Club house property question

Hello I am the new president of our HOA. I was approached by another homeowner about selling our club house. I and the other board members do not want to sell the building. Do we have to put it up to the owners for a vote or can the board just say no?

Any help would be wonderful.

Thanks James

James,
First thing to do is to check your documents to see if the Board has the authority to sell association property. Most likely, the entire membership will have to vote for approval or not in order to sell any amenity that belongs to the entire association. All common property belongs to you, the members

Again, to present a petition to the Board of Directors for a vote to be presented to your association members with a proposal to sell the clubhouse, will require a percentage of the membership. It might be 10 or 20% or some similar number. You will need to gather signatures and present it at a Board meeting. Then, if the Board sees fit, they will get the request written by a legal rep for the comunity, and present it to the general membership for a vote to pass or deny.

This is a very weird thing to do as your clubhouse is probably within the confines of association property. Who wants to purchase it and what will they do with it? I would certainly have very strong reservations before I would sign off on my portion of association property.

You need to check your Idaho state statutes

Why would any HOA want to sell such a viable amenity?

James, did you read through your bylaws and covenants? What do your documents say? Our HOA was formed in the 70s, and there was valuable property at the entrance of our neighborhood. The owners at that time had to put that to a vote to sell the property, and they did. Big mistake. You need to make sure the BOD looks past today and into ten years out to see any potential downsides. Too often, as in life, we knee-jerk decisions.

Hi James,

We've had some real estate developers contact our Board in the past about the possibililty of us selling our recreation center to them. It's about three acres of land that sits on it's own separate parcel of land adjacent to the homes area. It's up on top of a hill with beautiful views, so it's a nice location to build homes.

We told anyone that was interested that they would have submit a written offer to the HOA for the land and then the Board would begin contacting the memebers about the idea. No one wants to sell the land, but as a Board of Directors, I felt it would be our fidutiary duty to contact the members about any written offer to purchase the land and let the members vote on it as outlined in our documents.

Until you get a written offer, it's just talk and speculation, so don't waste any time contacting the owners about it.

JamesS14: Be very careful in any action taken because of "one homeowner's" suggestion to sell the clubhouse. I would wonder what the reason is for this homeowner's request, and question the situation from that perspective. As the Board President, you want to have an approachable attitude for any homeowner to be able to present their ideas/suggestions to you.

In matters of amenities which exist at the time of purchase, you cannot do anything without the appropriate percentage of resident vote for change and official recording of the amendment to the documents.