Board President

For nearly a year now, our board President has been allowing the Treasurer to fulfill all his duties. Our bylaws explicitly say, the President "shall" chair all meetings and perform the duties a President would perform. It says in our bylaws that any two offices except that of President and Vice President may be held by one person. So the Treasurer in effect, is both the Treasurer and the President. He does everything the President should be doing. What can I do about this? And are the meeting held actually legal and could be upheld in a court of law? NOte: He is not chosen by the board at each meeting, he just sits in the chair and automatically runs it and makes the decisions a President would make with the actual President sitting in a chair. Thanks!

Are you on the board, Lou? How many board members are there?

If enough directors don't like the prez not fulfilling his duties, they simply can vote to remove him as president and appoint a different person.

You say the treasurer makes "decision.s" That sound wrong. The Boar hsulbe voting to make decisions, not one person.

I don't think this is something to take to court....If you're not on the Board, rally your neighbors to vote this lazy prez off the Boards if his term is up.

There’s nothing “illegal“ about the president turning over the job of conducting the board meeting to another person. Permissible by a vote of the board.

It sounds like this person is not comfortable or knowledgeable about leading the meeting. Have you ever asked why this Transfer of power Is happening?

The president could resign and another person elected into his/her place.

You would have to have more ammunition than this for a recall.

I echo Kerry's concerns about the decisions you say the President is making.

I served as both treasurer and president at one point and some homeowners expressed concerns about doing both that was because of a misunderstanding of what the president's authority and responsibility actually was, because we had a previous president acted like a dictator. As mentioned earlier, contract execution is absolutely a concern however all of our board members somehow had that authority... so wasn't really relevant for us. For clarity, I wasn't executing contracts and signing checks. It's a long story but the short version is no one else was willing to take either job that the board (or a majority of members) would have been in favor of.

On our board, the president's role was to lead the meetings and act as a representative of the board to the members, and of the association to outside parties. For example, communicate with the association's attorney, engaging vendors, sending communications about updated rules AFTER the board's approval or authority.

What specifically is the treasurer doing that you feel the president should be doing? If the treasurer is doing things the president is actually allowed to do and you disagree with them, I'd ask the president to resign as president (not from the board) and the board should vote on a new president.

If it's not in your bylaws, then it may be in state corporate laws, and these typically override HOA governing docs. As others have noted, delegating duties is NOT unusual - many state lawmakers have recognized that having amateurs run a not-for-profit corporation may not produce the best results and that boards should be allowed to shuffle duties onto more capable individuals.

If you prefer to fight, then decide what it is you hope to accomplish and how likely you are to achieve it.

Do you have the necessary votes or other support to make this change?

Are you willing to spend time and money on it?

If you remove this person, is there a more competent person willing to step up and take his place and how likely is it that this person will be either elected or appointed (depending on how you go about removing the president)? If the board president steps down and nobody else is willing to replace him, what then? Do you have enough board members to achieve quorum, or will you be unable to conduct business?

Many - probably most - board members have discovered that big talk is cheap while willingness to do the heavy lifting is often thin on the ground. Look before you leap.