Officer Abandons their position

Hello,

I am the President of an HOA. The Treasurer abandoned their responsivities and is non-responsive to emails, phone calls, text messages, Instant Messages, etc.
What can I do to have them removed? I had to remove them from the HOA bank Account.

Joseph

As Kelly noted, the rest of the board can replace the treasurer if you documents allow it - usually board members pick officers from among themselves, but for him/her to leave the board itself, homeowners have to vote out the board member, do a recall or the nember resigns. Or is automatically out after missing X number of consecutive meetings (in my community, it's 3).

All of that said, are you sure something else hasn't happened like a major medical situation involving the family? Has anyone stopped by the house to see if there's a problem? It might be nice to try that before jumping to conclusions. If this has gone on for a few months, it's probably OK to drop the member at the appropriate time.

I second Tim's caution. Has this person abandoned their obligations as an officer (ie. the obligations of a treasurer) but is otherwise in contact with the rest of the board and in participating in discussions and voting? Or have they essentially disappeared and are not responding to anything?

Some bylaws specify that a director who has missed three consecutive board meetings without notice is deemed to have resigned, so check your bylaws for similar provisions. When this happens, the board can appoint a replacement director. Then it's up to the board to re-allocate the officer duties.

TimB4, This person is not responding to any of the other officers, such as the Secretary, VP, design committee, and of course myself. They completely checked out. They still own the property within the sub-division which therefore are a member of the HOA and have to pay their HOA Yearly Dues. I removed them from access to the HOA Bank Account and took over their responsivities such as preparing invoices for the yearly HOA Dues.
I was nominated and voted as the new HOA President and try to learn the legal requirements. We don't have any Bylaws and I would need to research what they are and how I can adopt them into the HOA Covenants.

Also, we don't have a Board, only Officers. The Developer of the Sub-Division did not establish a Board when he created the Covenants. I'm not sure what the Board's responsibilities are.

Is your association a corporation? If so, you do have Bylaws somewhere. Until you can find them, you should rely on your state's corporation codes. If you are a corporation, probably a non-profit corporation, those corporation codes probably say you must have a board of doctors, or similar.

If you're a corporation, one of your governing documents is Articles of Incorporation. Some, like my HOA, have very little info in them. Others have many important topics in them

If the covenants do not say anything about a board of directors, or similar language, what do they say about how decisions are made concerning the association's common areas? Do your covenants state that owners elect officers, and then names the officers?

What size is your HOA? How old?

Without looking at your documents (and posting rules prevent mentioning of names), I can only say that:

Directors make decisions for the Association by majority vote (awarding of contracts, set assessment amounts, etc.)

Officers implement those decisions and handle the day to day tasks of running the Association (collecting assessemnts, paying bills, maintaining the records, overseeing the contracts, etc.).

If you care to share your governing docs, I can be reached at [email protected]

KerryL1, The Covenants was established in 2004. It's pretty old. As mentioned by ElleN I'll check with the Secretary of NM. It is a non-profit business entity.
Thank you for your help everyone!!

So, Joseph, can you tell the names of the document that you DO have? Please remember the word is "corporation," and you state's Corpration Code can tell you a lot if you can find no bylaws. ElleN's right. 2004 isn't consider that old.

What DO your covenants say about who governs or makes decisions about the common areas in your HOA? Owners ("members") have some voice, but who or what group has the authority to make other decision?