How many of you actually sit on your HOA board?

Just curious...how many of you actually sit on your HOA board?

The advice that I received here is hit or miss.

Just curious how many of you are actually on your HOA board.

I am VP and Treasurer. Soon to hand off Treasurer to newly appointed BOD Member.

This is silly and nobody's response to this question is going to be helpful or give you any valuable insight.

I think you'd find that most people on this forum fall into one or more of these categories:
- Current, previous, or potential future HOA Member.
- Current, previous, or potential future HOA Board Member.
- Current, previous, or potential future HOA Officer.
- Current, previous, or potential future HOA Management Company Representative.

And some people are and have been better, smarter, more accomplished, more reasonable, more logical, more focused, etc. than others, and advice/guidance/direction will be better or worse because of that.

While I think there are a fair amount of folks here that have experience and give good advice, there are certainly also a fair amount who have (or claim to have) experience and give terrible advice.

For the record, and if you're keeping some sort of data table for analysis . . . I served on a HOA Board for about 8 years and was an office for all of those years as well (President 4 years, Treasurer 3 years, Secretary 1 year). Presently I live in a HOA but I'm not involved as a Board Member or Officer.

Good luck!

I was on mine for 10 years, which included 5 as treasurer, 7 as newsletter editor (before we worked with the management companion setting up a website) and another 5 or 6 attending local CAI meetings and reporting back to the board. I stepped down in 2014 (mostly because of burnout) but still come to this website to learn and to make suggestions.

I'm sure some of the suggestions you see ARE hit and miss. Maybe that's because you didn't provide enough details - personally I love details and have learned through hard experience the strangest things can turn s question or situation on its head. We're also from different states - what's true or not in your state may not necessarily be the same in mine, and we can only respond based on our experience.

We're not attorneys either - you may not want to accept this, but there are some questions you do have to take to a private attorneys. And sometimes you won't get an exact answer because there isn't one. Not everything in HOA land has a precise answer - even if you find something that works today, tomorrow it may change again because communities and the people in it also change. And so do you - if you're doing the exact same thing now than from when you joined your board, you're doing it wrong.

Could it be you're A little miffed at What you read because this isn't an amen corner supporting whatever it is you're planning on doing anyway? If so, get used to it - that's how life works and hounding always get your way. Especially in HOA land. Noblesville be done insulted if you take some, none or all of What s said. In the end we don't live and n your community and you have to make decisions based on what's best for YOUR community. All you can do is your best - if you do your due diligence and it still bavkfires, at least you tried. Learn from it and keep on moving.

Some of my comments may also come across jumbled because my tablet has a mind of its own! I hit a letter and it seems to say "nah, I want to use THIS word instead!

Seriously, heed the words of Parliament -Funkadelic: free your mind and your ass will follow. Think! It ain't illegal - yet! You really do have a better handle on this than what you realize. Consider all you hear and then use your noggin to make the best decision you can. Take responsibility and do your best to make it work.

This is a classic example of what I am talking about.

You make it sound like we have dozens of willing volunteers who all want to join the board, so we have to vote in the best. That is not the case in our HOA nor in many HOAs. We have few that want to volunteer anyway. Make it uncomfortable for them and we will have fewer still who volunteer. I am very concerned about asking more of our community than people can offer in terms of being volunteers, and turning away otherwise good volunteers who maybe don't like being in the spotlight.

I think people currently on the board know that. You are not one of those people, as you live in a community that doesn't have an HOA at all, so you don't have first hand experience.

3 years of on the Board. 1 as VP and two as president. I also stayed in a Holiday Inn.

Managers know how hard it is to get good board members I promise!

We also know that violating state statutes by not holding open meetings when necessary because it’s easier for board members not to have them is a really bad idea.

I love the board I currently work for. I try to shield them from the worst parts of board service as much as I can: encouraging them to direct owners to me for questions/complaints, reminding them that they can forward any of those request to me. I do all the prep work for any project so they only need to make decisions. Anything good that happens in the community - they get the credit and the glory. Anything bad - I’m the messenger. I try to minimize the amount of emails I send them, and only call if it’s an emergency. And I thank them constantly.

If a board has a competent manager, service should not be a burden.

CORRECTION... It should be a people business.

NOW, I can see why you can't get a PM to do things your way. You're running a dictatorship.

As for me I was on a Ca. board for 8 years, first 4 as Treasurer and last 4 as President. I moved to Texas and was Elected and then took the President position just starting my 4th year. I am probably going to call it quits after this year and hopefully other qualified candidates will step up to help drive the Bus. I have no plans to move so if I do not feel like our community will be as good once I retire then I may stay.

I think when I first found this site about 10 years ago it was much more informative and had less Non board members on the site. I think once they started getting Google hits when people asked questions that the site has had some not so good growing pains. It seems like we see more people that are trying to fight violations or just things they dislike about the HOAs they have bought into. Once they hear the truth many get mad or disappear and that can be frustrating for people who truly want to give solid advice from our years of service in what is a Thankless Job.

Melissa, when you were board president, did YOU make the decision of where and when the meetings would be held? Or was that someone else that made the decision? I get that you made the decision based on what others wanted, but I am assuming that the decision indeed was yours to make.

We had a clubhouse. Meeting date/times were set in our Articles of Incorporation. So had not much of a choice of when/where to have meetings. They were always the 2nd Thursday of every month at 7 pm.

Still if we didn't have a clubhouse or set date/time documented, it would still be what the majority of owners wanted. My job would be to find the place/time/date that worked or ask someone to volunteer for the job.

What I said earlier referenced decisions that need to be made, by someone. You can rip me a new one if you like, but the decisions still need to be made, by someone. As President, I am that someone.

Board member 14 years including president and mainly secretary. Building Committee initiator and chair for many years. Chair, Board's executive committee on construction defect action against our developer some years ago.

This forum is for boards and other volunteers. We often get questions from board members. And we do get gripes from non HOA leaders, but our responses often relate to our duties as leaders. And these responses can help others.

Henry refuses to tell us what state he's in --as if we'll somehow figure out his HOA's name & location. His state's statutes may tell his Board whether they should permit an open forum.

Some Bylaws, including ours, say that members and board meetings need to be near the premises. He refuses to hold them in his home. He doesn't want his wife to attend. Look, I don't think I'm the only poster who's had good experiences with open meeting and open forums. For he latter, simply have written guidelines that are given to attendees. We, for instance, ask that maintenance issues go to the management offices.

The president is NOT the decider on HOA boards. The Board decides. The Board governs with its votes at meetings. The prez can offer choices of meeting sites and meeting procedures, but the Board decides.

It's easy to see on this Forum that some boards let their president dominate and dictate. These boards are doing their communities an injustice and are not fulfilling their fiduciary obligations: to make decisions about their community. And these decision do NOT have to always have to be what "owners want." Owners, after all, usually have no grasp of an HOA's budget or reserves.

Our Board on Tuesday turned down an ad hoc committee's proposal to make leak detection devices mandatory in every condo in our high rise. Their research was very anecdotal, their presentations, hyperbolic using scare tactics, and they could not explain why the vast majority of high rises in my urban setting do not have such a mandatory system. Their "marketing" did sway a fair number of owners to want this mandatory retirement. BUT,t he Board has no hard evidence that it's worth the expense and glitches that seem to dog such programs. Our Board interviewed 6 engineering firms recently, and none of their principals are very keep on leak detection devices.

Max's accounts even seem worse that many we hear about here. Many Board are unable to even run their own Board meetings. In the past he's made members of his accounts' Boards sound like idiotic know-nothings. But I do not think we should extrapolate from his experience with HOAs that he manages. They do not sound like they're representative of HOA Boards as a whole.

HenryS7, I understand your HOA, like many nationwide, has trouble recruiting directors. Practically speaking, you as your HOA's President can get away with violating Arizona statutes.

For those in Arizona trying to comply with Arizona statutes, the statutes require that Boards permit HOA owner participation as follows:

33-1804. Open meetings; exceptions
A. Notwithstanding any provision in the declaration, bylaws or other documents to the contrary, all
meetings of the members' association and the board of directors, and any regularly scheduled committee
meetings, are open to all members of the association or any person designated by a member in writing as
the member's representative and all members or designated representatives so desiring shall be
permitted to attend and speak at an appropriate time during the deliberations and proceedings. The board
may place reasonable time restrictions on those persons speaking during the meeting but shall permit a
member or member's designated representative to speak once after the board has discussed a specific
agenda item but before the board takes formal action on that item in addition to any other opportunities to speak. The board shall provide for a reasonable number of persons to speak on each side of an issue. [snippage; look up 33-1804 for the rest]

He lives in the State of Washington

The HOA depicted in this YouTube video also has board meetings, meeting minutes, violation polices, rules and regulations, CCRs and Bylaws, volunteers and varying degrees of state statues also.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8YveThMHEM

Oh my goodness! Please tell us, how can we repent and once again be worthy of uttering your blessed name?