Posted:
This is my opinion, I'm not a lawyer.
Years back, the Ohio Legislature passed some comprehensive bills to address the constant tales of woe coming from community associations that got themselves into all sorts of trouble, largely because homeowners (and boards) did not know how to run their communities. These bills put into law many requirements, all of which are what I would label "minimum standards for acceptable operations".
The results were Ohio Revised Code 5311 (condos) and Ohio Revised Code 5312 (other planned communities).
I've lived in condos, and that legislation was indeed retroactive and superseded any previous laws as well as any Declaration or similar documents. I expect that Mike's community is also covered by ORC 5312 unless it's not what one would commonly understand as an HOA - for instance, I think that trailer parks have their own separate legislation, but not 100% sure of that (and too lazy to look it up).
If so, in general:
* HOA boards can operate legally with open positions, but they must have a quorum to lawfully conduct business - eg, a 5-person board must have 3 or more positions filled. So not necessarily an issue and unfortunately common.
* As an aside, in addition to receivership which is a painful and expensive reality for communities without functioning boards, these communities often have allowed their corporate status to lapse (this can also happen with functioning yet clueless boards). This in turn means that the community is no longer insured properly, and all sorts of bad things can happen after that. Homeowners are jointly and personally liable if someone is injured on the common elements and sues the HOA. Those serving on the board will not have Directors & Officers insurance, which puts their personal assets at risk if someone sues the board. Personally I would NEVER serve on any board without such insurance. Finally, the HOA will not longer have Fidelity (aka Employee Dishonesty) insurance, which is what protects the HOA's monetary assets if someone takes off with them - the entire community would have to replace these funds out of their pockets.
My sense is that Mike's board is operating, sort of, but without seeing actual info - financials, board meeting and annual meeting minutes (what are those?), the community's Declaration and Bylaws - we have no idea. Failure to at least try to hold an annual meeting and elections is nearly always a red flag, but all bets were off in 2020 and if this was a one-off, I'd be a bit less concerned. And given all of the other things that could maybe be wrong (eg, no insurance), it would be further down the list of stuff to worry about.
Ohio is not an open meeting state which can have some advantages, but it has the unfortunate downside that boards can get used to operating on their own without letting homeowners know what's going on unless the homeowners make formal records requests. These requests should be addressed in ORC 5312: what records homeowners can see and how to request them - which may involve finding contact info for the community's registered agent (what's that?!). If there is a property manager, you can often get the ball rolling with that person.