Best Way to Resign? (The Board is CRAZY)

I believe people rarely care about the content of verbose resignation letters. The resignation either gets people's attention, or it does not.

To me, the most impressive style is an email stating simply:

Dear Board of Directors, effective immediately I resign as a director and officer. Jane Doe

Be sure you notify all contractors that you are no longer the contact person for the association. Get your name and phone number off any vendors business that have done business with the association.

Another thing that you could say in your resignation letter is that you are unable to carry out any Volunteer duties due to budget constraints, because that’s basically what they have done is by cutting back on the budget. They have prevented maintenance from being done due to foolish austerity.

Enjoy your freedom. Life is too short to not be valued for your volunteer work.

Jennifer,
So I can only assume you have a 7 Member board. If you had a 5 member board and 3 of you met and discussed board activities and duties it should have been considered a Executive session meeting.

I would have asked them what extra duties are they doing to help with this financial issue? There is always ways to trim corners when money is tight. I personally would start by bringing all of our paid contractors in one at a time and ask them how they can reduce their overhead. If they say they are unwilling I would say we are going to get 3 bids for your services and see what happens. It is much easier for a Vendor to keep an account than get a new one. They will normally give you a discount.

I have a lot more questions on the makeup of your Board and Officer positions, but not sure it's worthwhile to ask if you've already decided to resign . . . your situation sounds rather interesting and unusual.

A simple response to them telling you that your job is to now maintain the grounds . . . "no". Not sure how you got on the Board or became an Officer if you even are an Officer (I've never heard of a "grounds" Officer . . . Officers are typically Pres, VP, Treasurer, Secretary). But they likely can't fire you or remove you from the Board, and they certainly can't force you to do unpaid maintenance of your entire community, so just telling them "no" is a simple end to what they've laid in front of you.

It's likely that if you resign, then you are doing exactly what they want and expect. You've questioned their compensation and other operations (which is most certainly unusual and worthy of questioning), so they want you gone. I suggest not resigning for now to see how things play out and what you can do from the inside. You've uncovered some issues that need resolution for yourself and for your community. Unless you plan to move out, you resigning from the Board will minimize the power you presently have to get information, understand the workings of the Board, and be involved in decision-making. If you resign and stay in the community, you will lose much of that access, and then you'll still be subjected to the assessments, some of which you now know is going to compensation of Board Members who appear less than ethical.

But it all comes down to your overall desire to fight the apparent corruption as well as your interest and capacity in dealing with the most certain effort, uneasiness, stress, nastiness, etc. that will come from fighting however many Board Members there are that might be benefiting from the status quo. Sometimes it's better overall to just walk away.

Adding to what ND said, using volunteers to do physical labor doesn't necessarily save money because the association has to add workers comp or similar insurance in case the volunteer is injured on the property. And it's unsustainable because most folks don't move to HOAs or COAs in order to take on a second, unpaid job.

I second what another commenter said: unless you really really love your community or something else is keeping you there, you should consider walking away before this nonsense catches up to the community and home values fall as a result.

When I resigned a couple of years ago I used a very simple letter. In Florida all resignations must be in writing. I do think added details are unimportant and no one will care much about them anyway.

The template for my resignation letter can be found here: Simple Resignation Letter. The names and positions all modified as approptiate, of course