorney read the riot act to the idiots. It headed off months of toxicity that was headed to absurd levels.

2. The mandatory "training" has limited utility. A few hours may reach new board members who have a desire to learn something. A few hours isn't anywhere near enough, though, and from what I've seen in person it's usually a waste of time. A couple of years ago we had a new president who came away from his certification training curriculum and proclaimed that he learned we could hire a management company and use the reserves to pay for it. It was gold as far as entertainment value goes, but there's no way he learned that from that course.