Calling the HOA attorney without permission from the board

Is the HOA President allowed to call the association attorney and incur charges without permission from the rest of the board?
The information obtained in the phone meeting was never shared with the rest of the board.

Are you on the Board? What does your contract say concerning who may phone the attorney? Many state that only one board member may contact the attorney without board approval. Usually that person is the president as selected by the Board. That's how our retainer agreement with our attorney is written. Phone calls are included with our annual retainer so the president usually could proceed on his own.

But, if your assn. doesn't have such a retainer, I'd say the president should get board approval to make the call. As we know, the attorney may not be able to give a quick simpl answer and may need to write an opinion, which could really add up. Isn any case, the president must inform the Board in a report about the call and what the result was. The prez only is the point of contact for the Board--s/he is not "The board."

If it were me and the attorney's remarks as summarized by the president are unclear, the board should ask for the attorney's point of view in writing. I noticed over my years on our Board that the president sometimes asked the "wrong" question, i.e., didn't understand the topic.

One of our presidents was so g ignorant of HOAs in general and meeting protocol in particular that she phoned our attorney to ask: "Once the board approves meeting minutes, can the Board vote to amend them?" No expert on Robert's Rules, our attorney replied "No." As board sec'y, I had to find the truth in Robert' and cite it all for the Board. We did amend previously approved minutes.

In a board meeting, btw, the Board may certainly vote on a policy about under what circumstances the prez may phone the attorney without board approval. Emergencies, after all, can occur.

I would send her a letter, explaining that she did not have board authority to incur legal fees and that the Board expects to be reimbursed and is adding the charge to their account.

depends on your lawyer agreement. or letter of intent. our state all fees will be done in writing. If yours says the same I'd call the lawywer and state this was not in writing and ask them to remove the fee.

What Tim said - don't let this go. I also agree with Ellen that there should be a formal policy regarding contact with the association attorney. We authorized the president or treasurer (when I was on the board) to make the contact, and the board would have to approve the contact during a board meeting. Our letter of intent also had a certain number of hours we could use to email or call the attorney with questions at no additional costs, but the board required prior approval of that to keep track of how much time we had left.

So it could be the president called to find out if the Board could dump her from the office of president. AND, possibly, if the Board could kick her off of the Board. The answers to both those questions are in your Bylaws-- probably yes to the first and no to the second.

Since the attorney works for your assn. as represented BY the the Board, which has access to the attorney. Ask her/him what the bill is for? What was the content of the conversation? The prez had no privilege that meant her conversation could be withheld the Board.

To me it depends on the questions the former president asked. If she asked questions that are obvious in your governing documents, the Board should vote to send her the bill. If about different matters that might be good for the board to know & which might benefit your community, with EllenN, let it go.

You're still on the Board Yvonne? I still suggest per my way above and along with ElleN & Shelia that the Board set a clear policy.

Our attorney will only deal with the PM and president of the board. If anyone else contacts him, he calls me (president) for permission to speak to them. He's trying to keep our costs down.

Every time I speak to the attorney I let the rest of the board know. However, one of our previous board presidents would not make any moves without the attorney. He even sent his resignation letter to the attorney and we had to pay for the attorney to review and comment. Ridiculous as he was resigning for health reasons!

I don't think there's much you can do about this. This person was the president and was most likely authorized to speak to the attorney. I would write this off as a "good riddance" investment.

I think John's situation is typical. It's usually the vendor who wants contact from only one director and that's in the contract. Our MC contract, for instance, states the poc is only the president unless the board stipulates otherwise via a board decision. What a nightmare if all 7 directors could visit the onsite GM whenever they wished. Our contract with our HOA attorney says pretty much the same.

Similarly, only committee chairs may contact the PM.

Given that your association is a condominium, and 47F does not apply to condominiums, I hope your BOD does not pay the association attorney to parse 47F.

FWIW, our attorneys provides unlimited free 15-minute phone calls for general questions as part of their service, and they will talk to any board member and our community manager during these calls. Things like figuring out what our governing docs actually say about a topic would be included in this - although you'd hope that something like the above example would be clear.

Their goal was to keep their clients out of court, which is the best way to keep costs down.

It's possible that other law firms provide similar services to their HOA/condo clients.

The attorney we use for our clients requires we identify a single person as the point of contact for an Association. If he receives a call or email from anyone else, he refers that person to the MC (us).

He also insists one of us participate in a discussion or meeting with a Board member, unless the issue is something which involves us--which it has not thus far.

Too many board members think they slept in a Holdiay Inn Express the evening before and have somehow become legal experts as they fell asleep watching Law and Order. The participation of one of us allows us to focus the director participant on the subject at hand and avoids straying off topic while the meter is running.

Is your company a client of this attorney? Are all the HOAs with whom your company contracts also clients of this same attorney?

ElleN

Our company is not a client of the attorney who represents our clients. He has a dedicated HOA/condominium association practice. We have our own attorney; our representation needs are different.

Of our clients who require the services of an attorney (the vast majority do not as one has not been needed), the same attorney represents all.

This same attorney also represents the HOA in which we reside. We have lived here 12 years; he has represented the association for longer. As soon as we learned of the relationship between him and our HOA after moving in, we contacted him to ensure there were no issues. We update him (and the Board) annually as we have both subsequently held elected association directorships.