president agrees to settlement without board

Our community after harvey was charged and paid for work that was not done.

The board at the time provided no oversight and refused to listen when concerns were raised.

fastforward 2 years.
Based primarily on my work , a complete picture of what occured was presented to the current board. The conclusion I came to and then confirmed by the president and other interested board members is that the hoa paid approx $199,000 towards a contract that had the potential to be 530,000 ,, if every unit was completed according to the scope of work.

after carefully compiling all of the information,, not a single unit was actually completed according to the contract. 21 units had partial work done.
the ammount of work that was done actually added up to $48,000.( the previous board never got an actual breakdown, so the investigation and putting together puzzle pieces allowed the current board doing the audit(me) to piece together facts.

anyway,, the construction company agreed to mediation. We had our attorney present they had their attorney present. The president ofour association was the one who represented our side at the negotiations. We had a board meeting before the mediation specifically agreeing that if the negotiations came to a point that 75,000 was offered.. the president had the authority to accept that. basically that was the lowest he could go and the board did give him authority to accept that amount without bringing the settlement offer back to the board.

about 3 weeks later , we get an email that says the president signed a 30,000 settlment. I hit the roof. I could not believe the president would do this. The president then goes on the defensive and starts trying to tell me that it was a take it or leave it offer(not true)..

another board member who always supports the president says, well, the board can approve the settlement at the next meeting.. I said, that's not the point. The Settlment should never have been agreed to without the board being able to hear what happened at the mediation and the entire board being able to make the decision.

I immediatly emailed the lawyer and asked how in the world he thought it was ok to have jay enter and agree to a settlment without first consulting the board. The attorney then got defensive and said that they did call the secretary and he approved it also..

Here is the disconnect,, the board did not give authority for the president to decide on his own what was acceptable. the board gave the president authority to be the representative of the association.

however, as everyone know, the president is the one who usually signs contracts and agreements on behalf of the board,, but only after board approval..

The lawyer and president and secretary are telling me that it was entirely appropriate for the president to enter the agreement, followed by the lawyer refusing to answer questions from me. or summarily dismissing my questions.

some issues our board has can be open to arguement.. however,, this is not one of them.. Please , those of you with legal experience,, was my objection valid?? if not,, i am totally misunderstanding the legal requirements for board decisions.

Was your objection valid?

Based on what you presented, I would say yes.

Will your objection change anything?

Probably not.

The contractor acted in good faith at the settlement.
Therefore, the best the Board can do at this point in time is remove the individual from the job of President.
From your posting, I don't think you really have the support for that.

Sigh.

I also sit on an HOA Board that the President makes decisions on his own without approval of the Board. I am always telling him he has to get the rest of the Board's approval first, you are not the King. You are lucky yours resigned. Mine said he plans to be President of the HOA Board for the next 20 yrs. He is 66yrs old. The other board members are woman who always look at him for answers. Talk about the 1950's. The other gentleman as early dementia. I think it is farther along then he thinks. He can not keep up and I am always telling him where we are in matters of finances and most everything we deal with. No one else will help him. He always repeats the same thing from week to week. If it came done to getting the President kicked down to VP would be impossible. He also makes himself useful to all the older ladies with no husbands. He changes light bulbs, runs right over if they have a leak, or if anything does not work he is there to check it out. So when it comes to voting him off the Board they will vote for him every time. His wife has MS and he is one that is recently retired and needs to be doing something all the time. He is condescending to me. He tells me to shut up and I question everything. I make the meetings last to long. Yes I make them go to the allot time of 2 hrs if we have to discuss things. I am a pain because I request more than one bid on projects that was something the Management company never did. When I asked for at least 2 bids she said why to me. This President thought he could kick me off the Board. He was happy with his Kingdom before I was elected in. I hope you elect a better President for your Board. Maybe You.

Just curious you did all the leg work why did you let the President represent the Association? If I did the work I would have been at the table.

I was prevented from participating because the contractor had contacted the president on the side and said he didn't want me to be involved in meetings.

um duh.. of course he didn't, i am the one who uncovered all the fraud.!

the fact that the president agreed to construction companies request, was just dumbfounding.. Not only did he agree with the owner of the contracting company, the president literally threw me under the bus in front of all of the board and owners when he announced that He had talked to Mr. X of construction company abc and Mr.X said he would be happy to meet with the president and discuss the issues as long as i was not there.

-- Before the mediation, did the Board put in the Minutes that the President was limited to go no lower than $75k?

-- Subsequent to the day the President agreed to the $30k settlement, did the Board approve the $30k settlement?

-- Legally (speaking as a layperson), I think one of the problems is that the President correctly represented himself during the mediation as representing the HOA. To me, this means the HOA is stuck with the $30 settlement value. The only question I have is: Could a HOA member successfully sue the HOA president? Depending on what the Minutes say, maybe.

-- I would be happy the President is gone.