Bylaws, Annual Meeting & Covid

Our Bylaws require an in-person Annual Meeting. Probably the same for many others here.

For those of you whose State has not created a specific exception for this Covid period, I'm wondering how others dealt with the issue.

Thanks.

There have been lots of discussions on this website about this. Some HOAs postponed the meeting and had them when certain restrictions were lifted (at !east until this new strain showed up), while many used programs like Zoom to hold virtual meetings.

My community has its annual next month and I think we'll use the clubhouse but with lots of social distancing and masks. That could be done if you have a small association, although You may have to get creative and use conference calling for people who don't have internet access or computers.

For the most part, I think it would be somewhat petty to howl over a annual meeting being held virtually instead of in person. As long as accommodations are made for As many people to participate as posxible, why insist on a live meeting when it might not be safe for everyobe, such as the elderly or high risk groups to attend? The biggest concern would be board elections to ensure they're done accord to the bylaws. Some HOAs are experimenting with electronic voting or voting by mail.

The pandemic is one of those things no one could predict, so I think this will prompt many HOAs to look at ways to use technology to hold meetings some of it may require freaking the documents or adding new sections, but it can be done.

Regarding Covid and how it is changing practices that were formerly done in-person, thumbs up to the following comment:

ADD ON
Later this month we will be sending a letter including the 2020 Financial Reports and saying we hope to conduct an Annual Meeting before 04/15.

In Florida, many HOAs and condos are holding virtual meetings with Zoom or some other videoconference tool. My impression is that many attorneys are advising their clients (the HOAs and condos) to go ahead and do it that way, even though that technically violates the state statutes and quite possibly some (most?) Bylaws. The argument is that no court will take punitive action against a board for doing what it thought was the right thing to do where the goal was to protect peoples' health.

I do hope the FL legislature updates the HOA and condo laws this session. It's badly needed when the current situation is that lawyers are advising their clients to violate the law and the judiciary seems to be all, "Sure, go ahead."

On some level it's things like this that form the basis for the whole "Florida Man" thing.

I do not think our BOD, even with me on it, is exceptional. I think we are good and fair.

We never publicly use a member's name. In the case of reported violations they are "investigated" by the BOD and any violation letters are sent out under the MC's signature. We average no more than 10 violation/warning letters a year with only one ever resulting in fines. Our delinquent list is by amount with no other information given.

We have no amenities thus we are not a complex association to operate. Our last ankle biter faded into the woodwork some 3 years ago when others tired of him complaining at the Annual Meetings. His cohort moved away about the same time. The ankle biting ceased.

Our main area of discussions/complaints center around landscaping. Our association does all landscaping and we get complainers complaining such as you trim my bushes to much or you do not trim my bushes enough, etc. We have had some refuse to use their sprinkler systems and their grass has died. Some tried to blame it on the landscaper but when we draw their attention to the homes on either side looking good, they fade away. We need to have a go around with 2-3 owners on this (meaning they have to replace the dead grass) every year but those conversations are privy to the BOD.

We have an Gmail address that one can send an Email to. When sent to this address, it automatically gets copied to each BOD Member so we all know who says what. We then assign a specific BOD Member to deal with each and every Email and report back.

We avoid fining if at all possible. We have only fined two owners in 5 years and we voided the fines in one case. We have unpaid dues liens on 3 of our 112 owners.

Yes I have pride in my voice as I think we do a great job of keeping our owners informed and happy.

"The new landscape company is awful. They cut the grass too short!"

I literally heard that last year from several homeowners in my HOA.

We only hold BOD Meetings when needed, which means 2-3 a year. When an issue arises we discuss it over the phone and via Email. In the 5 years since the BOD has taken over, we have only once had an issue that Members had to voted on and that was changing Quorum form 50% to 20% and it was done at an Annual Meeting, prior to Covid.

The most drastic thing we have done is increase Annual Dues by 40% which is within the power of our BOD. We did a good job of informing and educating our owners (informational meetings, mailings, spreadsheets, etc.) about the need for such. Not that anyone liked it, including the BOD, but we only had one owner (of 112) challenge us in writing and he was challenging our ability to do such. We directed him to the Covenants where it allowed us to. He went away.

You never ever give a "credit" for this or anything else. That is probably the dumbest move ever heard of im my life of an HOA doing. Just pure dumb and I don't mean that insulting. Just the facts that is a bad bad dumb idea.... Had to get that out just to enforce again dumbest idea ever...

Now there are other options could be doing LEGALLY to gather the required votes and still get them. So not sure what lawyer you got advice from but they must also be riding on the dumb bus.

All your HOA has to do is if there is a caveat that the vote has to be taken in person at a special meeting is to WAIVE the right. Simply the ONLY thing that had to be done is the lawyer draft up another document having people sign they agree to give up their "special meeting/in-person" vote to cast their vote "whenever". They then can sign the vote form at their convenience by door, meeting, or person.

We did this when we changed our By-laws, Convenants, and Articles. This way we did not have to hold a special meeting. Plus we got BOTH documents signed at the same time. Most people once explained the purpose of giving up the special meeting requirement agree to giving up their "right". Plus I would add that as a change to the rules to stop that requirement.

Why would you ever give a credit for members doing what they are supposed to do? It makes absolute no sense at all.

Wow, it’s rare I get to tell another George how incredible wrong I think they are 😂

I think folks will come up even more interesting ways to use remote attendance.

In the case of HOA/COA/POAs, Boards will use the new tech comm processes to assist in getting quorums - and, to vote while logged in on a remote device.