reestablishing a HOA

our president sold his home in 2014 and left. well the association went down teh tubes with no one collecting the monthly fees/dues for years. finally in December of 2018 i had enough of no street lights, no insurance and no snowplowing. So i contacted explained our situation and he met with me. he asked me to be acting president and distributed a letter a letter to the owners explaining the situation. we have since been able to pay our past due street light bill, plow in teh winter and get an insurance policy. the issue that has arisen is that some people say were are not an association and thay they bought there homes with no knowledge of association. i am trying to be the "emergency manager" to get things brightened out and even look at the city possibly taking us over .
Any advice or help would be appreciated

Why are people questioning the association? Who do they think has responsibility for the lights and snow plowing in their neighborhood and who has been paying the bills up to 2014 (and just recently?)

(Your deed may talk about the association, too. )

We have gotten caught up with LARA on all past paperwork as the past president who moved came to my house in January and signed them and we paid the late fee.

The insurance policy I purchased for the association does have a direct and officers section so I am covered there.

The past president also put my name on the bank account so i have been able to make deposits and write checks to pay bills from the electric company (including a past due balance of $700) to get the street lights back on, pay to snow plow, and get the insurance policy.

Its a one man show here but i feel we are making progress. Yes/ No?

How do we convince the 8 members out of 28 who have not paid their dues that we need their dues to be paid? we have 2 storm drains that need to be repaired asap as a contractor and myself do not thing they will make it thru the winter.

Dues are $25 a month. we are not asking anyone to pay back dues as there are no records of them just to begin with January of this year.

I have given all units a copy of the bylaws and have mailed and updated the members with each move i have made.

We have also had 2 meetings of members with 7 showing the first time and 9 the second time. How do we get more to attend?

At the second meeting the nine who attend asked me to get a formal vote from the members to determine if we should pursue the city of Adrian in annexation of us. This was 3 weeks ago. We asked for the votes to be back by Sept 30. To date we have just 9 votes back. I was told by a member that we need 75% of the members in favor of annexation to approach the city to see if they are interested. Is this correct?

Thanks for quick replies from my first post. They were very helpful!

Forgot to include when/if you annex into the city, your streets may become PUBLIC. Which limits some of the restrictions your HOA may be able to do to control parking or traffic controls. It's not a bad thing. Our HOA did it. It's just if your membership/neighbors don't want public roads it may be a sticking point.

Guess Im confused. Are you currently a community within a township?

I'm also confused. If the former board president sold his home a few years ago, then he no longer has any role or say in what happens to your HOA (unless your governing documents state explicitly that non-owners are allowed to serve on the board). This means that any document he signed recently as board president is very likely to be invalid - you may as well have grabbed someone off the street. You may need to look at re-signing yourself if you are now acting in an official capacity.

I would recommend that you become very, very familiar with your HOA's governing documents. Especially look at your bylaws to see what has to happen to form a board of directors - the directors are the only ones with the authority to make decisions and spend money on behalf of your HOA. A lot of this stuff can appear to be nitpicky and legalese-y to someone who isn't familiar with how HOAs operate. But if you don't dot your i's and cross your t's, you're going to be opening the door to legal challenges from homeowners who don't like what you're doing. (You can pretty much assume that someone won't like what you're doing - it's a fact of life in community associations.)

Hopefully someone from Michigan can suggest some resources for you to educate yourself about running HOAs. Logic only gets you so far, and a lot of serving on the board is on-the-job training. Since you're essentially starting from scratch and you don't have experienced colleagues to show you the ropes, you need to learn somewhere else. This web site is a good resource since there are many experienced current and past board members and property managers who post. Just be aware that laws can differ from state to state.

Words to Live By: federal law supersedes state law which supersedes local municipality law which supersedes your governing documents which supersede your community's rules and regulations (although there can be some nuances). If your governing documents contradict any laws higher up on the food chain, the higher law prevails.

You may also want to hunt around for a law practice that specializes in HOA and COA law to help you navigate your way around this stuff. Better to have a vetted attorney waiting in the wings than having to hunt around for one when you're under the gun.

OK, I've thought about this for a while. Keep in mind where I'm coming from: as a board member, I always tried to figure out how one of our decisions could go off the rails, how badly, and how likely it was to happen. Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

So this is worst case scenario, but I already see a couple spots where you're putting yourself at risk. A person who claims to act on behalf of another person or organization, for which he has no legal authority to act, is committing fraud (or some such, I'm not a lawyer). I already mentioned that your ex-president had no legal right to sign anything on behalf of the association after he moved out and divorced his wife unless your governing documents specifically state that non-owners can sit on the board (very unlikely). And seriously, a former board president doesn't know about fraud? Yipes. So you're still not protected by the HOA's corporate status, putting all owners' personal assets at risk.

Second, unless you were properly appointed or elected to the board according to your bylaws, you are neither a director nor an officer. You have no legal right to make any decisions on behalf of the HOA or to spend any HOA funds, and more to the point, you are not protected by any D&O insurance. You're out on a legal limb here and any homeowner can challenge this in court and will likely win.

I'm sure similar things have happened in other associations, and probably people have gotten away with it, but that's no protection if someone in your HOA chooses to challenge this. You badly need legal advice, and your HOA needs a knowledgeable person to walk you through the proper steps to reinstate your corporate status and appoint a valid, functioning board. You may need to go into short-term receivership until all of the pieces are in place (this is where all of that money that people "saved" by not paying their assessments gets spent. At any rate, in your shoes I would not touch this. There is no way I would put my personal assets in danger, or risk being found guilty of fraud, in order to get the street lights working again.

Find a good attorney who is knowledgeable about HOA matters and follow his advice. He is the only one who will have your back.

The thing I like is that you've demonstrated to your community that you're willing to step in and clean things up.

Sounds like you have things moving in the right direction.

Not sure you need to go to the expense of an HOA lawyer yet.

Agree with others that dedicating your streets can be a long and frustrating experience even after you have the necessary votes. Better to wait til you have others willing to work on it with you.

First thing to do is hold an election. Get yourself (and hopefully some others) voted in. Get a budget approved by the members. Doesn't matter that everyone doesn't participate. All you need is a majority of a quorum to get these things accomplished without a fuss.

The delinquency issue isn't going to get resolved right away. There are strategies you can try, but I recommend waiting til you have others who are ready and willing to share the responsibility with you.

Best of luck.

Was there any remnant of a board left?

If not, dont be concerned about an election now but set the date for the annual meeting and hold it then.

Carry on and good luck.