Clueless-Need Help

I live in a self managed condo association. We've been self managed for over 16 years. Our Board held annual meetings and had elections and on the surface everything looked okay but the condition of our building was slowly deteriorating over the last 16 years but owners were always told that the building is too old so not much can be done. Plus, we have owners who dont understand much about our CC&R nor care to learn nor know, have been and are apathetic and just want to pay their assessments and also expect the COA to simply pay for if their property experience any damage.I've lived here for a few years, in 2017, I was offered the opportunity to serve on our Board as the Board Secretary, as the previous Secretary wanted out due to her personal commitments.

Once I got on the Board, I learned we didn't have much of a Board and the show runner was our Treasurer for years. Board Pres was rarely available and for the last two years or so was managing the COA from a different state. Pres and Treasurer been on the Board consistently since 2005 without any break in between. As the Secretary, I added structure,discipline and professionalism to the Board and we somewhat became a functional Board. While serving, I was discovering alot of red flags so I kept on silently digging.One of the things I found was that besides the Pres, Treas, Bookkeeper, no other Board member ever saw the COA finances ever (including myself). I even got into argument with the bookkeeper pver this, she said she only worked with the Pres.

Upset, I got a petition together and got access to the finances, which blew up in my face because I discovered years(since 2005) of thefts and embezzlement by the Treas and Pres.Amounts were not large yearly, but over the years total amount was meaningful. Est loss is between $45k-$50k. Pres and Treas resigned. I took over as the Pres. Further learned that our building had years of City Violations because it wasn't being maintained properly inside out. I took over a very troubled condo association full of city violations, almost bankrupt reserves and operational COA accounts. I went to work and within short 17 months as the pres, I saved $100k single handedly. I am stating single handedly because my fellow Board members were always too busy with work, family and personal life and never bothered to give me a helping hand even after asking repeatedly. They only showed up to Board meetings which they scheduled per their schedule. I mean they were busy to a point where I had to pick up Treasurer's work and the Board Secretary's work for my entire tenure as Pres, none of which I asked for. Treasurer who served on the Board with me always had rivalry issues with me and never cooperated with me. We even had nasty arguments, but I received no support of any kind, no condemning of Treasurer's conducts, no discussion of having a better Board conduct(trust me I tried repeatedly) and serving together became extremely stressful for me.

We had COA election in November of 2020. I ran for re-election because I had set some goals for our COA that I wanted to accomplish in the next term, two of them being(1. Get a management company, 2. educate owners about our CC&R and get owners to get involved). Long story short, Board Secretary(who has two friends who were on the Board with me(Treas( my so called Rival) and Board Member At Large) and who also sought re-election) miscounted the votes in favor of his two friends and did not verify the proxies and ballots and ousted me without abiding by this due process mandated by our Bylaws. I must add that the previous Treasurer(who stole from our COA for years) brought proxies in favor of the two friends of the Board Secretary. Secretary overcounted the votes and skipped the verification of the proxies all together.

This Secretary announced to the owners that I was out and thanked me for my service. He took another Board member at Large(who was not up for election in 2020) and designated her as the Board President without following proper due process of our Bylaws.

Immediately after the election, I questioned everything.I asked to review the ballots and proxies, got them, and after review and multiple rereviews, noticed that votes were inflated for the Treasurer and another Board member(Secretary's friends). I informed the Secretary about these things and requested to have the recount and verification of the voting ballots and proxies because some of them had discrepencies yet he counted every ballot and proxy that previous Treasurer(the one who stole from our COA for years) brought for his friends. Since then, the Board Secretary and the entire Board went radio silent, and still going about running the COA business while like a fool I am continuing to ask for the recount for the past two months. So with the help of the Board Secretary, our COA went through a coup. They've informed vendors about themselves, posted notice with names of those Board members for every owner to know. And have stopped responding to me completely.

I got another petition together and sent to the Board attention to the Secretary via certified mail asking for a special meeting for the recount, verification of proxies, provide explanation about designating the president since this person was already serving as a Board member, provide finances of the COA. Sadly, I am not sure whether the meeting will be called. I am of the understanding that if this Board Secretary has gone out of his way to keep his friends on the Board, he nor others on the Board will hold the meeting even though they are legally required to. But they haven't been caring nor following the legal process to begin with.

Our COA has been hijacked by these people banding together for personal greed and desire to be in power even by violating our Bylaws. Our owners don't care about what has happened and when out of our 40 units, I am the only one raising my voice against these issues, I am being ignored, shunned. I have also learned that the Board Secretary already used the COA funds to help unclog sink of the Treasurer who brought voting proxies for his friends. So the misuse of our funds have begun, yet noone cares nor wants to be bothered with whats been happening.

Has anyone else gone through this type and this level of problems with self managed COA, with this extreme of Board members willing to ignore the Bylaws deliberately, what if anything can be done? Your suggestions will be greatly appreciated!

Thank you for your reply CathyA3!🙏😊 I appreciate your vote of confidence in me!

Your observation about condition of our association and it’s owners, is spot on! Though I am not very proud of these facts about the condition of our Condo Association. I consider myself a fighter but it’s been looking more and more like a losing fight and that I am aboard a slow sinking ship. As its passenger, I believe I know how to steer it in the right direction and bring us ashore, but, the tides that I am up against are sky high and other passengers rather go down with the ship than help me steer it right.

Our owners are not only apathetic, some have outright criticized me for voicing my concerns about the other board members lack of involvement. I don’t mean to play victim, but, my efforts and accomplishments for our association were not hidden from owners, as transparently, I always shared the achievements and progress that were being made. However, some owners criticized me for touting my own horn which did not sit right with them and being the Board Secretary friend, they chose to vote to maintain friends on Board over achievements. I know voting is personal decision so I am not criticizing that those owners didn’t vote for me. The fact that they voted according to friendship is what’s bothersome.

For once, I ran a transparent Board, the kind I always expected to have for years. Anyways, those same owners are now quite comfortable with the way and our Board Secretary and his friends have hijacked our association. It’s been two months, and I am still keep asking the Board to tally the accurate votes and verify the proxies and ballots for inaccuracies. Somewhere in my mind, I am well aware that my efforts are and will be fruitless because if following the bylaws was important, hijacking would not have occurred. On another note, I’ve even reported the association embezzlement to our financial crimes division of PD, have provided all evidences to the PD as well, only to hear from the detective his personal opinion that my evidences prove mismanagement of the association funds at best, but, not theft nor embezzlement. Writing Association checks and buying food, vitamins, clothes, laundry detergent, barbecue grill, spices, charcoal, food, well, if that’s not clear evidence for criminal conduct, I guess I don’t know any more what is. But I am in Illinois, so I don’t know if it’s appropriate to assume justice here.

I get the feeling that it’s easy to do the crime and legal safeguards are in place to protect the criminal and even after having proper evidence, crime is hard to prove. So, though I am not a quitter and want to/wanted to do the right thing for myself and our owners, jumping ship before it sinks, may be my only option. But leaving this association for another, there are no guarantees that these problems will not be there. On the surface, everything looks quite normal here, but, it’s not. Hence, who’s to say about the new place.

I try hard to understand but can’t seem to comprehend our owners apathy and lack of commitment and courage to speak up when it’s not just mine, but, even their property is on the line. I brought up receivership and tried educating our owners, but, our Board Secretary shot this down saying we are no where near receivership and I should stop telling owners about it. Well I saved/raised $100k for our association but the condition of our building and it’s expenses are way higher than money that we have, so either receivership or high assessments, it will be similar no matter how you look at it.

Just wish I could make things right in our association, but this feeling of helplessness is quite uncomfortable.

I agree that purchases of personal items such as clothing, food and vitamins sure sound like evidence of theft at least. My idea of mismanagement is failing to keep good records, or not getting multiple bids, or hiring the board president's brother to do some of the work, or raiding the reserve funds for operating expenses.

It could be that the dollar amounts weren't high enough to fit the legal definition of embezzlement, or some such (I don't know for sure, just speculating). I do know that legal action costs money, and if the dollars involved are low, it may make financial sense to let it go. Which is annoying as heck... On the other hand, if you have a professional opinion that what you found isn't evidence of illegal behavior, you probably don't need to disclose it if you sell your condo. I'd consider that a result.

Your big problem is your fellow owners who hear about stuff like this and think "yup, sounds good, don't bother me". And even if you did have enough like-minded neighbors to join you in righting the ship, the sad thing is that eventually you guys will be tired and will want to step down - and then what? Many responsible board members have discovered that you either stay on the job permanently, or you watch your hard work go down the drain. I'm currently experiencing this myself. So much for carefree, low-maintenance living.

I wish I had more helpful or useful comments, but without cooperation from other homeowners, you can't fix this by yourself. It sounds like you've given them the info they need to make good decisions, and they've chosen to make bad ones. That's the nature of condos, unfortunately. The best you can do is to save your personal finances and your sanity, and let others learn the hard way.

(I'm going to try that "mismanagement" wheeze when I arrive at the pearly gates and someone wants to discuss my life's choices.) :-)